Utopia

S ir Thomas More, son of Sir John More, a justice of the King’s Bench, was

2 born in 1478, in Milk Street, in the city of London. After his earlier

3 education at St. Anthony’s School, in Threadneedle Street, he was placed,

4 as a boy, in the household of Cardinal John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury

5 and Lord Chancellor. It was not unusual for persons of wealth or influence and

6 sons of good families to be so established together in a relation of patron and

7 client. The youth wore his patron’s livery, and added to his state. The

8 patron used, afterwards, his wealth or influence in helping his young client

9 forward in the world. Cardinal Morton had been in earlier days that Bishop of

10 Ely whom Richard III. sent to the Tower; was busy afterwards in hostility to

11 Richard; and was a chief adviser of Henry VII., who in 1486 made him Archbishop

12 of Canterbury, and nine months afterwards Lord Chancellor. Cardinal

13 Morton—of talk at whose table there are recollections in

14 “Utopia”—delighted in the quick wit of young Thomas More. He

15 once said, “Whoever shall live to try it, shall see this child here

16 waiting at table prove a notable and rare man.”

17 At the age of about nineteen, Thomas More was sent to Canterbury College,

18 Oxford, by his patron, where he learnt Greek of the first men who brought Greek

19 studies from Italy to England—William Grocyn and Thomas Linacre. Linacre,

20 a physician, who afterwards took orders, was also the founder of the College of

21 Physicians. In 1499, More left Oxford to study law in London, at

22 Lincoln’s Inn, and in the next year Archbishop Morton died.

23 More’s earnest character caused him while studying law to aim at the

24 subduing of the flesh, by wearing a hair shirt, taking a log for a pillow, and

25 whipping himself on Fridays. At the age of twenty-one he entered Parliament,

26 and soon after he had been called to the bar he was made Under-Sheriff of

27 London. In 1503 he opposed in the House of Commons Henry VII.’s proposal

28 for a subsidy on account of the marriage portion of his daughter Margaret; and

29 he opposed with so much energy that the House refused to grant it. One went and

30 told the king that a beardless boy had disappointed all his expectations.

31 During the last years, therefore, of Henry VII. More was under the displeasure

32 of the king, and had thoughts of leaving the country.

33 Henry VII. died in April, 1509, when More’s age was a little over thirty.

34 In the first years of the reign of Henry VIII. he rose to large practice in the

35 law courts, where it is said he refused to plead in cases which he thought

36 unjust, and took no fees from widows, orphans, or the poor. He would have

37 preferred marrying the second daughter of John Colt, of New Hall, in Essex, but

38 chose her elder sister, that he might not subject her to the discredit of being

39 passed over.

40 In 1513 Thomas More, still Under-Sheriff of London, is said to have written his

41 “History of the Life and Death of King Edward V., and of the Usurpation

42 of Richard III.” The book, which seems to contain the knowledge and

43 opinions of More’s patron, Morton, was not printed until 1557, when its

44 writer had been twenty-two years dead. It was then printed from a MS. in

45 More’s handwriting.

46 In the year 1515 Wolsey, Archbishop of York, was made Cardinal by Leo X.; Henry

47 VIII. made him Lord Chancellor, and from that year until 1523 the King and the

48 Cardinal ruled England with absolute authority, and called no parliament. In

49 May of the year 1515 Thomas More—not knighted yet—was joined in a

50 commission to the Low Countries with Cuthbert Tunstal and others to confer with

51 the ambassadors of Charles V., then only Archduke of Austria, upon a renewal of

52 alliance. On that embassy More, aged about thirty-seven, was absent from

53 England for six months, and while at Antwerp he established friendship with

54 Peter Giles (Latinised Ægidius), a scholarly and courteous young man, who

55 was secretary to the municipality of Antwerp.

56 Cuthbert Tunstal was a rising churchman, chancellor to the Archbishop of

57 Canterbury, who in that year (1515) was made Archdeacon of Chester, and in May

58 of the next year (1516) Master of the Rolls. In 1516 he was sent again to the

59 Low Countries, and More then went with him to Brussels, where they were in

60 close companionship with Erasmus.

61 More’s “Utopia” was written in Latin, and is in two parts, of

62 which the second, describing the place ([Greek text]—or Nusquama, as he

63 called it sometimes in his letters—“Nowhere”), was probably

64 written towards the close of 1515; the first part, introductory, early in 1516.

65 The book was first printed at Louvain, late in 1516, under the editorship of

66 Erasmus, Peter Giles, and other of More’s friends in Flanders. It was

67 then revised by More, and printed by Frobenius at Basle in November, 1518. It

68 was reprinted at Paris and Vienna, but was not printed in England during

69 More’s lifetime. Its first publication in this country was in the English

70 translation, made in Edward’s VI.’s reign (1551) by Ralph Robinson.

71 It was translated with more literary skill by Gilbert Burnet, in 1684, soon

72 after he had conducted the defence of his friend Lord William Russell, attended

73 his execution, vindicated his memory, and been spitefully deprived by James II.

74 of his lectureship at St. Clement’s. Burnet was drawn to the translation

75 of “Utopia” by the same sense of unreason in high places that

76 caused More to write the book. Burnet’s is the translation given in this

77 volume.

78 The name of the book has given an adjective to our language—we call an

79 impracticable scheme Utopian. Yet, under the veil of a playful fiction, the

80 talk is intensely earnest, and abounds in practical suggestion. It is the work

81 of a scholarly and witty Englishman, who attacks in his own way the chief

82 political and social evils of his time. Beginning with fact, More tells how he

83 was sent into Flanders with Cuthbert Tunstal, “whom the king’s

84 majesty of late, to the great rejoicing of all men, did prefer to the office of

85 Master of the Rolls;” how the commissioners of Charles met them at

86 Bruges, and presently returned to Brussels for instructions; and how More then

87 went to Antwerp, where he found a pleasure in the society of Peter Giles which

88 soothed his desire to see again his wife and children, from whom he had been

89 four months away. Then fact slides into fiction with the finding of Raphael

90 Hythloday (whose name, made of two Greek words [Greek text] and [Greek text],

91 means “knowing in trifles”), a man who had been with Amerigo

92 Vespucci in the three last of the voyages to the new world lately discovered,

93 of which the account had been first printed in 1507, only nine years before

94 Utopia was written.

95 Designedly fantastic in suggestion of details, “Utopia” is the work

96 of a scholar who had read Plato’s “Republic,” and had his

97 fancy quickened after reading Plutarch’s account of Spartan life under

98 Lycurgus. Beneath the veil of an ideal communism, into which there has been

99 worked some witty extravagance, there lies a noble English argument. Sometimes

100 More puts the case as of France when he means England. Sometimes there is

101 ironical praise of the good faith of Christian kings, saving the book from

102 censure as a political attack on the policy of Henry VIII. Erasmus wrote to a

103 friend in 1517 that he should send for More’s “Utopia,” if he

104 had not read it, and “wished to see the true source of all political

105 evils.” And to More Erasmus wrote of his book, “A burgomaster of

106 Antwerp is so pleased with it that he knows it all by heart.”

107 H. M.

DISCOURSES OF RAPHAEL HYTHLODAY, OF THE BEST STATE OF A COMMONWEALTH

4 Henry VIII., the unconquered King of England, a prince adorned with all the

5 virtues that become a great monarch, having some differences of no small

6 consequence with Charles the most serene Prince of Castile, sent me into

7 Flanders, as his ambassador, for treating and composing matters between them. I

8 was colleague and companion to that incomparable man Cuthbert Tonstal, whom the

9 King, with such universal applause, lately made Master of the Rolls; but of

10 whom I will say nothing; not because I fear that the testimony of a friend will

11 be suspected, but rather because his learning and virtues are too great for me

12 to do them justice, and so well known, that they need not my commendations,

13 unless I would, according to the proverb, “Show the sun with a

14 lantern.” Those that were appointed by the Prince to treat with us, met

15 us at Bruges, according to agreement; they were all worthy men. The Margrave of

16 Bruges was their head, and the chief man among them; but he that was esteemed

17 the wisest, and that spoke for the rest, was George Temse, the Provost of

18 Casselsee: both art and nature had concurred to make him eloquent: he was very

19 learned in the law; and, as he had a great capacity, so, by a long practice in

20 affairs, he was very dexterous at unravelling them. After we had several times

21 met, without coming to an agreement, they went to Brussels for some days, to

22 know the Prince’s pleasure; and, since our business would admit it, I

23 went to Antwerp. While I was there, among many that visited me, there was one

24 that was more acceptable to me than any other, Peter Giles, born at Antwerp,

25 who is a man of great honour, and of a good rank in his town, though less than

26 he deserves; for I do not know if there be anywhere to be found a more learned

27 and a better bred young man; for as he is both a very worthy and a very knowing

28 person, so he is so civil to all men, so particularly kind to his friends, and

29 so full of candour and affection, that there is not, perhaps, above one or two

30 anywhere to be found, that is in all respects so perfect a friend: he is

31 extraordinarily modest, there is no artifice in him, and yet no man has more of

32 a prudent simplicity. His conversation was so pleasant and so innocently

33 cheerful, that his company in a great measure lessened any longings to go back

34 to my country, and to my wife and children, which an absence of four months had

35 quickened very much. One day, as I was returning home from mass at St.

36 Mary’s, which is the chief church, and the most frequented of any in

37 Antwerp, I saw him, by accident, talking with a stranger, who seemed past the

38 flower of his age; his face was tanned, he had a long beard, and his cloak was

39 hanging carelessly about him, so that, by his looks and habit, I concluded he

40 was a seaman. As soon as Peter saw me, he came and saluted me, and as I was

41 returning his civility, he took me aside, and pointing to him with whom he had

42 been discoursing, he said, “Do you see that man? I was just thinking to

43 bring him to you.” I answered, “He should have been very welcome on

44 your account.” “And on his own too,” replied he, “if

45 you knew the man, for there is none alive that can give so copious an account

46 of unknown nations and countries as he can do, which I know you very much

47 desire.” “Then,” said I, “I did not guess amiss, for at

48 first sight I took him for a seaman.” “But you are much

49 mistaken,” said he, “for he has not sailed as a seaman, but as a

50 traveller, or rather a philosopher. This Raphael, who from his family carries

51 the name of Hythloday, is not ignorant of the Latin tongue, but is eminently

52 learned in the Greek, having applied himself more particularly to that than to

53 the former, because he had given himself much to philosophy, in which he knew

54 that the Romans have left us nothing that is valuable, except what is to be

55 found in Seneca and Cicero. He is a Portuguese by birth, and was so desirous of

56 seeing the world, that he divided his estate among his brothers, ran the same

57 hazard as Americus Vesputius, and bore a share in three of his four voyages

58 that are now published; only he did not return with him in his last, but

59 obtained leave of him, almost by force, that he might be one of those

60 twenty-four who were left at the farthest place at which they touched in their

61 last voyage to New Castile. The leaving him thus did not a little gratify one

62 that was more fond of travelling than of returning home to be buried in his own

63 country; for he used often to say, that the way to heaven was the same from all

64 places, and he that had no grave had the heavens still over him. Yet this

65 disposition of mind had cost him dear, if God had not been very gracious to

66 him; for after he, with five Castalians, had travelled over many countries, at

67 last, by strange good fortune, he got to Ceylon, and from thence to Calicut,

68 where he, very happily, found some Portuguese ships; and, beyond all

69 men’s expectations, returned to his native country.” When Peter had

70 said this to me, I thanked him for his kindness in intending to give me the

71 acquaintance of a man whose conversation he knew would be so acceptable; and

72 upon that Raphael and I embraced each other. After those civilities were past

73 which are usual with strangers upon their first meeting, we all went to my

74 house, and entering into the garden, sat down on a green bank and entertained

75 one another in discourse. He told us that when Vesputius had sailed away, he,

76 and his companions that stayed behind in New Castile, by degrees insinuated

77 themselves into the affections of the people of the country, meeting often with

78 them and treating them gently; and at last they not only lived among them

79 without danger, but conversed familiarly with them, and got so far into the

80 heart of a prince, whose name and country I have forgot, that he both furnished

81 them plentifully with all things necessary, and also with the conveniences of

82 travelling, both boats when they went by water, and waggons when they travelled

83 over land: he sent with them a very faithful guide, who was to introduce and

84 recommend them to such other princes as they had a mind to see: and after many

85 days’ journey, they came to towns, and cities, and to commonwealths, that

86 were both happily governed and well peopled. Under the equator, and as far on

87 both sides of it as the sun moves, there lay vast deserts that were parched

88 with the perpetual heat of the sun; the soil was withered, all things looked

89 dismally, and all places were either quite uninhabited, or abounded with wild

90 beasts and serpents, and some few men, that were neither less wild nor less

91 cruel than the beasts themselves. But, as they went farther, a new scene

92 opened, all things grew milder, the air less burning, the soil more verdant,

93 and even the beasts were less wild: and, at last, there were nations, towns,

94 and cities, that had not only mutual commerce among themselves and with their

95 neighbours, but traded, both by sea and land, to very remote countries. There

96 they found the conveniencies of seeing many countries on all hands, for no ship

97 went any voyage into which he and his companions were not very welcome. The

98 first vessels that they saw were flat-bottomed, their sails were made of reeds

99 and wicker, woven close together, only some were of leather; but, afterwards,

100 they found ships made with round keels and canvas sails, and in all respects

101 like our ships, and the seamen understood both astronomy and navigation. He got

102 wonderfully into their favour by showing them the use of the needle, of which

103 till then they were utterly ignorant. They sailed before with great caution,

104 and only in summer time; but now they count all seasons alike, trusting wholly

105 to the loadstone, in which they are, perhaps, more secure than safe; so that

106 there is reason to fear that this discovery, which was thought would prove so

107 much to their advantage, may, by their imprudence, become an occasion of much

108 mischief to them. But it were too long to dwell on all that he told us he had

109 observed in every place, it would be too great a digression from our present

110 purpose: whatever is necessary to be told concerning those wise and prudent

111 institutions which he observed among civilised nations, may perhaps be related

112 by us on a more proper occasion. We asked him many questions concerning all

113 these things, to which he answered very willingly; we made no inquiries after

114 monsters, than which nothing is more common; for everywhere one may hear of

115 ravenous dogs and wolves, and cruel men-eaters, but it is not so easy to find

116 states that are well and wisely governed.

117 As he told us of many things that were amiss in those new-discovered countries,

118 so he reckoned up not a few things, from which patterns might be taken for

119 correcting the errors of these nations among whom we live; of which an account

120 may be given, as I have already promised, at some other time; for, at present,

121 I intend only to relate those particulars that he told us, of the manners and

122 laws of the Utopians: but I will begin with the occasion that led us to speak

123 of that commonwealth. After Raphael had discoursed with great judgment on the

124 many errors that were both among us and these nations, had treated of the wise

125 institutions both here and there, and had spoken as distinctly of the customs

126 and government of every nation through which he had past, as if he had spent

127 his whole life in it, Peter, being struck with admiration, said, “I

128 wonder, Raphael, how it comes that you enter into no king’s service, for

129 I am sure there are none to whom you would not be very acceptable; for your

130 learning and knowledge, both of men and things, is such, that you would not

131 only entertain them very pleasantly, but be of great use to them, by the

132 examples you could set before them, and the advices you could give them; and by

133 this means you would both serve your own interest, and be of great use to all

134 your friends.” “As for my friends,” answered he, “I

135 need not be much concerned, having already done for them all that was incumbent

136 on me; for when I was not only in good health, but fresh and young, I

137 distributed that among my kindred and friends which other people do not part

138 with till they are old and sick: when they then unwillingly give that which

139 they can enjoy no longer themselves. I think my friends ought to rest contented

140 with this, and not to expect that for their sakes I should enslave myself to

141 any king whatsoever.” “Soft and fair!” said Peter; “I

142 do not mean that you should be a slave to any king, but only that you should

143 assist them and be useful to them.” “The change of the word,”

144 said he, “does not alter the matter.” “But term it as you

145 will,” replied Peter, “I do not see any other way in which you can

146 be so useful, both in private to your friends and to the public, and by which

147 you can make your own condition happier.” “Happier?” answered

148 Raphael, “is that to be compassed in a way so abhorrent to my genius? Now

149 I live as I will, to which I believe, few courtiers can pretend; and there are

150 so many that court the favour of great men, that there will be no great loss if

151 they are not troubled either with me or with others of my temper.” Upon

152 this, said I, “I perceive, Raphael, that you neither desire wealth nor

153 greatness; and, indeed, I value and admire such a man much more than I do any

154 of the great men in the world. Yet I think you would do what would well become

155 so generous and philosophical a soul as yours is, if you would apply your time

156 and thoughts to public affairs, even though you may happen to find it a little

157 uneasy to yourself; and this you can never do with so much advantage as by

158 being taken into the council of some great prince and putting him on noble and

159 worthy actions, which I know you would do if you were in such a post; for the

160 springs both of good and evil flow from the prince over a whole nation, as from

161 a lasting fountain. So much learning as you have, even without practice in

162 affairs, or so great a practice as you have had, without any other learning,

163 would render you a very fit counsellor to any king whatsoever.”

164 “You are doubly mistaken,” said he, “Mr. More, both in your

165 opinion of me and in the judgment you make of things: for as I have not that

166 capacity that you fancy I have, so if I had it, the public would not be one jot

167 the better when I had sacrificed my quiet to it. For most princes apply

168 themselves more to affairs of war than to the useful arts of peace; and in

169 these I neither have any knowledge, nor do I much desire it; they are generally

170 more set on acquiring new kingdoms, right or wrong, than on governing well

171 those they possess: and, among the ministers of princes, there are none that

172 are not so wise as to need no assistance, or at least, that do not think

173 themselves so wise that they imagine they need none; and if they court any, it

174 is only those for whom the prince has much personal favour, whom by their

175 fawning and flatteries they endeavour to fix to their own interests; and,

176 indeed, nature has so made us, that we all love to be flattered and to please

177 ourselves with our own notions: the old crow loves his young, and the ape her

178 cubs. Now if in such a court, made up of persons who envy all others and only

179 admire themselves, a person should but propose anything that he had either read

180 in history or observed in his travels, the rest would think that the reputation

181 of their wisdom would sink, and that their interests would be much depressed if

182 they could not run it down: and, if all other things failed, then they would

183 fly to this, that such or such things pleased our ancestors, and it were well

184 for us if we could but match them. They would set up their rest on such an

185 answer, as a sufficient confutation of all that could be said, as if it were a

186 great misfortune that any should be found wiser than his ancestors. But though

187 they willingly let go all the good things that were among those of former ages,

188 yet, if better things are proposed, they cover themselves obstinately with this

189 excuse of reverence to past times. I have met with these proud, morose, and

190 absurd judgments of things in many places, particularly once in England.”

191 “Were you ever there?” said I. “Yes, I was,” answered

192 he, “and stayed some months there, not long after the rebellion in the

193 West was suppressed, with a great slaughter of the poor people that were

194 engaged in it.

195 “I was then much obliged to that reverend prelate, John Morton,

196 Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal, and Chancellor of England; a man,”

197 said he, “Peter (for Mr. More knows well what he was), that was not less

198 venerable for his wisdom and virtues than for the high character he bore: he

199 was of a middle stature, not broken with age; his looks begot reverence rather

200 than fear; his conversation was easy, but serious and grave; he sometimes took

201 pleasure to try the force of those that came as suitors to him upon business by

202 speaking sharply, though decently, to them, and by that he discovered their

203 spirit and presence of mind; with which he was much delighted when it did not

204 grow up to impudence, as bearing a great resemblance to his own temper, and he

205 looked on such persons as the fittest men for affairs. He spoke both gracefully

206 and weightily; he was eminently skilled in the law, had a vast understanding,

207 and a prodigious memory; and those excellent talents with which nature had

208 furnished him were improved by study and experience. When I was in England the

209 King depended much on his counsels, and the Government seemed to be chiefly

210 supported by him; for from his youth he had been all along practised in

211 affairs; and, having passed through many traverses of fortune, he had, with

212 great cost, acquired a vast stock of wisdom, which is not soon lost when it is

213 purchased so dear. One day, when I was dining with him, there happened to be at

214 table one of the English lawyers, who took occasion to run out in a high

215 commendation of the severe execution of justice upon thieves,

216 ‘who,’ as he said, ‘were then hanged so fast that there were

217 sometimes twenty on one gibbet!’ and, upon that, he said, ‘he could

218 not wonder enough how it came to pass that, since so few escaped, there were

219 yet so many thieves left, who were still robbing in all places.’ Upon

220 this, I (who took the boldness to speak freely before the Cardinal) said,

221 ‘There was no reason to wonder at the matter, since this way of punishing

222 thieves was neither just in itself nor good for the public; for, as the

223 severity was too great, so the remedy was not effectual; simple theft not being

224 so great a crime that it ought to cost a man his life; no punishment, how

225 severe soever, being able to restrain those from robbing who can find out no

226 other way of livelihood. In this,’ said I, ‘not only you in

227 England, but a great part of the world, imitate some ill masters, that are

228 readier to chastise their scholars than to teach them. There are dreadful

229 punishments enacted against thieves, but it were much better to make such good

230 provisions by which every man might be put in a method how to live, and so be

231 preserved from the fatal necessity of stealing and of dying for it.’

232 ‘There has been care enough taken for that,’ said he; ‘there

233 are many handicrafts, and there is husbandry, by which they may make a shift to

234 live, unless they have a greater mind to follow ill courses.’ ‘That

235 will not serve your turn,’ said I, ‘for many lose their limbs in

236 civil or foreign wars, as lately in the Cornish rebellion, and some time ago in

237 your wars with France, who, being thus mutilated in the service of their king

238 and country, can no more follow their old trades, and are too old to learn new

239 ones; but since wars are only accidental things, and have intervals, let us

240 consider those things that fall out every day. There is a great number of

241 noblemen among you that are themselves as idle as drones, that subsist on other

242 men’s labour, on the labour of their tenants, whom, to raise their

243 revenues, they pare to the quick. This, indeed, is the only instance of their

244 frugality, for in all other things they are prodigal, even to the beggaring of

245 themselves; but, besides this, they carry about with them a great number of

246 idle fellows, who never learned any art by which they may gain their living;

247 and these, as soon as either their lord dies, or they themselves fall sick, are

248 turned out of doors; for your lords are readier to feed idle people than to

249 take care of the sick; and often the heir is not able to keep together so great

250 a family as his predecessor did. Now, when the stomachs of those that are thus

251 turned out of doors grow keen, they rob no less keenly; and what else can they

252 do? For when, by wandering about, they have worn out both their health and

253 their clothes, and are tattered, and look ghastly, men of quality will not

254 entertain them, and poor men dare not do it, knowing that one who has been bred

255 up in idleness and pleasure, and who was used to walk about with his sword and

256 buckler, despising all the neighbourhood with an insolent scorn as far below

257 him, is not fit for the spade and mattock; nor will he serve a poor man for so

258 small a hire and in so low a diet as he can afford to give him.’ To this

259 he answered, ‘This sort of men ought to be particularly cherished, for in

260 them consists the force of the armies for which we have occasion; since their

261 birth inspires them with a nobler sense of honour than is to be found among

262 tradesmen or ploughmen.’ ‘You may as well say,’ replied I,

263 ‘that you must cherish thieves on the account of wars, for you will never

264 want the one as long as you have the other; and as robbers prove sometimes

265 gallant soldiers, so soldiers often prove brave robbers, so near an alliance

266 there is between those two sorts of life. But this bad custom, so common among

267 you, of keeping many servants, is not peculiar to this nation. In France there

268 is yet a more pestiferous sort of people, for the whole country is full of

269 soldiers, still kept up in time of peace (if such a state of a nation can be

270 called a peace); and these are kept in pay upon the same account that you plead

271 for those idle retainers about noblemen: this being a maxim of those pretended

272 statesmen, that it is necessary for the public safety to have a good body of

273 veteran soldiers ever in readiness. They think raw men are not to be depended

274 on, and they sometimes seek occasions for making war, that they may train up

275 their soldiers in the art of cutting throats, or, as Sallust observed,

276 “for keeping their hands in use, that they may not grow dull by too long

277 an intermission.” But France has learned to its cost how dangerous it is

278 to feed such beasts. The fate of the Romans, Carthaginians, and Syrians, and

279 many other nations and cities, which were both overturned and quite ruined by

280 those standing armies, should make others wiser; and the folly of this maxim of

281 the French appears plainly even from this, that their trained soldiers often

282 find your raw men prove too hard for them, of which I will not say much, lest

283 you may think I flatter the English. Every day’s experience shows that

284 the mechanics in the towns or the clowns in the country are not afraid of

285 fighting with those idle gentlemen, if they are not disabled by some misfortune

286 in their body or dispirited by extreme want; so that you need not fear that

287 those well-shaped and strong men (for it is only such that noblemen love to

288 keep about them till they spoil them), who now grow feeble with ease and are

289 softened with their effeminate manner of life, would be less fit for action if

290 they were well bred and well employed. And it seems very unreasonable that, for

291 the prospect of a war, which you need never have but when you please, you

292 should maintain so many idle men, as will always disturb you in time of peace,

293 which is ever to be more considered than war. But I do not think that this

294 necessity of stealing arises only from hence; there is another cause of it,

295 more peculiar to England.’ ‘What is that?’ said the Cardinal:

296 ‘The increase of pasture,’ said I, ‘by which your sheep,

297 which are naturally mild, and easily kept in order, may be said now to devour

298 men and unpeople, not only villages, but towns; for wherever it is found that

299 the sheep of any soil yield a softer and richer wool than ordinary, there the

300 nobility and gentry, and even those holy men, the abbots! not contented with

301 the old rents which their farms yielded, nor thinking it enough that they,

302 living at their ease, do no good to the public, resolve to do it hurt instead

303 of good. They stop the course of agriculture, destroying houses and towns,

304 reserving only the churches, and enclose grounds that they may lodge their

305 sheep in them. As if forests and parks had swallowed up too little of the land,

306 those worthy countrymen turn the best inhabited places into solitudes; for when

307 an insatiable wretch, who is a plague to his country, resolves to enclose many

308 thousand acres of ground, the owners, as well as tenants, are turned out of

309 their possessions by trick or by main force, or, being wearied out by ill

310 usage, they are forced to sell them; by which means those miserable people,

311 both men and women, married and unmarried, old and young, with their poor but

312 numerous families (since country business requires many hands), are all forced

313 to change their seats, not knowing whither to go; and they must sell, almost

314 for nothing, their household stuff, which could not bring them much money, even

315 though they might stay for a buyer. When that little money is at an end (for it

316 will be soon spent), what is left for them to do but either to steal, and so to

317 be hanged (God knows how justly!), or to go about and beg? and if they do this

318 they are put in prison as idle vagabonds, while they would willingly work but

319 can find none that will hire them; for there is no more occasion for country

320 labour, to which they have been bred, when there is no arable ground left. One

321 shepherd can look after a flock, which will stock an extent of ground that

322 would require many hands if it were to be ploughed and reaped. This, likewise,

323 in many places raises the price of corn. The price of wool is also so risen

324 that the poor people, who were wont to make cloth, are no more able to buy it;

325 and this, likewise, makes many of them idle: for since the increase of pasture

326 God has punished the avarice of the owners by a rot among the sheep, which has

327 destroyed vast numbers of them—to us it might have seemed more just had

328 it fell on the owners themselves. But, suppose the sheep should increase ever

329 so much, their price is not likely to fall; since, though they cannot be called

330 a monopoly, because they are not engrossed by one person, yet they are in so

331 few hands, and these are so rich, that, as they are not pressed to sell them

332 sooner than they have a mind to it, so they never do it till they have raised

333 the price as high as possible. And on the same account it is that the other

334 kinds of cattle are so dear, because many villages being pulled down, and all

335 country labour being much neglected, there are none who make it their business

336 to breed them. The rich do not breed cattle as they do sheep, but buy them lean

337 and at low prices; and, after they have fattened them on their grounds, sell

338 them again at high rates. And I do not think that all the inconveniences this

339 will produce are yet observed; for, as they sell the cattle dear, so, if they

340 are consumed faster than the breeding countries from which they are brought can

341 afford them, then the stock must decrease, and this must needs end in great

342 scarcity; and by these means, this your island, which seemed as to this

343 particular the happiest in the world, will suffer much by the cursed avarice of

344 a few persons: besides this, the rising of corn makes all people lessen their

345 families as much as they can; and what can those who are dismissed by them do

346 but either beg or rob? And to this last a man of a great mind is much sooner

347 drawn than to the former. Luxury likewise breaks in apace upon you to set

348 forward your poverty and misery; there is an excessive vanity in apparel, and

349 great cost in diet, and that not only in noblemen’s families, but even

350 among tradesmen, among the farmers themselves, and among all ranks of persons.

351 You have also many infamous houses, and, besides those that are known, the

352 taverns and ale-houses are no better; add to these dice, cards, tables,

353 football, tennis, and quoits, in which money runs fast away; and those that are

354 initiated into them must, in the conclusion, betake themselves to robbing for a

355 supply. Banish these plagues, and give orders that those who have dispeopled so

356 much soil may either rebuild the villages they have pulled down or let out

357 their grounds to such as will do it; restrain those engrossings of the rich,

358 that are as bad almost as monopolies; leave fewer occasions to idleness; let

359 agriculture be set up again, and the manufacture of the wool be regulated, that

360 so there may be work found for those companies of idle people whom want forces

361 to be thieves, or who now, being idle vagabonds or useless servants, will

362 certainly grow thieves at last. If you do not find a remedy to these evils it

363 is a vain thing to boast of your severity in punishing theft, which, though it

364 may have the appearance of justice, yet in itself is neither just nor

365 convenient; for if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners

366 to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to

367 which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from

368 this but that you first make thieves and then punish them?’

369 “While I was talking thus, the Counsellor, who was present, had prepared

370 an answer, and had resolved to resume all I had said, according to the

371 formality of a debate, in which things are generally repeated more faithfully

372 than they are answered, as if the chief trial to be made were of men’s

373 memories. ‘You have talked prettily, for a stranger,’ said he,

374 ‘having heard of many things among us which you have not been able to

375 consider well; but I will make the whole matter plain to you, and will first

376 repeat in order all that you have said; then I will show how much your

377 ignorance of our affairs has misled you; and will, in the last place, answer

378 all your arguments. And, that I may begin where I promised, there were four

379 things—’ ‘Hold your peace!’ said the Cardinal;

380 ‘this will take up too much time; therefore we will, at present, ease you

381 of the trouble of answering, and reserve it to our next meeting, which shall be

382 to-morrow, if Raphael’s affairs and yours can admit of it. But,

383 Raphael,’ said he to me, ‘I would gladly know upon what reason it

384 is that you think theft ought not to be punished by death: would you give way

385 to it? or do you propose any other punishment that will be more useful to the

386 public? for, since death does not restrain theft, if men thought their lives

387 would be safe, what fear or force could restrain ill men? On the contrary, they

388 would look on the mitigation of the punishment as an invitation to commit more

389 crimes.’ I answered, ‘It seems to me a very unjust thing to take

390 away a man’s life for a little money, for nothing in the world can be of

391 equal value with a man’s life: and if it be said, “that it is not

392 for the money that one suffers, but for his breaking the law,” I must

393 say, extreme justice is an extreme injury: for we ought not to approve of those

394 terrible laws that make the smallest offences capital, nor of that opinion of

395 the Stoics that makes all crimes equal; as if there were no difference to be

396 made between the killing a man and the taking his purse, between which, if we

397 examine things impartially, there is no likeness nor proportion. God has

398 commanded us not to kill, and shall we kill so easily for a little money? But

399 if one shall say, that by that law we are only forbid to kill any except when

400 the laws of the land allow of it, upon the same grounds, laws may be made, in

401 some cases, to allow of adultery and perjury: for God having taken from us the

402 right of disposing either of our own or of other people’s lives, if it is

403 pretended that the mutual consent of men in making laws can authorise

404 man-slaughter in cases in which God has given us no example, that it frees

405 people from the obligation of the divine law, and so makes murder a lawful

406 action, what is this, but to give a preference to human laws before the divine?

407 and, if this is once admitted, by the same rule men may, in all other things,

408 put what restrictions they please upon the laws of God. If, by the Mosaical

409 law, though it was rough and severe, as being a yoke laid on an obstinate and

410 servile nation, men were only fined, and not put to death for theft, we cannot

411 imagine, that in this new law of mercy, in which God treats us with the

412 tenderness of a father, He has given us a greater licence to cruelty than He

413 did to the Jews. Upon these reasons it is, that I think putting thieves to

414 death is not lawful; and it is plain and obvious that it is absurd and of ill

415 consequence to the commonwealth that a thief and a murderer should be equally

416 punished; for if a robber sees that his danger is the same if he is convicted

417 of theft as if he were guilty of murder, this will naturally incite him to kill

418 the person whom otherwise he would only have robbed; since, if the punishment

419 is the same, there is more security, and less danger of discovery, when he that

420 can best make it is put out of the way; so that terrifying thieves too much

421 provokes them to cruelty.

422 “But as to the question, ‘What more convenient way of punishment

423 can be found?’ I think it much easier to find out that than to invent

424 anything that is worse; why should we doubt but the way that was so long in use

425 among the old Romans, who understood so well the arts of government, was very

426 proper for their punishment? They condemned such as they found guilty of great

427 crimes to work their whole lives in quarries, or to dig in mines with chains

428 about them. But the method that I liked best was that which I observed in my

429 travels in Persia, among the Polylerits, who are a considerable and

430 well-governed people: they pay a yearly tribute to the King of Persia, but in

431 all other respects they are a free nation, and governed by their own laws: they

432 lie far from the sea, and are environed with hills; and, being contented with

433 the productions of their own country, which is very fruitful, they have little

434 commerce with any other nation; and as they, according to the genius of their

435 country, have no inclination to enlarge their borders, so their mountains and

436 the pension they pay to the Persian, secure them from all invasions. Thus they

437 have no wars among them; they live rather conveniently than with splendour, and

438 may be rather called a happy nation than either eminent or famous; for I do not

439 think that they are known, so much as by name, to any but their next

440 neighbours. Those that are found guilty of theft among them are bound to make

441 restitution to the owner, and not, as it is in other places, to the prince, for

442 they reckon that the prince has no more right to the stolen goods than the

443 thief; but if that which was stolen is no more in being, then the goods of the

444 thieves are estimated, and restitution being made out of them, the remainder is

445 given to their wives and children; and they themselves are condemned to serve

446 in the public works, but are neither imprisoned nor chained, unless there

447 happens to be some extraordinary circumstance in their crimes. They go about

448 loose and free, working for the public: if they are idle or backward to work

449 they are whipped, but if they work hard they are well used and treated without

450 any mark of reproach; only the lists of them are called always at night, and

451 then they are shut up. They suffer no other uneasiness but this of constant

452 labour; for, as they work for the public, so they are well entertained out of

453 the public stock, which is done differently in different places: in some places

454 whatever is bestowed on them is raised by a charitable contribution; and,

455 though this way may seem uncertain, yet so merciful are the inclinations of

456 that people, that they are plentifully supplied by it; but in other places

457 public revenues are set aside for them, or there is a constant tax or

458 poll-money raised for their maintenance. In some places they are set to no

459 public work, but every private man that has occasion to hire workmen goes to

460 the market-places and hires them of the public, a little lower than he would do

461 a freeman. If they go lazily about their task he may quicken them with the

462 whip. By this means there is always some piece of work or other to be done by

463 them; and, besides their livelihood, they earn somewhat still to the public.

464 They all wear a peculiar habit, of one certain colour, and their hair is

465 cropped a little above their ears, and a piece of one of their ears is cut off.

466 Their friends are allowed to give them either meat, drink, or clothes, so they

467 are of their proper colour; but it is death, both to the giver and taker, if

468 they give them money; nor is it less penal for any freeman to take money from

469 them upon any account whatsoever: and it is also death for any of these slaves

470 (so they are called) to handle arms. Those of every division of the country are

471 distinguished by a peculiar mark, which it is capital for them to lay aside, to

472 go out of their bounds, or to talk with a slave of another jurisdiction, and

473 the very attempt of an escape is no less penal than an escape itself. It is

474 death for any other slave to be accessory to it; and if a freeman engages in it

475 he is condemned to slavery. Those that discover it are rewarded—if

476 freemen, in money; and if slaves, with liberty, together with a pardon for

477 being accessory to it; that so they might find their account rather in

478 repenting of their engaging in such a design than in persisting in it.

479 “These are their laws and rules in relation to robbery, and it is obvious

480 that they are as advantageous as they are mild and gentle; since vice is not

481 only destroyed and men preserved, but they are treated in such a manner as to

482 make them see the necessity of being honest and of employing the rest of their

483 lives in repairing the injuries they had formerly done to society. Nor is there

484 any hazard of their falling back to their old customs; and so little do

485 travellers apprehend mischief from them that they generally make use of them

486 for guides from one jurisdiction to another; for there is nothing left them by

487 which they can rob or be the better for it, since, as they are disarmed, so the

488 very having of money is a sufficient conviction: and as they are certainly

489 punished if discovered, so they cannot hope to escape; for their habit being in

490 all the parts of it different from what is commonly worn, they cannot fly away,

491 unless they would go naked, and even then their cropped ear would betray them.

492 The only danger to be feared from them is their conspiring against the

493 government; but those of one division and neighbourhood can do nothing to any

494 purpose unless a general conspiracy were laid amongst all the slaves of the

495 several jurisdictions, which cannot be done, since they cannot meet or talk

496 together; nor will any venture on a design where the concealment would be so

497 dangerous and the discovery so profitable. None are quite hopeless of

498 recovering their freedom, since by their obedience and patience, and by giving

499 good grounds to believe that they will change their manner of life for the

500 future, they may expect at last to obtain their liberty, and some are every

501 year restored to it upon the good character that is given of them. When I had

502 related all this, I added that I did not see why such a method might not be

503 followed with more advantage than could ever be expected from that severe

504 justice which the Counsellor magnified so much. To this he answered,

505 ‘That it could never take place in England without endangering the whole

506 nation.’ As he said this he shook his head, made some grimaces, and held

507 his peace, while all the company seemed of his opinion, except the Cardinal,

508 who said, ‘That it was not easy to form a judgment of its success, since

509 it was a method that never yet had been tried; but if,’ said he,

510 ‘when sentence of death were passed upon a thief, the prince would

511 reprieve him for a while, and make the experiment upon him, denying him the

512 privilege of a sanctuary; and then, if it had a good effect upon him, it might

513 take place; and, if it did not succeed, the worst would be to execute the

514 sentence on the condemned persons at last; and I do not see,’ added he,

515 ‘why it would be either unjust, inconvenient, or at all dangerous to

516 admit of such a delay; in my opinion the vagabonds ought to be treated in the

517 same manner, against whom, though we have made many laws, yet we have not been

518 able to gain our end.’ When the Cardinal had done, they all commended the

519 motion, though they had despised it when it came from me, but more particularly

520 commended what related to the vagabonds, because it was his own observation.

521 “I do not know whether it be worth while to tell what followed, for it

522 was very ridiculous; but I shall venture at it, for as it is not foreign to

523 this matter, so some good use may be made of it. There was a Jester standing

524 by, that counterfeited the fool so naturally that he seemed to be really one;

525 the jests which he offered were so cold and dull that we laughed more at him

526 than at them, yet sometimes he said, as it were by chance, things that were not

527 unpleasant, so as to justify the old proverb, ‘That he who throws the

528 dice often, will sometimes have a lucky hit.’ When one of the company had

529 said that I had taken care of the thieves, and the Cardinal had taken care of

530 the vagabonds, so that there remained nothing but that some public provision

531 might be made for the poor whom sickness or old age had disabled from labour,

532 ‘Leave that to me,’ said the Fool, ‘and I shall take care of

533 them, for there is no sort of people whose sight I abhor more, having been so

534 often vexed with them and with their sad complaints; but as dolefully soever as

535 they have told their tale, they could never prevail so far as to draw one penny

536 from me; for either I had no mind to give them anything, or, when I had a mind

537 to do it, I had nothing to give them; and they now know me so well that they

538 will not lose their labour, but let me pass without giving me any trouble,

539 because they hope for nothing—no more, in faith, than if I were a priest;

540 but I would have a law made for sending all these beggars to monasteries, the

541 men to the Benedictines, to be made lay-brothers, and the women to be

542 nuns.’ The Cardinal smiled, and approved of it in jest, but the rest

543 liked it in earnest. There was a divine present, who, though he was a grave

544 morose man, yet he was so pleased with this reflection that was made on the

545 priests and the monks that he began to play with the Fool, and said to him,

546 ‘This will not deliver you from all beggars, except you take care of us

547 Friars.’ ‘That is done already,’ answered the Fool,

548 ‘for the Cardinal has provided for you by what he proposed for

549 restraining vagabonds and setting them to work, for I know no vagabonds like

550 you.’ This was well entertained by the whole company, who, looking at the

551 Cardinal, perceived that he was not ill-pleased at it; only the Friar himself

552 was vexed, as may be easily imagined, and fell into such a passion that he

553 could not forbear railing at the Fool, and calling him knave, slanderer,

554 backbiter, and son of perdition, and then cited some dreadful threatenings out

555 of the Scriptures against him. Now the Jester thought he was in his element,

556 and laid about him freely. ‘Good Friar,’ said he, ‘be not

557 angry, for it is written, “In patience possess your soul.”’

558 The Friar answered (for I shall give you his own words), ‘I am not angry,

559 you hangman; at least, I do not sin in it, for the Psalmist says, “Be ye

560 angry and sin not.”’ Upon this the Cardinal admonished him gently,

561 and wished him to govern his passions. ‘No, my lord,’ said he,

562 ‘I speak not but from a good zeal, which I ought to have, for holy men

563 have had a good zeal, as it is said, “The zeal of thy house hath eaten me

564 up;” and we sing in our church that those who mocked Elisha as he went up

565 to the house of God felt the effects of his zeal, which that mocker, that

566 rogue, that scoundrel, will perhaps feel.’ ‘You do this, perhaps,

567 with a good intention,’ said the Cardinal, ‘but, in my opinion, it

568 were wiser in you, and perhaps better for you, not to engage in so ridiculous a

569 contest with a Fool.’ ‘No, my lord,’ answered he, ‘that

570 were not wisely done, for Solomon, the wisest of men, said, “Answer a

571 Fool according to his folly,” which I now do, and show him the ditch into

572 which he will fall, if he is not aware of it; for if the many mockers of

573 Elisha, who was but one bald man, felt the effect of his zeal, what will become

574 of the mocker of so many Friars, among whom there are so many bald men? We

575 have, likewise, a bull, by which all that jeer us are excommunicated.’

576 When the Cardinal saw that there was no end of this matter he made a sign to

577 the Fool to withdraw, turned the discourse another way, and soon after rose

578 from the table, and, dismissing us, went to hear causes.

579 “Thus, Mr. More, I have run out into a tedious story, of the length of

580 which I had been ashamed, if (as you earnestly begged it of me) I had not

581 observed you to hearken to it as if you had no mind to lose any part of it. I

582 might have contracted it, but I resolved to give it you at large, that you

583 might observe how those that despised what I had proposed, no sooner perceived

584 that the Cardinal did not dislike it but presently approved of it, fawned so on

585 him and flattered him to such a degree, that they in good earnest applauded

586 those things that he only liked in jest; and from hence you may gather how

587 little courtiers would value either me or my counsels.”

588 To this I answered, “You have done me a great kindness in this relation;

589 for as everything has been related by you both wisely and pleasantly, so you

590 have made me imagine that I was in my own country and grown young again, by

591 recalling that good Cardinal to my thoughts, in whose family I was bred from my

592 childhood; and though you are, upon other accounts, very dear to me, yet you

593 are the dearer because you honour his memory so much; but, after all this, I

594 cannot change my opinion, for I still think that if you could overcome that

595 aversion which you have to the courts of princes, you might, by the advice

596 which it is in your power to give, do a great deal of good to mankind, and this

597 is the chief design that every good man ought to propose to himself in living;

598 for your friend Plato thinks that nations will be happy when either

599 philosophers become kings or kings become philosophers. It is no wonder if we

600 are so far from that happiness while philosophers will not think it their duty

601 to assist kings with their counsels.” “They are not so

602 base-minded,” said he, “but that they would willingly do it; many

603 of them have already done it by their books, if those that are in power would

604 but hearken to their good advice. But Plato judged right, that except kings

605 themselves became philosophers, they who from their childhood are corrupted

606 with false notions would never fall in entirely with the counsels of

607 philosophers, and this he himself found to be true in the person of Dionysius.

608 “Do not you think that if I were about any king, proposing good laws to

609 him, and endeavouring to root out all the cursed seeds of evil that I found in

610 him, I should either be turned out of his court, or, at least, be laughed at

611 for my pains? For instance, what could I signify if I were about the King of

612 France, and were called into his cabinet council, where several wise men, in

613 his hearing, were proposing many expedients; as, by what arts and practices

614 Milan may be kept, and Naples, that has so often slipped out of their hands,

615 recovered; how the Venetians, and after them the rest of Italy, may be subdued;

616 and then how Flanders, Brabant, and all Burgundy, and some other kingdoms which

617 he has swallowed already in his designs, may be added to his empire? One

618 proposes a league with the Venetians, to be kept as long as he finds his

619 account in it, and that he ought to communicate counsels with them, and give

620 them some share of the spoil till his success makes him need or fear them less,

621 and then it will be easily taken out of their hands; another proposes the

622 hiring the Germans and the securing the Switzers by pensions; another proposes

623 the gaining the Emperor by money, which is omnipotent with him; another

624 proposes a peace with the King of Arragon, and, in order to cement it, the

625 yielding up the King of Navarre’s pretensions; another thinks that the

626 Prince of Castile is to be wrought on by the hope of an alliance, and that some

627 of his courtiers are to be gained to the French faction by pensions. The

628 hardest point of all is, what to do with England; a treaty of peace is to be

629 set on foot, and, if their alliance is not to be depended on, yet it is to be

630 made as firm as possible, and they are to be called friends, but suspected as

631 enemies: therefore the Scots are to be kept in readiness to be let loose upon

632 England on every occasion; and some banished nobleman is to be supported

633 underhand (for by the League it cannot be done avowedly) who has a pretension

634 to the crown, by which means that suspected prince may be kept in awe. Now when

635 things are in so great a fermentation, and so many gallant men are joining

636 counsels how to carry on the war, if so mean a man as I should stand up and

637 wish them to change all their counsels—to let Italy alone and stay at

638 home, since the kingdom of France was indeed greater than could be well

639 governed by one man; that therefore he ought not to think of adding others to

640 it; and if, after this, I should propose to them the resolutions of the

641 Achorians, a people that lie on the south-east of Utopia, who long ago engaged

642 in war in order to add to the dominions of their prince another kingdom, to

643 which he had some pretensions by an ancient alliance: this they conquered, but

644 found that the trouble of keeping it was equal to that by which it was gained;

645 that the conquered people were always either in rebellion or exposed to foreign

646 invasions, while they were obliged to be incessantly at war, either for or

647 against them, and consequently could never disband their army; that in the

648 meantime they were oppressed with taxes, their money went out of the kingdom,

649 their blood was spilt for the glory of their king without procuring the least

650 advantage to the people, who received not the smallest benefit from it even in

651 time of peace; and that, their manners being corrupted by a long war, robbery

652 and murders everywhere abounded, and their laws fell into contempt; while their

653 king, distracted with the care of two kingdoms, was the less able to apply his

654 mind to the interest of either. When they saw this, and that there would be no

655 end to these evils, they by joint counsels made an humble address to their

656 king, desiring him to choose which of the two kingdoms he had the greatest mind

657 to keep, since he could not hold both; for they were too great a people to be

658 governed by a divided king, since no man would willingly have a groom that

659 should be in common between him and another. Upon which the good prince was

660 forced to quit his new kingdom to one of his friends (who was not long after

661 dethroned), and to be contented with his old one. To this I would add that

662 after all those warlike attempts, the vast confusions, and the consumption both

663 of treasure and of people that must follow them, perhaps upon some misfortune

664 they might be forced to throw up all at last; therefore it seemed much more

665 eligible that the king should improve his ancient kingdom all he could, and

666 make it flourish as much as possible; that he should love his people, and be

667 beloved of them; that he should live among them, govern them gently and let

668 other kingdoms alone, since that which had fallen to his share was big enough,

669 if not too big, for him:—pray, how do you think would such a speech as

670 this be heard?”

671 “I confess,” said I, “I think not very well.”

672 “But what,” said he, “if I should sort with another kind of

673 ministers, whose chief contrivances and consultations were by what art the

674 prince’s treasures might be increased? where one proposes raising the

675 value of specie when the king’s debts are large, and lowering it when his

676 revenues were to come in, that so he might both pay much with a little, and in

677 a little receive a great deal. Another proposes a pretence of a war, that money

678 might be raised in order to carry it on, and that a peace be concluded as soon

679 as that was done; and this with such appearances of religion as might work on

680 the people, and make them impute it to the piety of their prince, and to his

681 tenderness for the lives of his subjects. A third offers some old musty laws

682 that have been antiquated by a long disuse (and which, as they had been

683 forgotten by all the subjects, so they had also been broken by them), and

684 proposes the levying the penalties of these laws, that, as it would bring in a

685 vast treasure, so there might be a very good pretence for it, since it would

686 look like the executing a law and the doing of justice. A fourth proposes the

687 prohibiting of many things under severe penalties, especially such as were

688 against the interest of the people, and then the dispensing with these

689 prohibitions, upon great compositions, to those who might find their advantage

690 in breaking them. This would serve two ends, both of them acceptable to many;

691 for as those whose avarice led them to transgress would be severely fined, so

692 the selling licences dear would look as if a prince were tender of his people,

693 and would not easily, or at low rates, dispense with anything that might be

694 against the public good. Another proposes that the judges must be made sure,

695 that they may declare always in favour of the prerogative; that they must be

696 often sent for to court, that the king may hear them argue those points in

697 which he is concerned; since, how unjust soever any of his pretensions may be,

698 yet still some one or other of them, either out of contradiction to others, or

699 the pride of singularity, or to make their court, would find out some pretence

700 or other to give the king a fair colour to carry the point. For if the judges

701 but differ in opinion, the clearest thing in the world is made by that means

702 disputable, and truth being once brought in question, the king may then take

703 advantage to expound the law for his own profit; while the judges that stand

704 out will be brought over, either through fear or modesty; and they being thus

705 gained, all of them may be sent to the Bench to give sentence boldly as the

706 king would have it; for fair pretences will never be wanting when sentence is

707 to be given in the prince’s favour. It will either be said that equity

708 lies of his side, or some words in the law will be found sounding that way, or

709 some forced sense will be put on them; and, when all other things fail, the

710 king’s undoubted prerogative will be pretended, as that which is above

711 all law, and to which a religious judge ought to have a special regard. Thus

712 all consent to that maxim of Crassus, that a prince cannot have treasure

713 enough, since he must maintain his armies out of it; that a king, even though

714 he would, can do nothing unjustly; that all property is in him, not excepting

715 the very persons of his subjects; and that no man has any other property but

716 that which the king, out of his goodness, thinks fit to leave him. And they

717 think it is the prince’s interest that there be as little of this left as

718 may be, as if it were his advantage that his people should have neither riches

719 nor liberty, since these things make them less easy and willing to submit to a

720 cruel and unjust government. Whereas necessity and poverty blunts them, makes

721 them patient, beats them down, and breaks that height of spirit that might

722 otherwise dispose them to rebel. Now what if, after all these propositions were

723 made, I should rise up and assert that such counsels were both unbecoming a

724 king and mischievous to him; and that not only his honour, but his safety,

725 consisted more in his people’s wealth than in his own; if I should show

726 that they choose a king for their own sake, and not for his; that, by his care

727 and endeavours, they may be both easy and safe; and that, therefore, a prince

728 ought to take more care of his people’s happiness than of his own, as a

729 shepherd is to take more care of his flock than of himself? It is also certain

730 that they are much mistaken that think the poverty of a nation is a means of

731 the public safety. Who quarrel more than beggars? who does more earnestly long

732 for a change than he that is uneasy in his present circumstances? and who run

733 to create confusions with so desperate a boldness as those who, having nothing

734 to lose, hope to gain by them? If a king should fall under such contempt or

735 envy that he could not keep his subjects in their duty but by oppression and

736 ill usage, and by rendering them poor and miserable, it were certainly better

737 for him to quit his kingdom than to retain it by such methods as make him,

738 while he keeps the name of authority, lose the majesty due to it. Nor is it so

739 becoming the dignity of a king to reign over beggars as over rich and happy

740 subjects. And therefore Fabricius, a man of a noble and exalted temper, said

741 ‘he would rather govern rich men than be rich himself; since for one man

742 to abound in wealth and pleasure when all about him are mourning and groaning,

743 is to be a gaoler and not a king.’ He is an unskilful physician that

744 cannot cure one disease without casting his patient into another. So he that

745 can find no other way for correcting the errors of his people but by taking

746 from them the conveniences of life, shows that he knows not what it is to

747 govern a free nation. He himself ought rather to shake off his sloth, or to lay

748 down his pride, for the contempt or hatred that his people have for him takes

749 its rise from the vices in himself. Let him live upon what belongs to him

750 without wronging others, and accommodate his expense to his revenue. Let him

751 punish crimes, and, by his wise conduct, let him endeavour to prevent them,

752 rather than be severe when he has suffered them to be too common. Let him not

753 rashly revive laws that are abrogated by disuse, especially if they have been

754 long forgotten and never wanted. And let him never take any penalty for the

755 breach of them to which a judge would not give way in a private man, but would

756 look on him as a crafty and unjust person for pretending to it. To these things

757 I would add that law among the Macarians—a people that live not far from

758 Utopia—by which their king, on the day on which he began to reign, is

759 tied by an oath, confirmed by solemn sacrifices, never to have at once above a

760 thousand pounds of gold in his treasures, or so much silver as is equal to that

761 in value. This law, they tell us, was made by an excellent king who had more

762 regard to the riches of his country than to his own wealth, and therefore

763 provided against the heaping up of so much treasure as might impoverish the

764 people. He thought that moderate sum might be sufficient for any accident, if

765 either the king had occasion for it against the rebels, or the kingdom against

766 the invasion of an enemy; but that it was not enough to encourage a prince to

767 invade other men’s rights—a circumstance that was the chief cause

768 of his making that law. He also thought that it was a good provision for that

769 free circulation of money so necessary for the course of commerce and exchange.

770 And when a king must distribute all those extraordinary accessions that

771 increase treasure beyond the due pitch, it makes him less disposed to oppress

772 his subjects. Such a king as this will be the terror of ill men, and will be

773 beloved by all the good.

774 “If, I say, I should talk of these or such-like things to men that had

775 taken their bias another way, how deaf would they be to all I could say!”

776 “No doubt, very deaf,” answered I; “and no wonder, for one is

777 never to offer propositions or advice that we are certain will not be

778 entertained. Discourses so much out of the road could not avail anything, nor

779 have any effect on men whose minds were prepossessed with different sentiments.

780 This philosophical way of speculation is not unpleasant among friends in a free

781 conversation; but there is no room for it in the courts of princes, where great

782 affairs are carried on by authority.” “That is what I was

783 saying,” replied he, “that there is no room for philosophy in the

784 courts of princes.” “Yes, there is,” said I, “but not

785 for this speculative philosophy, that makes everything to be alike fitting at

786 all times; but there is another philosophy that is more pliable, that knows its

787 proper scene, accommodates itself to it, and teaches a man with propriety and

788 decency to act that part which has fallen to his share. If when one of

789 Plautus’ comedies is upon the stage, and a company of servants are acting

790 their parts, you should come out in the garb of a philosopher, and repeat, out

791 of *Octavia*, a discourse of Seneca’s to Nero, would it not be

792 better for you to say nothing than by mixing things of such different natures

793 to make an impertinent tragi-comedy? for you spoil and corrupt the play that is

794 in hand when you mix with it things of an opposite nature, even though they are

795 much better. Therefore go through with the play that is acting the best you

796 can, and do not confound it because another that is pleasanter comes into your

797 thoughts. It is even so in a commonwealth and in the councils of princes; if

798 ill opinions cannot be quite rooted out, and you cannot cure some received vice

799 according to your wishes, you must not, therefore, abandon the commonwealth,

800 for the same reasons as you should not forsake the ship in a storm because you

801 cannot command the winds. You are not obliged to assault people with discourses

802 that are out of their road, when you see that their received notions must

803 prevent your making an impression upon them: you ought rather to cast about and

804 to manage things with all the dexterity in your power, so that, if you are not

805 able to make them go well, they may be as little ill as possible; for, except

806 all men were good, everything cannot be right, and that is a blessing that I do

807 not at present hope to see.” “According to your argument,”

808 answered he, “all that I could be able to do would be to preserve myself

809 from being mad while I endeavoured to cure the madness of others; for, if I

810 speak truth, I must repeat what I have said to you; and as for lying, whether a

811 philosopher can do it or not I cannot tell: I am sure I cannot do it. But

812 though these discourses may be uneasy and ungrateful to them, I do not see why

813 they should seem foolish or extravagant; indeed, if I should either propose

814 such things as Plato has contrived in his ‘Commonwealth,’ or as the

815 Utopians practise in theirs, though they might seem better, as certainly they

816 are, yet they are so different from our establishment, which is founded on

817 property (there being no such thing among them), that I could not expect that

818 it would have any effect on them. But such discourses as mine, which only call

819 past evils to mind and give warning of what may follow, leave nothing in them

820 that is so absurd that they may not be used at any time, for they can only be

821 unpleasant to those who are resolved to run headlong the contrary way; and if

822 we must let alone everything as absurd or extravagant—which, by reason of

823 the wicked lives of many, may seem uncouth—we must, even among

824 Christians, give over pressing the greatest part of those things that Christ

825 hath taught us, though He has commanded us not to conceal them, but to proclaim

826 on the housetops that which He taught in secret. The greatest parts of His

827 precepts are more opposite to the lives of the men of this age than any part of

828 my discourse has been, but the preachers seem to have learned that craft to

829 which you advise me: for they, observing that the world would not willingly

830 suit their lives to the rules that Christ has given, have fitted His doctrine,

831 as if it had been a leaden rule, to their lives, that so, some way or other,

832 they might agree with one another. But I see no other effect of this compliance

833 except it be that men become more secure in their wickedness by it; and this is

834 all the success that I can have in a court, for I must always differ from the

835 rest, and then I shall signify nothing; or, if I agree with them, I shall then

836 only help forward their madness. I do not comprehend what you mean by your

837 ‘casting about,’ or by ‘the bending and handling things so

838 dexterously that, if they go not well, they may go as little ill as may

839 be;’ for in courts they will not bear with a man’s holding his

840 peace or conniving at what others do: a man must barefacedly approve of the

841 worst counsels and consent to the blackest designs: so that he would pass for a

842 spy, or, possibly, for a traitor, that did but coldly approve of such wicked

843 practices; and therefore when a man is engaged in such a society, he will be so

844 far from being able to mend matters by his ‘casting about,’ as you

845 call it, that he will find no occasions of doing any good—the ill company

846 will sooner corrupt him than be the better for him; or if, notwithstanding all

847 their ill company, he still remains steady and innocent, yet their follies and

848 knavery will be imputed to him; and, by mixing counsels with them, he must bear

849 his share of all the blame that belongs wholly to others.

850 “It was no ill simile by which Plato set forth the unreasonableness of a

851 philosopher’s meddling with government. ‘If a man,’ says he,

852 ‘were to see a great company run out every day into the rain and take

853 delight in being wet—if he knew that it would be to no purpose for him to

854 go and persuade them to return to their houses in order to avoid the storm, and

855 that all that could be expected by his going to speak to them would be that he

856 himself should be as wet as they, it would be best for him to keep within

857 doors, and, since he had not influence enough to correct other people’s

858 folly, to take care to preserve himself.’

859 “Though, to speak plainly my real sentiments, I must freely own that as

860 long as there is any property, and while money is the standard of all other

861 things, I cannot think that a nation can be governed either justly or happily:

862 not justly, because the best things will fall to the share of the worst men;

863 nor happily, because all things will be divided among a few (and even these are

864 not in all respects happy), the rest being left to be absolutely miserable.

865 Therefore, when I reflect on the wise and good constitution of the Utopians,

866 among whom all things are so well governed and with so few laws, where virtue

867 hath its due reward, and yet there is such an equality that every man lives in

868 plenty—when I compare with them so many other nations that are still

869 making new laws, and yet can never bring their constitution to a right

870 regulation; where, notwithstanding every one has his property, yet all the laws

871 that they can invent have not the power either to obtain or preserve it, or

872 even to enable men certainly to distinguish what is their own from what is

873 another’s, of which the many lawsuits that every day break out, and are

874 eternally depending, give too plain a demonstration—when, I say, I

875 balance all these things in my thoughts, I grow more favourable to Plato, and

876 do not wonder that he resolved not to make any laws for such as would not

877 submit to a community of all things; for so wise a man could not but foresee

878 that the setting all upon a level was the only way to make a nation happy;

879 which cannot be obtained so long as there is property, for when every man draws

880 to himself all that he can compass, by one title or another, it must needs

881 follow that, how plentiful soever a nation may be, yet a few dividing the

882 wealth of it among themselves, the rest must fall into indigence. So that there

883 will be two sorts of people among them, who deserve that their fortunes should

884 be interchanged—the former useless, but wicked and ravenous; and the

885 latter, who by their constant industry serve the public more than themselves,

886 sincere and modest men—from whence I am persuaded that till property is

887 taken away, there can be no equitable or just distribution of things, nor can

888 the world be happily governed; for as long as that is maintained, the greatest

889 and the far best part of mankind, will be still oppressed with a load of cares

890 and anxieties. I confess, without taking it quite away, those pressures that

891 lie on a great part of mankind may be made lighter, but they can never be quite

892 removed; for if laws were made to determine at how great an extent in soil, and

893 at how much money, every man must stop—to limit the prince, that he might

894 not grow too great; and to restrain the people, that they might not become too

895 insolent—and that none might factiously aspire to public employments,

896 which ought neither to be sold nor made burdensome by a great expense, since

897 otherwise those that serve in them would be tempted to reimburse themselves by

898 cheats and violence, and it would become necessary to find out rich men for

899 undergoing those employments, which ought rather to be trusted to the wise.

900 These laws, I say, might have such effect as good diet and care might have on a

901 sick man whose recovery is desperate; they might allay and mitigate the

902 disease, but it could never be quite healed, nor the body politic be brought

903 again to a good habit as long as property remains; and it will fall out, as in

904 a complication of diseases, that by applying a remedy to one sore you will

905 provoke another, and that which removes the one ill symptom produces others,

906 while the strengthening one part of the body weakens the rest.” “On

907 the contrary,” answered I, “it seems to me that men cannot live

908 conveniently where all things are common. How can there be any plenty where

909 every man will excuse himself from labour? for as the hope of gain doth not

910 excite him, so the confidence that he has in other men’s industry may

911 make him slothful. If people come to be pinched with want, and yet cannot

912 dispose of anything as their own, what can follow upon this but perpetual

913 sedition and bloodshed, especially when the reverence and authority due to

914 magistrates falls to the ground? for I cannot imagine how that can be kept up

915 among those that are in all things equal to one another.” “I do not

916 wonder,” said he, “that it appears so to you, since you have no

917 notion, or at least no right one, of such a constitution; but if you had been

918 in Utopia with me, and had seen their laws and rules, as I did, for the space

919 of five years, in which I lived among them, and during which time I was so

920 delighted with them that indeed I should never have left them if it had not

921 been to make the discovery of that new world to the Europeans, you would then

922 confess that you had never seen a people so well constituted as they.”

923 “You will not easily persuade me,” said Peter, “that any

924 nation in that new world is better governed than those among us; for as our

925 understandings are not worse than theirs, so our government (if I mistake not)

926 being more ancient, a long practice has helped us to find out many conveniences

927 of life, and some happy chances have discovered other things to us which no

928 man’s understanding could ever have invented.” “As for the

929 antiquity either of their government or of ours,” said he, “you

930 cannot pass a true judgment of it unless you had read their histories; for, if

931 they are to be believed, they had towns among them before these parts were so

932 much as inhabited; and as for those discoveries that have been either hit on by

933 chance or made by ingenious men, these might have happened there as well as

934 here. I do not deny but we are more ingenious than they are, but they exceed us

935 much in industry and application. They knew little concerning us before our

936 arrival among them. They call us all by a general name of ‘The nations

937 that lie beyond the equinoctial line;’ for their chronicle mentions a

938 shipwreck that was made on their coast twelve hundred years ago, and that some

939 Romans and Egyptians that were in the ship, getting safe ashore, spent the rest

940 of their days amongst them; and such was their ingenuity that from this single

941 opportunity they drew the advantage of learning from those unlooked-for guests,

942 and acquired all the useful arts that were then among the Romans, and which

943 were known to these shipwrecked men; and by the hints that they gave them they

944 themselves found out even some of those arts which they could not fully

945 explain, so happily did they improve that accident of having some of our people

946 cast upon their shore. But if such an accident has at any time brought any from

947 thence into Europe, we have been so far from improving it that we do not so

948 much as remember it, as, in aftertimes perhaps, it will be forgot by our people

949 that I was ever there; for though they, from one such accident, made themselves

950 masters of all the good inventions that were among us, yet I believe it would

951 be long before we should learn or put in practice any of the good institutions

952 that are among them. And this is the true cause of their being better governed

953 and living happier than we, though we come not short of them in point of

954 understanding or outward advantages.” Upon this I said to him, “I

955 earnestly beg you would describe that island very particularly to us; be not

956 too short, but set out in order all things relating to their soil, their

957 rivers, their towns, their people, their manners, constitution, laws, and, in a

958 word, all that you imagine we desire to know; and you may well imagine that we

959 desire to know everything concerning them of which we are hitherto

960 ignorant.” “I will do it very willingly,” said he, “for

961 I have digested the whole matter carefully, but it will take up some

962 time.” “Let us go, then,” said I, “first and dine, and

963 then we shall have leisure enough.” He consented; we went in and dined,

964 and after dinner came back and sat down in the same place. I ordered my

965 servants to take care that none might come and interrupt us, and both Peter and

966 I desired Raphael to be as good as his word. When he saw that we were very

967 intent upon it he paused a little to recollect himself, and began in this

968 manner:—

969 “The island of Utopia is in the middle two hundred miles broad, and holds

970 almost at the same breadth over a great part of it, but it grows narrower

971 towards both ends. Its figure is not unlike a crescent. Between its horns the

972 sea comes in eleven miles broad, and spreads itself into a great bay, which is

973 environed with land to the compass of about five hundred miles, and is well

974 secured from winds. In this bay there is no great current; the whole coast is,

975 as it were, one continued harbour, which gives all that live in the island

976 great convenience for mutual commerce. But the entry into the bay, occasioned

977 by rocks on the one hand and shallows on the other, is very dangerous. In the

978 middle of it there is one single rock which appears above water, and may,

979 therefore, easily be avoided; and on the top of it there is a tower, in which a

980 garrison is kept; the other rocks lie under water, and are very dangerous. The

981 channel is known only to the natives; so that if any stranger should enter into

982 the bay without one of their pilots he would run great danger of shipwreck. For

983 even they themselves could not pass it safe if some marks that are on the coast

984 did not direct their way; and if these should be but a little shifted, any

985 fleet that might come against them, how great soever it were, would be

986 certainly lost. On the other side of the island there are likewise many

987 harbours; and the coast is so fortified, both by nature and art, that a small

988 number of men can hinder the descent of a great army. But they report (and

989 there remains good marks of it to make it credible) that this was no island at

990 first, but a part of the continent. Utopus, that conquered it (whose name it

991 still carries, for Abraxa was its first name), brought the rude and uncivilised

992 inhabitants into such a good government, and to that measure of politeness,

993 that they now far excel all the rest of mankind. Having soon subdued them, he

994 designed to separate them from the continent, and to bring the sea quite round

995 them. To accomplish this he ordered a deep channel to be dug, fifteen miles

996 long; and that the natives might not think he treated them like slaves, he not

997 only forced the inhabitants, but also his own soldiers, to labour in carrying

998 it on. As he set a vast number of men to work, he, beyond all men’s

999 expectations, brought it to a speedy conclusion. And his neighbours, who at

1000 first laughed at the folly of the undertaking, no sooner saw it brought to

1001 perfection than they were struck with admiration and terror.

1002 “There are fifty-four cities in the island, all large and well built, the

1003 manners, customs, and laws of which are the same, and they are all contrived as

1004 near in the same manner as the ground on which they stand will allow. The

1005 nearest lie at least twenty-four miles’ distance from one another, and

1006 the most remote are not so far distant but that a man can go on foot in one day

1007 from it to that which lies next it. Every city sends three of their wisest

1008 senators once a year to Amaurot, to consult about their common concerns; for

1009 that is the chief town of the island, being situated near the centre of it, so

1010 that it is the most convenient place for their assemblies. The jurisdiction of

1011 every city extends at least twenty miles, and, where the towns lie wider, they

1012 have much more ground. No town desires to enlarge its bounds, for the people

1013 consider themselves rather as tenants than landlords. They have built, over all

1014 the country, farmhouses for husbandmen, which are well contrived, and furnished

1015 with all things necessary for country labour. Inhabitants are sent, by turns,

1016 from the cities to dwell in them; no country family has fewer than forty men

1017 and women in it, besides two slaves. There is a master and a mistress set over

1018 every family, and over thirty families there is a magistrate. Every year twenty

1019 of this family come back to the town after they have stayed two years in the

1020 country, and in their room there are other twenty sent from the town, that they

1021 may learn country work from those that have been already one year in the

1022 country, as they must teach those that come to them the next from the town. By

1023 this means such as dwell in those country farms are never ignorant of

1024 agriculture, and so commit no errors which might otherwise be fatal and bring

1025 them under a scarcity of corn. But though there is every year such a shifting

1026 of the husbandmen to prevent any man being forced against his will to follow

1027 that hard course of life too long, yet many among them take such pleasure in it

1028 that they desire leave to continue in it many years. These husbandmen till the

1029 ground, breed cattle, hew wood, and convey it to the towns either by land or

1030 water, as is most convenient. They breed an infinite multitude of chickens in a

1031 very curious manner; for the hens do not sit and hatch them, but a vast number

1032 of eggs are laid in a gentle and equal heat in order to be hatched, and they

1033 are no sooner out of the shell, and able to stir about, but they seem to

1034 consider those that feed them as their mothers, and follow them as other

1035 chickens do the hen that hatched them. They breed very few horses, but those

1036 they have are full of mettle, and are kept only for exercising their youth in

1037 the art of sitting and riding them; for they do not put them to any work,

1038 either of ploughing or carriage, in which they employ oxen. For though their

1039 horses are stronger, yet they find oxen can hold out longer; and as they are

1040 not subject to so many diseases, so they are kept upon a less charge and with

1041 less trouble. And even when they are so worn out that they are no more fit for

1042 labour, they are good meat at last. They sow no corn but that which is to be

1043 their bread; for they drink either wine, cider or perry, and often water,

1044 sometimes boiled with honey or liquorice, with which they abound; and though

1045 they know exactly how much corn will serve every town and all that tract of

1046 country which belongs to it, yet they sow much more and breed more cattle than

1047 are necessary for their consumption, and they give that overplus of which they

1048 make no use to their neighbours. When they want anything in the country which

1049 it does not produce, they fetch that from the town, without carrying anything

1050 in exchange for it. And the magistrates of the town take care to see it given

1051 them; for they meet generally in the town once a month, upon a festival day.

1052 When the time of harvest comes, the magistrates in the country send to those in

1053 the towns and let them know how many hands they will need for reaping the

1054 harvest; and the number they call for being sent to them, they commonly

1055 despatch it all in one day.

OF THEIR TOWNS, PARTICULARLY OF AMAUROT

7 “He that knows one of their towns knows them all—they are so like

8 one another, except where the situation makes some difference. I shall

9 therefore describe one of them, and none is so proper as Amaurot; for as none

10 is more eminent (all the rest yielding in precedence to this, because it is the

11 seat of their supreme council), so there was none of them better known to me, I

12 having lived five years all together in it.

13 “It lies upon the side of a hill, or, rather, a rising ground. Its figure

14 is almost square, for from the one side of it, which shoots up almost to the

15 top of the hill, it runs down, in a descent for two miles, to the river Anider;

16 but it is a little broader the other way that runs along by the bank of that

17 river. The Anider rises about eighty miles above Amaurot, in a small spring at

18 first. But other brooks falling into it, of which two are more considerable

19 than the rest, as it runs by Amaurot it is grown half a mile broad; but, it

20 still grows larger and larger, till, after sixty miles’ course below it,

21 it is lost in the ocean. Between the town and the sea, and for some miles above

22 the town, it ebbs and flows every six hours with a strong current. The tide

23 comes up about thirty miles so full that there is nothing but salt water in the

24 river, the fresh water being driven back with its force; and above that, for

25 some miles, the water is brackish; but a little higher, as it runs by the town,

26 it is quite fresh; and when the tide ebbs, it continues fresh all along to the

27 sea. There is a bridge cast over the river, not of timber, but of fair stone,

28 consisting of many stately arches; it lies at that part of the town which is

29 farthest from the sea, so that the ships, without any hindrance, lie all along

30 the side of the town. There is, likewise, another river that runs by it, which,

31 though it is not great, yet it runs pleasantly, for it rises out of the same

32 hill on which the town stands, and so runs down through it and falls into the

33 Anider. The inhabitants have fortified the fountain-head of this river, which

34 springs a little without the towns; that so, if they should happen to be

35 besieged, the enemy might not be able to stop or divert the course of the

36 water, nor poison it; from thence it is carried, in earthen pipes, to the lower

37 streets. And for those places of the town to which the water of that small

38 river cannot be conveyed, they have great cisterns for receiving the

39 rain-water, which supplies the want of the other. The town is compassed with a

40 high and thick wall, in which there are many towers and forts; there is also a

41 broad and deep dry ditch, set thick with thorns, cast round three sides of the

42 town, and the river is instead of a ditch on the fourth side. The streets are

43 very convenient for all carriage, and are well sheltered from the winds. Their

44 buildings are good, and are so uniform that a whole side of a street looks like

45 one house. The streets are twenty feet broad; there lie gardens behind all

46 their houses. These are large, but enclosed with buildings, that on all hands

47 face the streets, so that every house has both a door to the street and a back

48 door to the garden. Their doors have all two leaves, which, as they are easily

49 opened, so they shut of their own accord; and, there being no property among

50 them, every man may freely enter into any house whatsoever. At every ten

51 years’ end they shift their houses by lots. They cultivate their gardens

52 with great care, so that they have both vines, fruits, herbs, and flowers in

53 them; and all is so well ordered and so finely kept that I never saw gardens

54 anywhere that were both so fruitful and so beautiful as theirs. And this humour

55 of ordering their gardens so well is not only kept up by the pleasure they find

56 in it, but also by an emulation between the inhabitants of the several streets,

57 who vie with each other. And there is, indeed, nothing belonging to the whole

58 town that is both more useful and more pleasant. So that he who founded the

59 town seems to have taken care of nothing more than of their gardens; for they

60 say the whole scheme of the town was designed at first by Utopus, but he left

61 all that belonged to the ornament and improvement of it to be added by those

62 that should come after him, that being too much for one man to bring to

63 perfection. Their records, that contain the history of their town and State,

64 are preserved with an exact care, and run backwards seventeen hundred and sixty

65 years. From these it appears that their houses were at first low and mean, like

66 cottages, made of any sort of timber, and were built with mud walls and

67 thatched with straw. But now their houses are three storeys high, the fronts of

68 them are faced either with stone, plastering, or brick, and between the facings

69 of their walls they throw in their rubbish. Their roofs are flat, and on them

70 they lay a sort of plaster, which costs very little, and yet is so tempered

71 that it is not apt to take fire, and yet resists the weather more than lead.

72 They have great quantities of glass among them, with which they glaze their

73 windows; they use also in their windows a thin linen cloth, that is so oiled or

74 gummed that it both keeps out the wind and gives free admission to the light.

OF THEIR MAGISTRATES

10 “Thirty families choose every year a magistrate, who was anciently called

11 the Syphogrant, but is now called the Philarch; and over every ten Syphogrants,

12 with the families subject to them, there is another magistrate, who was

13 anciently called the Tranibore, but of late the Archphilarch. All the

14 Syphogrants, who are in number two hundred, choose the Prince out of a list of

15 four who are named by the people of the four divisions of the city; but they

16 take an oath, before they proceed to an election, that they will choose him

17 whom they think most fit for the office: they give him their voices secretly,

18 so that it is not known for whom every one gives his suffrage. The Prince is

19 for life, unless he is removed upon suspicion of some design to enslave the

20 people. The Tranibors are new chosen every year, but yet they are, for the most

21 part, continued; all their other magistrates are only annual. The Tranibors

22 meet every third day, and oftener if necessary, and consult with the Prince

23 either concerning the affairs of the State in general, or such private

24 differences as may arise sometimes among the people, though that falls out but

25 seldom. There are always two Syphogrants called into the council chamber, and

26 these are changed every day. It is a fundamental rule of their government, that

27 no conclusion can be made in anything that relates to the public till it has

28 been first debated three several days in their council. It is death for any to

29 meet and consult concerning the State, unless it be either in their ordinary

30 council, or in the assembly of the whole body of the people.

31 “These things have been so provided among them that the Prince and the

32 Tranibors may not conspire together to change the government and enslave the

33 people; and therefore when anything of great importance is set on foot, it is

34 sent to the Syphogrants, who, after they have communicated it to the families

35 that belong to their divisions, and have considered it among themselves, make

36 report to the senate; and, upon great occasions, the matter is referred to the

37 council of the whole island. One rule observed in their council is, never to

38 debate a thing on the same day in which it is first proposed; for that is

39 always referred to the next meeting, that so men may not rashly and in the heat

40 of discourse engage themselves too soon, which might bias them so much that,

41 instead of consulting the good of the public, they might rather study to

42 support their first opinions, and by a perverse and preposterous sort of shame

43 hazard their country rather than endanger their own reputation, or venture the

44 being suspected to have wanted foresight in the expedients that they at first

45 proposed; and therefore, to prevent this, they take care that they may rather

46 be deliberate than sudden in their motions.

OF THEIR TRADES, AND MANNER OF LIFE

13 “Agriculture is that which is so universally understood among them that

14 no person, either man or woman, is ignorant of it; they are instructed in it

15 from their childhood, partly by what they learn at school, and partly by

16 practice, they being led out often into the fields about the town, where they

17 not only see others at work but are likewise exercised in it themselves.

18 Besides agriculture, which is so common to them all, every man has some

19 peculiar trade to which he applies himself; such as the manufacture of wool or

20 flax, masonry, smith’s work, or carpenter’s work; for there is no

21 sort of trade that is in great esteem among them. Throughout the island they

22 wear the same sort of clothes, without any other distinction except what is

23 necessary to distinguish the two sexes and the married and unmarried. The

24 fashion never alters, and as it is neither disagreeable nor uneasy, so it is

25 suited to the climate, and calculated both for their summers and winters. Every

26 family makes their own clothes; but all among them, women as well as men, learn

27 one or other of the trades formerly mentioned. Women, for the most part, deal

28 in wool and flax, which suit best with their weakness, leaving the ruder trades

29 to the men. The same trade generally passes down from father to son,

30 inclinations often following descent: but if any man’s genius lies

31 another way he is, by adoption, translated into a family that deals in the

32 trade to which he is inclined; and when that is to be done, care is taken, not

33 only by his father, but by the magistrate, that he may be put to a discreet and

34 good man: and if, after a person has learned one trade, he desires to acquire

35 another, that is also allowed, and is managed in the same manner as the former.

36 When he has learned both, he follows that which he likes best, unless the

37 public has more occasion for the other.

38 The chief, and almost the only, business of the Syphogrants is to take care

39 that no man may live idle, but that every one may follow his trade diligently;

40 yet they do not wear themselves out with perpetual toil from morning to night,

41 as if they were beasts of burden, which as it is indeed a heavy slavery, so it

42 is everywhere the common course of life amongst all mechanics except the

43 Utopians: but they, dividing the day and night into twenty-four hours, appoint

44 six of these for work, three of which are before dinner and three after; they

45 then sup, and at eight o’clock, counting from noon, go to bed and sleep

46 eight hours: the rest of their time, besides that taken up in work, eating, and

47 sleeping, is left to every man’s discretion; yet they are not to abuse

48 that interval to luxury and idleness, but must employ it in some proper

49 exercise, according to their various inclinations, which is, for the most part,

50 reading. It is ordinary to have public lectures every morning before daybreak,

51 at which none are obliged to appear but those who are marked out for

52 literature; yet a great many, both men and women, of all ranks, go to hear

53 lectures of one sort or other, according to their inclinations: but if others

54 that are not made for contemplation, choose rather to employ themselves at that

55 time in their trades, as many of them do, they are not hindered, but are rather

56 commended, as men that take care to serve their country. After supper they

57 spend an hour in some diversion, in summer in their gardens, and in winter in

58 the halls where they eat, where they entertain each other either with music or

59 discourse. They do not so much as know dice, or any such foolish and

60 mischievous games. They have, however, two sorts of games not unlike our chess;

61 the one is between several numbers, in which one number, as it were, consumes

62 another; the other resembles a battle between the virtues and the vices, in

63 which the enmity in the vices among themselves, and their agreement against

64 virtue, is not unpleasantly represented; together with the special opposition

65 between the particular virtues and vices; as also the methods by which vice

66 either openly assaults or secretly undermines virtue; and virtue, on the other

67 hand, resists it. But the time appointed for labour is to be narrowly examined,

68 otherwise you may imagine that since there are only six hours appointed for

69 work, they may fall under a scarcity of necessary provisions: but it is so far

70 from being true that this time is not sufficient for supplying them with plenty

71 of all things, either necessary or convenient, that it is rather too much; and

72 this you will easily apprehend if you consider how great a part of all other

73 nations is quite idle. First, women generally do little, who are the half of

74 mankind; and if some few women are diligent, their husbands are idle: then

75 consider the great company of idle priests, and of those that are called

76 religious men; add to these all rich men, chiefly those that have estates in

77 land, who are called noblemen and gentlemen, together with their families, made

78 up of idle persons, that are kept more for show than use; add to these all

79 those strong and lusty beggars that go about pretending some disease in excuse

80 for their begging; and upon the whole account you will find that the number of

81 those by whose labours mankind is supplied is much less than you perhaps

82 imagined: then consider how few of those that work are employed in labours that

83 are of real service, for we, who measure all things by money, give rise to many

84 trades that are both vain and superfluous, and serve only to support riot and

85 luxury: for if those who work were employed only in such things as the

86 conveniences of life require, there would be such an abundance of them that the

87 prices of them would so sink that tradesmen could not be maintained by their

88 gains; if all those who labour about useless things were set to more profitable

89 employments, and if all they that languish out their lives in sloth and

90 idleness (every one of whom consumes as much as any two of the men that are at

91 work) were forced to labour, you may easily imagine that a small proportion of

92 time would serve for doing all that is either necessary, profitable, or

93 pleasant to mankind, especially while pleasure is kept within its due bounds:

94 this appears very plainly in Utopia; for there, in a great city, and in all the

95 territory that lies round it, you can scarce find five hundred, either men or

96 women, by their age and strength capable of labour, that are not engaged in it.

97 Even the Syphogrants, though excused by the law, yet do not excuse themselves,

98 but work, that by their examples they may excite the industry of the rest of

99 the people; the like exemption is allowed to those who, being recommended to

100 the people by the priests, are, by the secret suffrages of the Syphogrants,

101 privileged from labour, that they may apply themselves wholly to study; and if

102 any of these fall short of those hopes that they seemed at first to give, they

103 are obliged to return to work; and sometimes a mechanic that so employs his

104 leisure hours as to make a considerable advancement in learning is eased from

105 being a tradesman and ranked among their learned men. Out of these they choose

106 their ambassadors, their priests, their Tranibors, and the Prince himself,

107 anciently called their Barzenes, but is called of late their Ademus.

108 “And thus from the great numbers among them that are neither suffered to

109 be idle nor to be employed in any fruitless labour, you may easily make the

110 estimate how much may be done in those few hours in which they are obliged to

111 labour. But, besides all that has been already said, it is to be considered

112 that the needful arts among them are managed with less labour than anywhere

113 else. The building or the repairing of houses among us employ many hands,

114 because often a thriftless heir suffers a house that his father built to fall

115 into decay, so that his successor must, at a great cost, repair that which he

116 might have kept up with a small charge; it frequently happens that the same

117 house which one person built at a vast expense is neglected by another, who

118 thinks he has a more delicate sense of the beauties of architecture, and he,

119 suffering it to fall to ruin, builds another at no less charge. But among the

120 Utopians all things are so regulated that men very seldom build upon a new

121 piece of ground, and are not only very quick in repairing their houses, but

122 show their foresight in preventing their decay, so that their buildings are

123 preserved very long with but very little labour, and thus the builders, to whom

124 that care belongs, are often without employment, except the hewing of timber

125 and the squaring of stones, that the materials may be in readiness for raising

126 a building very suddenly when there is any occasion for it. As to their

127 clothes, observe how little work is spent in them; while they are at labour

128 they are clothed with leather and skins, cut carelessly about them, which will

129 last seven years, and when they appear in public they put on an upper garment

130 which hides the other; and these are all of one colour, and that is the natural

131 colour of the wool. As they need less woollen cloth than is used anywhere else,

132 so that which they make use of is much less costly; they use linen cloth more,

133 but that is prepared with less labour, and they value cloth only by the

134 whiteness of the linen or the cleanness of the wool, without much regard to the

135 fineness of the thread. While in other places four or five upper garments of

136 woollen cloth of different colours, and as many vests of silk, will scarce

137 serve one man, and while those that are nicer think ten too few, every man

138 there is content with one, which very often serves him two years; nor is there

139 anything that can tempt a man to desire more, for if he had them he would

140 neither be the, warmer nor would he make one jot the better appearance for it.

141 And thus, since they are all employed in some useful labour, and since they

142 content themselves with fewer things, it falls out that there is a great

143 abundance of all things among them; so that it frequently happens that, for

144 want of other work, vast numbers are sent out to mend the highways; but when no

145 public undertaking is to be performed, the hours of working are lessened. The

146 magistrates never engage the people in unnecessary labour, since the chief end

147 of the constitution is to regulate labour by the necessities of the public, and

148 to allow the people as much time as is necessary for the improvement of their

149 minds, in which they think the happiness of life consists.

OF THEIR TRAFFIC

16 “But it is now time to explain to you the mutual intercourse of this

17 people, their commerce, and the rules by which all things are distributed among

18 them.

19 “As their cities are composed of families, so their families are made up

20 of those that are nearly related to one another. Their women, when they grow

21 up, are married out, but all the males, both children and grand-children, live

22 still in the same house, in great obedience to their common parent, unless age

23 has weakened his understanding, and in that case he that is next to him in age

24 comes in his room; but lest any city should become either too great, or by any

25 accident be dispeopled, provision is made that none of their cities may contain

26 above six thousand families, besides those of the country around it. No family

27 may have less than ten and more than sixteen persons in it, but there can be no

28 determined number for the children under age; this rule is easily observed by

29 removing some of the children of a more fruitful couple to any other family

30 that does not abound so much in them. By the same rule they supply cities that

31 do not increase so fast from others that breed faster; and if there is any

32 increase over the whole island, then they draw out a number of their citizens

33 out of the several towns and send them over to the neighbouring continent,

34 where, if they find that the inhabitants have more soil than they can well

35 cultivate, they fix a colony, taking the inhabitants into their society if they

36 are willing to live with them; and where they do that of their own accord, they

37 quickly enter into their method of life and conform to their rules, and this

38 proves a happiness to both nations; for, according to their constitution, such

39 care is taken of the soil that it becomes fruitful enough for both, though it

40 might be otherwise too narrow and barren for any one of them. But if the

41 natives refuse to conform themselves to their laws they drive them out of those

42 bounds which they mark out for themselves, and use force if they resist, for

43 they account it a very just cause of war for a nation to hinder others from

44 possessing a part of that soil of which they make no use, but which is suffered

45 to lie idle and uncultivated, since every man has, by the law of nature, a

46 right to such a waste portion of the earth as is necessary for his subsistence.

47 If an accident has so lessened the number of the inhabitants of any of their

48 towns that it cannot be made up from the other towns of the island without

49 diminishing them too much (which is said to have fallen out but twice since

50 they were first a people, when great numbers were carried off by the plague),

51 the loss is then supplied by recalling as many as are wanted from their

52 colonies, for they will abandon these rather than suffer the towns in the

53 island to sink too low.

54 “But to return to their manner of living in society: the oldest man of

55 every family, as has been already said, is its governor; wives serve their

56 husbands, and children their parents, and always the younger serves the elder.

57 Every city is divided into four equal parts, and in the middle of each there is

58 a market-place. What is brought thither, and manufactured by the several

59 families, is carried from thence to houses appointed for that purpose, in which

60 all things of a sort are laid by themselves; and thither every father goes, and

61 takes whatsoever he or his family stand in need of, without either paying for

62 it or leaving anything in exchange. There is no reason for giving a denial to

63 any person, since there is such plenty of everything among them; and there is

64 no danger of a man’s asking for more than he needs; they have no

65 inducements to do this, since they are sure they shall always be supplied: it

66 is the fear of want that makes any of the whole race of animals either greedy

67 or ravenous; but, besides fear, there is in man a pride that makes him fancy it

68 a particular glory to excel others in pomp and excess; but by the laws of the

69 Utopians, there is no room for this. Near these markets there are others for

70 all sorts of provisions, where there are not only herbs, fruits, and bread, but

71 also fish, fowl, and cattle. There are also, without their towns, places

72 appointed near some running water for killing their beasts and for washing away

73 their filth, which is done by their slaves; for they suffer none of their

74 citizens to kill their cattle, because they think that pity and good-nature,

75 which are among the best of those affections that are born with us, are much

76 impaired by the butchering of animals; nor do they suffer anything that is foul

77 or unclean to be brought within their towns, lest the air should be infected by

78 ill-smells, which might prejudice their health. In every street there are great

79 halls, that lie at an equal distance from each other, distinguished by

80 particular names. The Syphogrants dwell in those that are set over thirty

81 families, fifteen lying on one side of it, and as many on the other. In these

82 halls they all meet and have their repasts; the stewards of every one of them

83 come to the market-place at an appointed hour, and according to the number of

84 those that belong to the hall they carry home provisions. But they take more

85 care of their sick than of any others; these are lodged and provided for in

86 public hospitals. They have belonging to every town four hospitals, that are

87 built without their walls, and are so large that they may pass for little

88 towns; by this means, if they had ever such a number of sick persons, they

89 could lodge them conveniently, and at such a distance that such of them as are

90 sick of infectious diseases may be kept so far from the rest that there can be

91 no danger of contagion. The hospitals are furnished and stored with all things

92 that are convenient for the ease and recovery of the sick; and those that are

93 put in them are looked after with such tender and watchful care, and are so

94 constantly attended by their skilful physicians, that as none is sent to them

95 against their will, so there is scarce one in a whole town that, if he should

96 fall ill, would not choose rather to go thither than lie sick at home.

97 “After the steward of the hospitals has taken for the sick whatsoever the

98 physician prescribes, then the best things that are left in the market are

99 distributed equally among the halls in proportion to their numbers; only, in

100 the first place, they serve the Prince, the Chief Priest, the Tranibors, the

101 Ambassadors, and strangers, if there are any, which, indeed, falls out but

102 seldom, and for whom there are houses, well furnished, particularly appointed

103 for their reception when they come among them. At the hours of dinner and

104 supper the whole Syphogranty being called together by sound of trumpet, they

105 meet and eat together, except only such as are in the hospitals or lie sick at

106 home. Yet, after the halls are served, no man is hindered to carry provisions

107 home from the market-place, for they know that none does that but for some good

108 reason; for though any that will may eat at home, yet none does it willingly,

109 since it is both ridiculous and foolish for any to give themselves the trouble

110 to make ready an ill dinner at home when there is a much more plentiful one

111 made ready for him so near hand. All the uneasy and sordid services about these

112 halls are performed by their slaves; but the dressing and cooking their meat,

113 and the ordering their tables, belong only to the women, all those of every

114 family taking it by turns. They sit at three or more tables, according to their

115 number; the men sit towards the wall, and the women sit on the other side, that

116 if any of them should be taken suddenly ill, which is no uncommon case amongst

117 women with child, she may, without disturbing the rest, rise and go to the

118 nurses’ room (who are there with the sucking children), where there is

119 always clean water at hand and cradles, in which they may lay the young

120 children if there is occasion for it, and a fire, that they may shift and dress

121 them before it. Every child is nursed by its own mother if death or sickness

122 does not intervene; and in that case the Syphogrants’ wives find out a

123 nurse quickly, which is no hard matter, for any one that can do it offers

124 herself cheerfully; for as they are much inclined to that piece of mercy, so

125 the child whom they nurse considers the nurse as its mother. All the children

126 under five years old sit among the nurses; the rest of the younger sort of both

127 sexes, till they are fit for marriage, either serve those that sit at table,

128 or, if they are not strong enough for that, stand by them in great silence and

129 eat what is given them; nor have they any other formality of dining. In the

130 middle of the first table, which stands across the upper end of the hall, sit

131 the Syphogrant and his wife, for that is the chief and most conspicuous place;

132 next to him sit two of the most ancient, for there go always four to a mess. If

133 there is a temple within the Syphogranty, the Priest and his wife sit with the

134 Syphogrant above all the rest; next them there is a mixture of old and young,

135 who are so placed that as the young are set near others, so they are mixed with

136 the more ancient; which, they say, was appointed on this account: that the

137 gravity of the old people, and the reverence that is due to them, might

138 restrain the younger from all indecent words and gestures. Dishes are not

139 served up to the whole table at first, but the best are first set before the

140 old, whose seats are distinguished from the young, and, after them, all the

141 rest are served alike. The old men distribute to the younger any curious meats

142 that happen to be set before them, if there is not such an abundance of them

143 that the whole company may be served alike.

144 “Thus old men are honoured with a particular respect, yet all the rest

145 fare as well as they. Both dinner and supper are begun with some lecture of

146 morality that is read to them; but it is so short that it is not tedious nor

147 uneasy to them to hear it. From hence the old men take occasion to entertain

148 those about them with some useful and pleasant enlargements; but they do not

149 engross the whole discourse so to themselves during their meals that the

150 younger may not put in for a share; on the contrary, they engage them to talk,

151 that so they may, in that free way of conversation, find out the force of every

152 one’s spirit and observe his temper. They despatch their dinners quickly,

153 but sit long at supper, because they go to work after the one, and are to sleep

154 after the other, during which they think the stomach carries on the concoction

155 more vigorously. They never sup without music, and there is always fruit served

156 up after meat; while they are at table some burn perfumes and sprinkle about

157 fragrant ointments and sweet waters—in short, they want nothing that may

158 cheer up their spirits; they give themselves a large allowance that way, and

159 indulge themselves in all such pleasures as are attended with no inconvenience.

160 Thus do those that are in the towns live together; but in the country, where

161 they live at a great distance, every one eats at home, and no family wants any

162 necessary sort of provision, for it is from them that provisions are sent unto

163 those that live in the towns.

OF THE TRAVELLING OF THE UTOPIANS

19 If any man has a mind to visit his friends that live in some other town, or

20 desires to travel and see the rest of the country, he obtains leave very easily

21 from the Syphogrant and Tranibors, when there is no particular occasion for him

22 at home. Such as travel carry with them a passport from the Prince, which both

23 certifies the licence that is granted for travelling, and limits the time of

24 their return. They are furnished with a waggon and a slave, who drives the oxen

25 and looks after them; but, unless there are women in the company, the waggon is

26 sent back at the end of the journey as a needless encumbrance. While they are

27 on the road they carry no provisions with them, yet they want for nothing, but

28 are everywhere treated as if they were at home. If they stay in any place

29 longer than a night, every one follows his proper occupation, and is very well

30 used by those of his own trade; but if any man goes out of the city to which he

31 belongs without leave, and is found rambling without a passport, he is severely

32 treated, he is punished as a fugitive, and sent home disgracefully; and, if he

33 falls again into the like fault, is condemned to slavery. If any man has a mind

34 to travel only over the precinct of his own city, he may freely do it, with his

35 father’s permission and his wife’s consent; but when he comes into

36 any of the country houses, if he expects to be entertained by them, he must

37 labour with them and conform to their rules; and if he does this, he may freely

38 go over the whole precinct, being then as useful to the city to which he

39 belongs as if he were still within it. Thus you see that there are no idle

40 persons among them, nor pretences of excusing any from labour. There are no

41 taverns, no ale-houses, nor stews among them, nor any other occasions of

42 corrupting each other, of getting into corners, or forming themselves into

43 parties; all men live in full view, so that all are obliged both to perform

44 their ordinary task and to employ themselves well in their spare hours; and it

45 is certain that a people thus ordered must live in great abundance of all

46 things, and these being equally distributed among them, no man can want or be

47 obliged to beg.

48 “In their great council at Amaurot, to which there are three sent from

49 every town once a year, they examine what towns abound in provisions and what

50 are under any scarcity, that so the one may be furnished from the other; and

51 this is done freely, without any sort of exchange; for, according to their

52 plenty or scarcity, they supply or are supplied from one another, so that

53 indeed the whole island is, as it were, one family. When they have thus taken

54 care of their whole country, and laid up stores for two years (which they do to

55 prevent the ill consequences of an unfavourable season), they order an

56 exportation of the overplus, both of corn, honey, wool, flax, wood, wax,

57 tallow, leather, and cattle, which they send out, commonly in great quantities,

58 to other nations. They order a seventh part of all these goods to be freely

59 given to the poor of the countries to which they send them, and sell the rest

60 at moderate rates; and by this exchange they not only bring back those few

61 things that they need at home (for, indeed, they scarce need anything but

62 iron), but likewise a great deal of gold and silver; and by their driving this

63 trade so long, it is not to be imagined how vast a treasure they have got among

64 them, so that now they do not much care whether they sell off their merchandise

65 for money in hand or upon trust. A great part of their treasure is now in

66 bonds; but in all their contracts no private man stands bound, but the writing

67 runs in the name of the town; and the towns that owe them money raise it from

68 those private hands that owe it to them, lay it up in their public chamber, or

69 enjoy the profit of it till the Utopians call for it; and they choose rather to

70 let the greatest part of it lie in their hands, who make advantage by it, than

71 to call for it themselves; but if they see that any of their other neighbours

72 stand more in need of it, then they call it in and lend it to them. Whenever

73 they are engaged in war, which is the only occasion in which their treasure can

74 be usefully employed, they make use of it themselves; in great extremities or

75 sudden accidents they employ it in hiring foreign troops, whom they more

76 willingly expose to danger than their own people; they give them great pay,

77 knowing well that this will work even on their enemies; that it will engage

78 them either to betray their own side, or, at least, to desert it; and that it

79 is the best means of raising mutual jealousies among them. For this end they

80 have an incredible treasure; but they do not keep it as a treasure, but in such

81 a manner as I am almost afraid to tell, lest you think it so extravagant as to

82 be hardly credible. This I have the more reason to apprehend because, if I had

83 not seen it myself, I could not have been easily persuaded to have believed it

84 upon any man’s report.

85 “It is certain that all things appear incredible to us in proportion as

86 they differ from known customs; but one who can judge aright will not wonder to

87 find that, since their constitution differs so much from ours, their value of

88 gold and silver should be measured by a very different standard; for since they

89 have no use for money among themselves, but keep it as a provision against

90 events which seldom happen, and between which there are generally long

91 intervening intervals, they value it no farther than it deserves—that is,

92 in proportion to its use. So that it is plain they must prefer iron either to

93 gold or silver, for men can no more live without iron than without fire or

94 water; but Nature has marked out no use for the other metals so essential as

95 not easily to be dispensed with. The folly of men has enhanced the value of

96 gold and silver because of their scarcity; whereas, on the contrary, it is

97 their opinion that Nature, as an indulgent parent, has freely given us all the

98 best things in great abundance, such as water and earth, but has laid up and

99 hid from us the things that are vain and useless.

100 “If these metals were laid up in any tower in the kingdom it would raise

101 a jealousy of the Prince and Senate, and give birth to that foolish mistrust

102 into which the people are apt to fall—a jealousy of their intending to

103 sacrifice the interest of the public to their own private advantage. If they

104 should work it into vessels, or any sort of plate, they fear that the people

105 might grow too fond of it, and so be unwilling to let the plate be run down, if

106 a war made it necessary, to employ it in paying their soldiers. To prevent all

107 these inconveniences they have fallen upon an expedient which, as it agrees

108 with their other policy, so is it very different from ours, and will scarce

109 gain belief among us who value gold so much, and lay it up so carefully. They

110 eat and drink out of vessels of earth or glass, which make an agreeable

111 appearance, though formed of brittle materials; while they make their

112 chamber-pots and close-stools of gold and silver, and that not only in their

113 public halls but in their private houses. Of the same metals they likewise make

114 chains and fetters for their slaves, to some of which, as a badge of infamy,

115 they hang an earring of gold, and make others wear a chain or a coronet of the

116 same metal; and thus they take care by all possible means to render gold and

117 silver of no esteem; and from hence it is that while other nations part with

118 their gold and silver as unwillingly as if one tore out their bowels, those of

119 Utopia would look on their giving in all they possess of those metals (when

120 there were any use for them) but as the parting with a trifle, or as we would

121 esteem the loss of a penny! They find pearls on their coasts, and diamonds and

122 carbuncles on their rocks; they do not look after them, but, if they find them

123 by chance, they polish them, and with them they adorn their children, who are

124 delighted with them, and glory in them during their childhood; but when they

125 grow to years, and see that none but children use such baubles, they of their

126 own accord, without being bid by their parents, lay them aside, and would be as

127 much ashamed to use them afterwards as children among us, when they come to

128 years, are of their puppets and other toys.

129 “I never saw a clearer instance of the opposite impressions that

130 different customs make on people than I observed in the ambassadors of the

131 Anemolians, who came to Amaurot when I was there. As they came to treat of

132 affairs of great consequence, the deputies from several towns met together to

133 wait for their coming. The ambassadors of the nations that lie near Utopia,

134 knowing their customs, and that fine clothes are in no esteem among them, that

135 silk is despised, and gold is a badge of infamy, used to come very modestly

136 clothed; but the Anemolians, lying more remote, and having had little commerce

137 with them, understanding that they were coarsely clothed, and all in the same

138 manner, took it for granted that they had none of those fine things among them

139 of which they made no use; and they, being a vainglorious rather than a wise

140 people, resolved to set themselves out with so much pomp that they should look

141 like gods, and strike the eyes of the poor Utopians with their splendour. Thus

142 three ambassadors made their entry with a hundred attendants, all clad in

143 garments of different colours, and the greater part in silk; the ambassadors

144 themselves, who were of the nobility of their country, were in cloth-of-gold,

145 and adorned with massy chains, earrings and rings of gold; their caps were

146 covered with bracelets set full of pearls and other gems—in a word, they

147 were set out with all those things that among the Utopians were either the

148 badges of slavery, the marks of infamy, or the playthings of children. It was

149 not unpleasant to see, on the one side, how they looked big, when they compared

150 their rich habits with the plain clothes of the Utopians, who were come out in

151 great numbers to see them make their entry; and, on the other, to observe how

152 much they were mistaken in the impression which they hoped this pomp would have

153 made on them. It appeared so ridiculous a show to all that had never stirred

154 out of their country, and had not seen the customs of other nations, that

155 though they paid some reverence to those that were the most meanly clad, as if

156 they had been the ambassadors, yet when they saw the ambassadors themselves so

157 full of gold and chains, they looked upon them as slaves, and forbore to treat

158 them with reverence. You might have seen the children who were grown big enough

159 to despise their playthings, and who had thrown away their jewels, call to

160 their mothers, push them gently, and cry out, ‘See that great fool, that

161 wears pearls and gems as if he were yet a child!’ while their mothers

162 very innocently replied, ‘Hold your peace! this, I believe, is one of the

163 ambassadors’ fools.’ Others censured the fashion of their chains,

164 and observed, ‘That they were of no use, for they were too slight to bind

165 their slaves, who could easily break them; and, besides, hung so loose about

166 them that they thought it easy to throw their away, and so get from

167 them.” But after the ambassadors had stayed a day among them, and saw so

168 vast a quantity of gold in their houses (which was as much despised by them as

169 it was esteemed in other nations), and beheld more gold and silver in the

170 chains and fetters of one slave than all their ornaments amounted to, their

171 plumes fell, and they were ashamed of all that glory for which they had formed

172 valued themselves, and accordingly laid it aside—a resolution that they

173 immediately took when, on their engaging in some free discourse with the

174 Utopians, they discovered their sense of such things and their other customs.

175 The Utopians wonder how any man should be so much taken with the glaring

176 doubtful lustre of a jewel or a stone, that can look up to a star or to the sun

177 himself; or how any should value himself because his cloth is made of a finer

178 thread; for, how fine soever that thread may be, it was once no better than the

179 fleece of a sheep, and that sheep, was a sheep still, for all its wearing it.

180 They wonder much to hear that gold, which in itself is so useless a thing,

181 should be everywhere so much esteemed that even man, for whom it was made, and

182 by whom it has its value, should yet be thought of less value than this metal;

183 that a man of lead, who has no more sense than a log of wood, and is as bad as

184 he is foolish, should have many wise and good men to serve him, only because he

185 has a great heap of that metal; and that if it should happen that by some

186 accident or trick of law (which, sometimes produces as great changes as chance

187 itself) all this wealth should pass from the master to the meanest varlet of

188 his whole family, he himself would very soon become one of his servants, as if

189 he were a thing that belonged to his wealth, and so were bound to follow its

190 fortune! But they much more admire and detest the folly of those who, when they

191 see a rich man, though they neither owe him anything, nor are in any sort

192 dependent on his bounty, yet, merely because he is rich, give him little less

193 than divine honours, even though they know him to be so covetous and

194 base-minded that, notwithstanding all his wealth, he will not part with one

195 farthing of it to them as long as he lives!

196 “These and such like notions have that people imbibed, partly from their

197 education, being bred in a country whose customs and laws are opposite to all

198 such foolish maxims, and partly from their learning and studies—for

199 though there are but few in any town that are so wholly excused from labour as

200 to give themselves entirely up to their studies (these being only such persons

201 as discover from their childhood an extraordinary capacity and disposition for

202 letters), yet their children and a great part of the nation, both men and

203 women, are taught to spend those hours in which they are not obliged to work in

204 reading; and this they do through the whole progress of life. They have all

205 their learning in their own tongue, which is both a copious and pleasant

206 language, and in which a man can fully express his mind; it runs over a great

207 tract of many countries, but it is not equally pure in all places. They had

208 never so much as heard of the names of any of those philosophers that are so

209 famous in these parts of the world, before we went among them; and yet they had

210 made the same discoveries as the Greeks, both in music, logic, arithmetic, and

211 geometry. But as they are almost in everything equal to the ancient

212 philosophers, so they far exceed our modern logicians for they have never yet

213 fallen upon the barbarous niceties that our youth are forced to learn in those

214 trifling logical schools that are among us. They are so far from minding

215 chimeras and fantastical images made in the mind that none of them could

216 comprehend what we meant when we talked to them of a man in the abstract as

217 common to all men in particular (so that though we spoke of him as a thing that

218 we could point at with our fingers, yet none of them could perceive him) and

219 yet distinct from every one, as if he were some monstrous Colossus or giant;

220 yet, for all this ignorance of these empty notions, they knew astronomy, and

221 were perfectly acquainted with the motions of the heavenly bodies; and have

222 many instruments, well contrived and divided, by which they very accurately

223 compute the course and positions of the sun, moon, and stars. But for the cheat

224 of divining by the stars, by their oppositions or conjunctions, it has not so

225 much as entered into their thoughts. They have a particular sagacity, founded

226 upon much observation, in judging of the weather, by which they know when they

227 may look for rain, wind, or other alterations in the air; but as to the

228 philosophy of these things, the cause of the saltness of the sea, of its ebbing

229 and flowing, and of the original and nature both of the heavens and the earth,

230 they dispute of them partly as our ancient philosophers have done, and partly

231 upon some new hypothesis, in which, as they differ from them, so they do not in

232 all things agree among themselves.

233 “As to moral philosophy, they have the same disputes among them as we

234 have here. They examine what are properly good, both for the body and the mind;

235 and whether any outward thing can be called truly *good*, or if that term

236 belong only to the endowments of the soul. They inquire, likewise, into the

237 nature of virtue and pleasure. But their chief dispute is concerning the

238 happiness of a man, and wherein it consists—whether in some one thing or

239 in a great many. They seem, indeed, more inclinable to that opinion that

240 places, if not the whole, yet the chief part, of a man’s happiness in

241 pleasure; and, what may seem more strange, they make use of arguments even from

242 religion, notwithstanding its severity and roughness, for the support of that

243 opinion so indulgent to pleasure; for they never dispute concerning happiness

244 without fetching some arguments from the principles of religion as well as from

245 natural reason, since without the former they reckon that all our inquiries

246 after happiness must be but conjectural and defective.

247 “These are their religious principles:—That the soul of man is

248 immortal, and that God of His goodness has designed that it should be happy;

249 and that He has, therefore, appointed rewards for good and virtuous actions,

250 and punishments for vice, to be distributed after this life. Though these

251 principles of religion are conveyed down among them by tradition, they think

252 that even reason itself determines a man to believe and acknowledge them; and

253 freely confess that if these were taken away, no man would be so insensible as

254 not to seek after pleasure by all possible means, lawful or unlawful, using

255 only this caution—that a lesser pleasure might not stand in the way of a

256 greater, and that no pleasure ought to be pursued that should draw a great deal

257 of pain after it; for they think it the maddest thing in the world to pursue

258 virtue, that is a sour and difficult thing, and not only to renounce the

259 pleasures of life, but willingly to undergo much pain and trouble, if a man has

260 no prospect of a reward. And what reward can there be for one that has passed

261 his whole life, not only without pleasure, but in pain, if there is nothing to

262 be expected after death? Yet they do not place happiness in all sorts of

263 pleasures, but only in those that in themselves are good and honest. There is a

264 party among them who place happiness in bare virtue; others think that our

265 natures are conducted by virtue to happiness, as that which is the chief good

266 of man. They define virtue thus—that it is a living according to Nature,

267 and think that we are made by God for that end; they believe that a man then

268 follows the dictates of Nature when he pursues or avoids things according to

269 the direction of reason. They say that the first dictate of reason is the

270 kindling in us a love and reverence for the Divine Majesty, to whom we owe both

271 all that we have and, all that we can ever hope for. In the next place, reason

272 directs us to keep our minds as free from passion and as cheerful as we can,

273 and that we should consider ourselves as bound by the ties of good-nature and

274 humanity to use our utmost endeavours to help forward the happiness of all

275 other persons; for there never was any man such a morose and severe pursuer of

276 virtue, such an enemy to pleasure, that though he set hard rules for men to

277 undergo, much pain, many watchings, and other rigors, yet did not at the same

278 time advise them to do all they could in order to relieve and ease the

279 miserable, and who did not represent gentleness and good-nature as amiable

280 dispositions. And from thence they infer that if a man ought to advance the

281 welfare and comfort of the rest of mankind (there being no virtue more proper

282 and peculiar to our nature than to ease the miseries of others, to free from

283 trouble and anxiety, in furnishing them with the comforts of life, in which

284 pleasure consists) Nature much more vigorously leads them to do all this for

285 himself. A life of pleasure is either a real evil, and in that case we ought

286 not to assist others in their pursuit of it, but, on the contrary, to keep them

287 from it all we can, as from that which is most hurtful and deadly; or if it is

288 a good thing, so that we not only may but ought to help others to it, why,

289 then, ought not a man to begin with himself? since no man can be more bound to

290 look after the good of another than after his own; for Nature cannot direct us

291 to be good and kind to others, and yet at the same time to be unmerciful and

292 cruel to ourselves. Thus as they define virtue to be living according to

293 Nature, so they imagine that Nature prompts all people on to seek after

294 pleasure as the end of all they do. They also observe that in order to our

295 supporting the pleasures of life, Nature inclines us to enter into society; for

296 there is no man so much raised above the rest of mankind as to be the only

297 favourite of Nature, who, on the contrary, seems to have placed on a level all

298 those that belong to the same species. Upon this they infer that no man ought

299 to seek his own conveniences so eagerly as to prejudice others; and therefore

300 they think that not only all agreements between private persons ought to be

301 observed, but likewise that all those laws ought to be kept which either a good

302 prince has published in due form, or to which a people that is neither

303 oppressed with tyranny nor circumvented by fraud has consented, for

304 distributing those conveniences of life which afford us all our pleasures.

305 “They think it is an evidence of true wisdom for a man to pursue his own

306 advantage as far as the laws allow it, they account it piety to prefer the

307 public good to one’s private concerns, but they think it unjust for a man

308 to seek for pleasure by snatching another man’s pleasures from him; and,

309 on the contrary, they think it a sign of a gentle and good soul for a man to

310 dispense with his own advantage for the good of others, and that by this means

311 a good man finds as much pleasure one way as he parts with another; for as he

312 may expect the like from others when he may come to need it, so, if that should

313 fail him, yet the sense of a good action, and the reflections that he makes on

314 the love and gratitude of those whom he has so obliged, gives the mind more

315 pleasure than the body could have found in that from which it had restrained

316 itself. They are also persuaded that God will make up the loss of those small

317 pleasures with a vast and endless joy, of which religion easily convinces a

318 good soul.

319 “Thus, upon an inquiry into the whole matter, they reckon that all our

320 actions, and even all our virtues, terminate in pleasure, as in our chief end

321 and greatest happiness; and they call every motion or state, either of body or

322 mind, in which Nature teaches us to delight, a pleasure. Thus they cautiously

323 limit pleasure only to those appetites to which Nature leads us; for they say

324 that Nature leads us only to those delights to which reason, as well as sense,

325 carries us, and by which we neither injure any other person nor lose the

326 possession of greater pleasures, and of such as draw no troubles after them.

327 But they look upon those delights which men by a foolish, though common,

328 mistake call pleasure, as if they could change as easily the nature of things

329 as the use of words, as things that greatly obstruct their real happiness,

330 instead of advancing it, because they so entirely possess the minds of those

331 that are once captivated by them with a false notion of pleasure that there is

332 no room left for pleasures of a truer or purer kind.

333 “There are many things that in themselves have nothing that is truly

334 delightful; on the contrary, they have a good deal of bitterness in them; and

335 yet, from our perverse appetites after forbidden objects, are not only ranked

336 among the pleasures, but are made even the greatest designs, of life. Among

337 those who pursue these sophisticated pleasures they reckon such as I mentioned

338 before, who think themselves really the better for having fine clothes; in

339 which they think they are doubly mistaken, both in the opinion they have of

340 their clothes, and in that they have of themselves. For if you consider the use

341 of clothes, why should a fine thread be thought better than a coarse one? And

342 yet these men, as if they had some real advantages beyond others, and did not

343 owe them wholly to their mistakes, look big, seem to fancy themselves to be

344 more valuable, and imagine that a respect is due to them for the sake of a rich

345 garment, to which they would not have pretended if they had been more meanly

346 clothed, and even resent it as an affront if that respect is not paid them. It

347 is also a great folly to be taken with outward marks of respect, which signify

348 nothing; for what true or real pleasure can one man find in another’s

349 standing bare or making legs to him? Will the bending another man’s knees

350 give ease to yours? and will the head’s being bare cure the madness of

351 yours? And yet it is wonderful to see how this false notion of pleasure

352 bewitches many who delight themselves with the fancy of their nobility, and are

353 pleased with this conceit—that they are descended from ancestors who have

354 been held for some successions rich, and who have had great possessions; for

355 this is all that makes nobility at present. Yet they do not think themselves a

356 whit the less noble, though their immediate parents have left none of this

357 wealth to them, or though they themselves have squandered it away. The Utopians

358 have no better opinion of those who are much taken with gems and precious

359 stones, and who account it a degree of happiness next to a divine one if they

360 can purchase one that is very extraordinary, especially if it be of that sort

361 of stones that is then in greatest request, for the same sort is not at all

362 times universally of the same value, nor will men buy it unless it be

363 dismounted and taken out of the gold. The jeweller is then made to give good

364 security, and required solemnly to swear that the stone is true, that, by such

365 an exact caution, a false one might not be bought instead of a true; though, if

366 you were to examine it, your eye could find no difference between the

367 counterfeit and that which is true; so that they are all one to you, as much as

368 if you were blind. Or can it be thought that they who heap up a useless mass of

369 wealth, not for any use that it is to bring them, but merely to please

370 themselves with the contemplation of it, enjoy any true pleasure in it? The

371 delight they find is only a false shadow of joy. Those are no better whose

372 error is somewhat different from the former, and who hide it out of their fear

373 of losing it; for what other name can fit the hiding it in the earth, or,

374 rather, the restoring it to it again, it being thus cut off from being useful

375 either to its owner or to the rest of mankind? And yet the owner, having hid it

376 carefully, is glad, because he thinks he is now sure of it. If it should be

377 stole, the owner, though he might live perhaps ten years after the theft, of

378 which he knew nothing, would find no difference between his having or losing

379 it, for both ways it was equally useless to him.

380 “Among those foolish pursuers of pleasure they reckon all that delight in

381 hunting, in fowling, or gaming, of whose madness they have only heard, for they

382 have no such things among them. But they have asked us, ‘What sort of

383 pleasure is it that men can find in throwing the dice?’ (for if there

384 were any pleasure in it, they think the doing it so often should give one a

385 surfeit of it); ‘and what pleasure can one find in hearing the barking

386 and howling of dogs, which seem rather odious than pleasant sounds?’ Nor

387 can they comprehend the pleasure of seeing dogs run after a hare, more than of

388 seeing one dog run after another; for if the seeing them run is that which

389 gives the pleasure, you have the same entertainment to the eye on both these

390 occasions, since that is the same in both cases. But if the pleasure lies in

391 seeing the hare killed and torn by the dogs, this ought rather to stir pity,

392 that a weak, harmless, and fearful hare should be devoured by strong, fierce,

393 and cruel dogs. Therefore all this business of hunting is, among the Utopians,

394 turned over to their butchers, and those, as has been already said, are all

395 slaves, and they look on hunting as one of the basest parts of a

396 butcher’s work, for they account it both more profitable and more decent

397 to kill those beasts that are more necessary and useful to mankind, whereas the

398 killing and tearing of so small and miserable an animal can only attract the

399 huntsman with a false show of pleasure, from which he can reap but small

400 advantage. They look on the desire of the bloodshed, even of beasts, as a mark

401 of a mind that is already corrupted with cruelty, or that at least, by too

402 frequent returns of so brutal a pleasure, must degenerate into it.

403 “Thus though the rabble of mankind look upon these, and on innumerable

404 other things of the same nature, as pleasures, the Utopians, on the contrary,

405 observing that there is nothing in them truly pleasant, conclude that they are

406 not to be reckoned among pleasures; for though these things may create some

407 tickling in the senses (which seems to be a true notion of pleasure), yet they

408 imagine that this does not arise from the thing itself, but from a depraved

409 custom, which may so vitiate a man’s taste that bitter things may pass

410 for sweet, as women with child think pitch or tallow taste sweeter than honey;

411 but as a man’s sense, when corrupted either by a disease or some ill

412 habit, does not change the nature of other things, so neither can it change the

413 nature of pleasure.

414 “They reckon up several sorts of pleasures, which they call true ones;

415 some belong to the body, and others to the mind. The pleasures of the mind lie

416 in knowledge, and in that delight which the contemplation of truth carries with

417 it; to which they add the joyful reflections on a well-spent life, and the

418 assured hopes of a future happiness. They divide the pleasures of the body into

419 two sorts—the one is that which gives our senses some real delight, and

420 is performed either by recruiting Nature and supplying those parts which feed

421 the internal heat of life by eating and drinking, or when Nature is eased of

422 any surcharge that oppresses it, when we are relieved from sudden pain, or that

423 which arises from satisfying the appetite which Nature has wisely given to lead

424 us to the propagation of the species. There is another kind of pleasure that

425 arises neither from our receiving what the body requires, nor its being

426 relieved when overcharged, and yet, by a secret unseen virtue, affects the

427 senses, raises the passions, and strikes the mind with generous

428 impressions—this is, the pleasure that arises from music. Another kind of

429 bodily pleasure is that which results from an undisturbed and vigorous

430 constitution of body, when life and active spirits seem to actuate every part.

431 This lively health, when entirely free from all mixture of pain, of itself

432 gives an inward pleasure, independent of all external objects of delight; and

433 though this pleasure does not so powerfully affect us, nor act so strongly on

434 the senses as some of the others, yet it may be esteemed as the greatest of all

435 pleasures; and almost all the Utopians reckon it the foundation and basis of

436 all the other joys of life, since this alone makes the state of life easy and

437 desirable, and when this is wanting, a man is really capable of no other

438 pleasure. They look upon freedom from pain, if it does not rise from perfect

439 health, to be a state of stupidity rather than of pleasure. This subject has

440 been very narrowly canvassed among them, and it has been debated whether a firm

441 and entire health could be called a pleasure or not. Some have thought that

442 there was no pleasure but what was ‘excited’ by some sensible

443 motion in the body. But this opinion has been long ago excluded from among

444 them; so that now they almost universally agree that health is the greatest of

445 all bodily pleasures; and that as there is a pain in sickness which is as

446 opposite in its nature to pleasure as sickness itself is to health, so they

447 hold that health is accompanied with pleasure. And if any should say that

448 sickness is not really pain, but that it only carries pain along with it, they

449 look upon that as a fetch of subtlety that does not much alter the matter. It

450 is all one, in their opinion, whether it be said that health is in itself a

451 pleasure, or that it begets a pleasure, as fire gives heat, so it be granted

452 that all those whose health is entire have a true pleasure in the enjoyment of

453 it. And they reason thus:—‘What is the pleasure of eating, but that

454 a man’s health, which had been weakened, does, with the assistance of

455 food, drive away hunger, and so recruiting itself, recovers its former vigour?

456 And being thus refreshed it finds a pleasure in that conflict; and if the

457 conflict is pleasure, the victory must yet breed a greater pleasure, except we

458 fancy that it becomes stupid as soon as it has obtained that which it pursued,

459 and so neither knows nor rejoices in its own welfare.’ If it is said that

460 health cannot be felt, they absolutely deny it; for what man is in health, that

461 does not perceive it when he is awake? Is there any man that is so dull and

462 stupid as not to acknowledge that he feels a delight in health? And what is

463 delight but another name for pleasure?

464 “But, of all pleasures, they esteem those to be most valuable that lie in

465 the mind, the chief of which arise out of true virtue and the witness of a good

466 conscience. They account health the chief pleasure that belongs to the body;

467 for they think that the pleasure of eating and drinking, and all the other

468 delights of sense, are only so far desirable as they give or maintain health;

469 but they are not pleasant in themselves otherwise than as they resist those

470 impressions that our natural infirmities are still making upon us. For as a

471 wise man desires rather to avoid diseases than to take physic, and to be freed

472 from pain rather than to find ease by remedies, so it is more desirable not to

473 need this sort of pleasure than to be obliged to indulge it. If any man

474 imagines that there is a real happiness in these enjoyments, he must then

475 confess that he would be the happiest of all men if he were to lead his life in

476 perpetual hunger, thirst, and itching, and, by consequence, in perpetual

477 eating, drinking, and scratching himself; which any one may easily see would be

478 not only a base, but a miserable, state of a life. These are, indeed, the

479 lowest of pleasures, and the least pure, for we can never relish them but when

480 they are mixed with the contrary pains. The pain of hunger must give us the

481 pleasure of eating, and here the pain out-balances the pleasure. And as the

482 pain is more vehement, so it lasts much longer; for as it begins before the

483 pleasure, so it does not cease but with the pleasure that extinguishes it, and

484 both expire together. They think, therefore, none of those pleasures are to be

485 valued any further than as they are necessary; yet they rejoice in them, and

486 with due gratitude acknowledge the tenderness of the great Author of Nature,

487 who has planted in us appetites, by which those things that are necessary for

488 our preservation are likewise made pleasant to us. For how miserable a thing

489 would life be if those daily diseases of hunger and thirst were to be carried

490 off by such bitter drugs as we must use for those diseases that return seldomer

491 upon us! And thus these pleasant, as well as proper, gifts of Nature maintain

492 the strength and the sprightliness of our bodies.

493 “They also entertain themselves with the other delights let in at their

494 eyes, their ears, and their nostrils as the pleasant relishes and seasoning of

495 life, which Nature seems to have marked out peculiarly for man, since no other

496 sort of animals contemplates the figure and beauty of the universe, nor is

497 delighted with smells any further than as they distinguish meats by them; nor

498 do they apprehend the concords or discords of sound. Yet, in all pleasures

499 whatsoever, they take care that a lesser joy does not hinder a greater, and

500 that pleasure may never breed pain, which they think always follows dishonest

501 pleasures. But they think it madness for a man to wear out the beauty of his

502 face or the force of his natural strength, to corrupt the sprightliness of his

503 body by sloth and laziness, or to waste it by fasting; that it is madness to

504 weaken the strength of his constitution and reject the other delights of life,

505 unless by renouncing his own satisfaction he can either serve the public or

506 promote the happiness of others, for which he expects a greater recompense from

507 God. So that they look on such a course of life as the mark of a mind that is

508 both cruel to itself and ungrateful to the Author of Nature, as if we would not

509 be beholden to Him for His favours, and therefore rejects all His blessings; as

510 one who should afflict himself for the empty shadow of virtue, or for no better

511 end than to render himself capable of bearing those misfortunes which possibly

512 will never happen.

513 “This is their notion of virtue and of pleasure: they think that no

514 man’s reason can carry him to a truer idea of them unless some discovery

515 from heaven should inspire him with sublimer notions. I have not now the

516 leisure to examine whether they think right or wrong in this matter; nor do I

517 judge it necessary, for I have only undertaken to give you an account of their

518 constitution, but not to defend all their principles. I am sure that whatever

519 may be said of their notions, there is not in the whole world either a better

520 people or a happier government. Their bodies are vigorous and lively; and

521 though they are but of a middle stature, and have neither the fruitfullest soil

522 nor the purest air in the world; yet they fortify themselves so well, by their

523 temperate course of life, against the unhealthiness of their air, and by their

524 industry they so cultivate their soil, that there is nowhere to be seen a

525 greater increase, both of corn and cattle, nor are there anywhere healthier men

526 and freer from diseases; for one may there see reduced to practice not only all

527 the art that the husbandman employs in manuring and improving an ill soil, but

528 whole woods plucked up by the roots, and in other places new ones planted,

529 where there were none before. Their principal motive for this is the

530 convenience of carriage, that their timber may be either near their towns or

531 growing on the banks of the sea, or of some rivers, so as to be floated to

532 them; for it is a harder work to carry wood at any distance over land than

533 corn. The people are industrious, apt to learn, as well as cheerful and

534 pleasant, and none can endure more labour when it is necessary; but, except in

535 that case, they love their ease. They are unwearied pursuers of knowledge; for

536 when we had given them some hints of the learning and discipline of the Greeks,

537 concerning whom we only instructed them (for we know that there was nothing

538 among the Romans, except their historians and their poets, that they would

539 value much), it was strange to see how eagerly they were set on learning that

540 language: we began to read a little of it to them, rather in compliance with

541 their importunity than out of any hopes of their reaping from it any great

542 advantage: but, after a very short trial, we found they made such progress,

543 that we saw our labour was like to be more successful than we could have

544 expected: they learned to write their characters and to pronounce their

545 language so exactly, had so quick an apprehension, they remembered it so

546 faithfully, and became so ready and correct in the use of it, that it would

547 have looked like a miracle if the greater part of those whom we taught had not

548 been men both of extraordinary capacity and of a fit age for instruction: they

549 were, for the greatest part, chosen from among their learned men by their chief

550 council, though some studied it of their own accord. In three years’ time

551 they became masters of the whole language, so that they read the best of the

552 Greek authors very exactly. I am, indeed, apt to think that they learned that

553 language the more easily from its having some relation to their own. I believe

554 that they were a colony of the Greeks; for though their language comes nearer

555 the Persian, yet they retain many names, both for their towns and magistrates,

556 that are of Greek derivation. I happened to carry a great many books with me,

557 instead of merchandise, when I sailed my fourth voyage; for I was so far from

558 thinking of soon coming back, that I rather thought never to have returned at

559 all, and I gave them all my books, among which were many of Plato’s and

560 some of Aristotle’s works: I had also Theophrastus on Plants, which, to

561 my great regret, was imperfect; for having laid it carelessly by, while we were

562 at sea, a monkey had seized upon it, and in many places torn out the leaves.

563 They have no books of grammar but Lascares, for I did not carry Theodorus with

564 me; nor have they any dictionaries but Hesichius and Dioscerides. They esteem

565 Plutarch highly, and were much taken with Lucian’s wit and with his

566 pleasant way of writing. As for the poets, they have Aristophanes, Homer,

567 Euripides, and Sophocles of Aldus’s edition; and for historians,

568 Thucydides, Herodotus, and Herodian. One of my companions, Thricius Apinatus,

569 happened to carry with him some of Hippocrates’s works and Galen’s

570 Microtechne, which they hold in great estimation; for though there is no nation

571 in the world that needs physic so little as they do, yet there is not any that

572 honours it so much; they reckon the knowledge of it one of the pleasantest and

573 most profitable parts of philosophy, by which, as they search into the secrets

574 of nature, so they not only find this study highly agreeable, but think that

575 such inquiries are very acceptable to the Author of nature; and imagine, that

576 as He, like the inventors of curious engines amongst mankind, has exposed this

577 great machine of the universe to the view of the only creatures capable of

578 contemplating it, so an exact and curious observer, who admires His

579 workmanship, is much more acceptable to Him than one of the herd, who, like a

580 beast incapable of reason, looks on this glorious scene with the eyes of a dull

581 and unconcerned spectator.

582 “The minds of the Utopians, when fenced with a love for learning, are

583 very ingenious in discovering all such arts as are necessary to carry it to

584 perfection. Two things they owe to us, the manufacture of paper and the art of

585 printing; yet they are not so entirely indebted to us for these discoveries but

586 that a great part of the invention was their own. We showed them some books

587 printed by Aldus, we explained to them the way of making paper and the mystery

588 of printing; but, as we had never practised these arts, we described them in a

589 crude and superficial manner. They seized the hints we gave them; and though at

590 first they could not arrive at perfection, yet by making many essays they at

591 last found out and corrected all their errors and conquered every difficulty.

592 Before this they only wrote on parchment, on reeds, or on the barks of trees;

593 but now they have established the manufactures of paper and set up printing

594 presses, so that, if they had but a good number of Greek authors, they would be

595 quickly supplied with many copies of them: at present, though they have no more

596 than those I have mentioned, yet, by several impressions, they have multiplied

597 them into many thousands. If any man was to go among them that had some

598 extraordinary talent, or that by much travelling had observed the customs of

599 many nations (which made us to be so well received), he would receive a hearty

600 welcome, for they are very desirous to know the state of the whole world. Very

601 few go among them on the account of traffic; for what can a man carry to them

602 but iron, or gold, or silver? which merchants desire rather to export than

603 import to a strange country: and as for their exportation, they think it better

604 to manage that themselves than to leave it to foreigners, for by this means, as

605 they understand the state of the neighbouring countries better, so they keep up

606 the art of navigation which cannot be maintained but by much practice.

OF THEIR SLAVES, AND OF THEIR MARRIAGES

22 “They do not make slaves of prisoners of war, except those that are taken

23 in battle, nor of the sons of their slaves, nor of those of other nations: the

24 slaves among them are only such as are condemned to that state of life for the

25 commission of some crime, or, which is more common, such as their merchants

26 find condemned to die in those parts to which they trade, whom they sometimes

27 redeem at low rates, and in other places have them for nothing. They are kept

28 at perpetual labour, and are always chained, but with this difference, that

29 their own natives are treated much worse than others: they are considered as

30 more profligate than the rest, and since they could not be restrained by the

31 advantages of so excellent an education, are judged worthy of harder usage.

32 Another sort of slaves are the poor of the neighbouring countries, who offer of

33 their own accord to come and serve them: they treat these better, and use them

34 in all other respects as well as their own countrymen, except their imposing

35 more labour upon them, which is no hard task to those that have been accustomed

36 to it; and if any of these have a mind to go back to their own country, which,

37 indeed, falls out but seldom, as they do not force them to stay, so they do not

38 send them away empty-handed.

39 “I have already told you with what care they look after their sick, so

40 that nothing is left undone that can contribute either to their ease or health;

41 and for those who are taken with fixed and incurable diseases, they use all

42 possible ways to cherish them and to make their lives as comfortable as

43 possible. They visit them often and take great pains to make their time pass

44 off easily; but when any is taken with a torturing and lingering pain, so that

45 there is no hope either of recovery or ease, the priests and magistrates come

46 and exhort them, that, since they are now unable to go on with the business of

47 life, are become a burden to themselves and to all about them, and they have

48 really out-lived themselves, they should no longer nourish such a rooted

49 distemper, but choose rather to die since they cannot live but in much misery;

50 being assured that if they thus deliver themselves from torture, or are willing

51 that others should do it, they shall be happy after death: since, by their

52 acting thus, they lose none of the pleasures, but only the troubles of life,

53 they think they behave not only reasonably but in a manner consistent with

54 religion and piety; because they follow the advice given them by their priests,

55 who are the expounders of the will of God. Such as are wrought on by these

56 persuasions either starve themselves of their own accord, or take opium, and by

57 that means die without pain. But no man is forced on this way of ending his

58 life; and if they cannot be persuaded to it, this does not induce them to fail

59 in their attendance and care of them: but as they believe that a voluntary

60 death, when it is chosen upon such an authority, is very honourable, so if any

61 man takes away his own life without the approbation of the priests and the

62 senate, they give him none of the honours of a decent funeral, but throw his

63 body into a ditch.

64 “Their women are not married before eighteen nor their men before

65 two-and-twenty, and if any of them run into forbidden embraces before marriage

66 they are severely punished, and the privilege of marriage is denied them unless

67 they can obtain a special warrant from the Prince. Such disorders cast a great

68 reproach upon the master and mistress of the family in which they happen, for

69 it is supposed that they have failed in their duty. The reason of punishing

70 this so severely is, because they think that if they were not strictly

71 restrained from all vagrant appetites, very few would engage in a state in

72 which they venture the quiet of their whole lives, by being confined to one

73 person, and are obliged to endure all the inconveniences with which it is

74 accompanied. In choosing their wives they use a method that would appear to us

75 very absurd and ridiculous, but it is constantly observed among them, and is

76 accounted perfectly consistent with wisdom. Before marriage some grave matron

77 presents the bride, naked, whether she is a virgin or a widow, to the

78 bridegroom, and after that some grave man presents the bridegroom, naked, to

79 the bride. We, indeed, both laughed at this, and condemned it as very indecent.

80 But they, on the other hand, wondered at the folly of the men of all other

81 nations, who, if they are but to buy a horse of a small value, are so cautious

82 that they will see every part of him, and take off both his saddle and all his

83 other tackle, that there may be no secret ulcer hid under any of them, and that

84 yet in the choice of a wife, on which depends the happiness or unhappiness of

85 the rest of his life, a man should venture upon trust, and only see about a

86 handsbreadth of the face, all the rest of the body being covered, under which

87 may lie hid what may be contagious as well as loathsome. All men are not so

88 wise as to choose a woman only for her good qualities, and even wise men

89 consider the body as that which adds not a little to the mind, and it is

90 certain there may be some such deformity covered with clothes as may totally

91 alienate a man from his wife, when it is too late to part with her; if such a

92 thing is discovered after marriage a man has no remedy but patience; they,

93 therefore, think it is reasonable that there should be good provision made

94 against such mischievous frauds.

95 “There was so much the more reason for them to make a regulation in this

96 matter, because they are the only people of those parts that neither allow of

97 polygamy nor of divorces, except in the case of adultery or insufferable

98 perverseness, for in these cases the Senate dissolves the marriage and grants

99 the injured person leave to marry again; but the guilty are made infamous and

100 are never allowed the privilege of a second marriage. None are suffered to put

101 away their wives against their wills, from any great calamity that may have

102 fallen on their persons, for they look on it as the height of cruelty and

103 treachery to abandon either of the married persons when they need most the

104 tender care of their consort, and that chiefly in the case of old age, which,

105 as it carries many diseases along with it, so it is a disease of itself. But it

106 frequently falls out that when a married couple do not well agree, they, by

107 mutual consent, separate, and find out other persons with whom they hope they

108 may live more happily; yet this is not done without obtaining leave of the

109 Senate, which never admits of a divorce but upon a strict inquiry made, both by

110 the senators and their wives, into the grounds upon which it is desired, and

111 even when they are satisfied concerning the reasons of it they go on but

112 slowly, for they imagine that too great easiness in granting leave for new

113 marriages would very much shake the kindness of married people. They punish

114 severely those that defile the marriage bed; if both parties are married they

115 are divorced, and the injured persons may marry one another, or whom they

116 please, but the adulterer and the adulteress are condemned to slavery, yet if

117 either of the injured persons cannot shake off the love of the married person

118 they may live with them still in that state, but they must follow them to that

119 labour to which the slaves are condemned, and sometimes the repentance of the

120 condemned, together with the unshaken kindness of the innocent and injured

121 person, has prevailed so far with the Prince that he has taken off the

122 sentence; but those that relapse after they are once pardoned are punished with

123 death.

124 “Their law does not determine the punishment for other crimes, but that

125 is left to the Senate, to temper it according to the circumstances of the fact.

126 Husbands have power to correct their wives and parents to chastise their

127 children, unless the fault is so great that a public punishment is thought

128 necessary for striking terror into others. For the most part slavery is the

129 punishment even of the greatest crimes, for as that is no less terrible to the

130 criminals themselves than death, so they think the preserving them in a state

131 of servitude is more for the interest of the commonwealth than killing them,

132 since, as their labour is a greater benefit to the public than their death

133 could be, so the sight of their misery is a more lasting terror to other men

134 than that which would be given by their death. If their slaves rebel, and will

135 not bear their yoke and submit to the labour that is enjoined them, they are

136 treated as wild beasts that cannot be kept in order, neither by a prison nor by

137 their chains, and are at last put to death. But those who bear their punishment

138 patiently, and are so much wrought on by that pressure that lies so hard on

139 them, that it appears they are really more troubled for the crimes they have

140 committed than for the miseries they suffer, are not out of hope, but that, at

141 last, either the Prince will, by his prerogative, or the people, by their

142 intercession, restore them again to their liberty, or, at least, very much

143 mitigate their slavery. He that tempts a married woman to adultery is no less

144 severely punished than he that commits it, for they believe that a deliberate

145 design to commit a crime is equal to the fact itself, since its not taking

146 effect does not make the person that miscarried in his attempt at all the less

147 guilty.

148 “They take great pleasure in fools, and as it is thought a base and

149 unbecoming thing to use them ill, so they do not think it amiss for people to

150 divert themselves with their folly; and, in their opinion, this is a great

151 advantage to the fools themselves; for if men were so sullen and severe as not

152 at all to please themselves with their ridiculous behaviour and foolish

153 sayings, which is all that they can do to recommend themselves to others, it

154 could not be expected that they would be so well provided for nor so tenderly

155 used as they must otherwise be. If any man should reproach another for his

156 being misshaped or imperfect in any part of his body, it would not at all be

157 thought a reflection on the person so treated, but it would be accounted

158 scandalous in him that had upbraided another with what he could not help. It is

159 thought a sign of a sluggish and sordid mind not to preserve carefully

160 one’s natural beauty; but it is likewise infamous among them to use

161 paint. They all see that no beauty recommends a wife so much to her husband as

162 the probity of her life and her obedience; for as some few are caught and held

163 only by beauty, so all are attracted by the other excellences which charm all

164 the world.

165 “As they fright men from committing crimes by punishments, so they invite

166 them to the love of virtue by public honours; therefore they erect statues to

167 the memories of such worthy men as have deserved well of their country, and set

168 these in their market-places, both to perpetuate the remembrance of their

169 actions and to be an incitement to their posterity to follow their example.

170 “If any man aspires to any office he is sure never to compass it. They

171 all live easily together, for none of the magistrates are either insolent or

172 cruel to the people; they affect rather to be called fathers, and, by being

173 really so, they well deserve the name; and the people pay them all the marks of

174 honour the more freely because none are exacted from them. The Prince himself

175 has no distinction, either of garments or of a crown; but is only distinguished

176 by a sheaf of corn carried before him; as the High Priest is also known by his

177 being preceded by a person carrying a wax light.

178 “They have but few laws, and such is their constitution that they need

179 not many. They very much condemn other nations whose laws, together with the

180 commentaries on them, swell up to so many volumes; for they think it an

181 unreasonable thing to oblige men to obey a body of laws that are both of such a

182 bulk, and so dark as not to be read and understood by every one of the

183 subjects.

184 “They have no lawyers among them, for they consider them as a sort of

185 people whose profession it is to disguise matters and to wrest the laws, and,

186 therefore, they think it is much better that every man should plead his own

187 cause, and trust it to the judge, as in other places the client trusts it to a

188 counsellor; by this means they both cut off many delays and find out truth more

189 certainly; for after the parties have laid open the merits of the cause,

190 without those artifices which lawyers are apt to suggest, the judge examines

191 the whole matter, and supports the simplicity of such well-meaning persons,

192 whom otherwise crafty men would be sure to run down; and thus they avoid those

193 evils which appear very remarkably among all those nations that labour under a

194 vast load of laws. Every one of them is skilled in their law; for, as it is a

195 very short study, so the plainest meaning of which words are capable is always

196 the sense of their laws; and they argue thus: all laws are promulgated for this

197 end, that every man may know his duty; and, therefore, the plainest and most

198 obvious sense of the words is that which ought to be put upon them, since a

199 more refined exposition cannot be easily comprehended, and would only serve to

200 make the laws become useless to the greater part of mankind, and especially to

201 those who need most the direction of them; for it is all one not to make a law

202 at all or to couch it in such terms that, without a quick apprehension and much

203 study, a man cannot find out the true meaning of it, since the generality of

204 mankind are both so dull, and so much employed in their several trades, that

205 they have neither the leisure nor the capacity requisite for such an inquiry.

206 “Some of their neighbours, who are masters of their own liberties (having

207 long ago, by the assistance of the Utopians, shaken off the yoke of tyranny,

208 and being much taken with those virtues which they observe among them), have

209 come to desire that they would send magistrates to govern them, some changing

210 them every year, and others every five years; at the end of their government

211 they bring them back to Utopia, with great expressions of honour and esteem,

212 and carry away others to govern in their stead. In this they seem to have

213 fallen upon a very good expedient for their own happiness and safety; for since

214 the good or ill condition of a nation depends so much upon their magistrates,

215 they could not have made a better choice than by pitching on men whom no

216 advantages can bias; for wealth is of no use to them, since they must so soon

217 go back to their own country, and they, being strangers among them, are not

218 engaged in any of their heats or animosities; and it is certain that when

219 public judicatories are swayed, either by avarice or partial affections, there

220 must follow a dissolution of justice, the chief sinew of society.

221 “The Utopians call those nations that come and ask magistrates from them

222 Neighbours; but those to whom they have been of more particular service,

223 Friends; and as all other nations are perpetually either making leagues or

224 breaking them, they never enter into an alliance with any state. They think

225 leagues are useless things, and believe that if the common ties of humanity do

226 not knit men together, the faith of promises will have no great effect; and

227 they are the more confirmed in this by what they see among the nations round

228 about them, who are no strict observers of leagues and treaties. We know how

229 religiously they are observed in Europe, more particularly where the Christian

230 doctrine is received, among whom they are sacred and inviolable! which is

231 partly owing to the justice and goodness of the princes themselves, and partly

232 to the reverence they pay to the popes, who, as they are the most religious

233 observers of their own promises, so they exhort all other princes to perform

234 theirs, and, when fainter methods do not prevail, they compel them to it by the

235 severity of the pastoral censure, and think that it would be the most indecent

236 thing possible if men who are particularly distinguished by the title of

237 ‘The Faithful’ should not religiously keep the faith of their

238 treaties. But in that new-found world, which is not more distant from us in

239 situation than the people are in their manners and course of life, there is no

240 trusting to leagues, even though they were made with all the pomp of the most

241 sacred ceremonies; on the contrary, they are on this account the sooner broken,

242 some slight pretence being found in the words of the treaties, which are

243 purposely couched in such ambiguous terms that they can never be so strictly

244 bound but they will always find some loophole to escape at, and thus they break

245 both their leagues and their faith; and this is done with such impudence, that

246 those very men who value themselves on having suggested these expedients to

247 their princes would, with a haughty scorn, declaim against such craft; or, to

248 speak plainer, such fraud and deceit, if they found private men make use of it

249 in their bargains, and would readily say that they deserved to be hanged.

250 “By this means it is that all sort of justice passes in the world for a

251 low-spirited and vulgar virtue, far below the dignity of royal

252 greatness—or at least there are set up two sorts of justice; the one is

253 mean and creeps on the ground, and, therefore, becomes none but the lower part

254 of mankind, and so must be kept in severely by many restraints, that it may not

255 break out beyond the bounds that are set to it; the other is the peculiar

256 virtue of princes, which, as it is more majestic than that which becomes the

257 rabble, so takes a freer compass, and thus lawful and unlawful are only

258 measured by pleasure and interest. These practices of the princes that lie

259 about Utopia, who make so little account of their faith, seem to be the reasons

260 that determine them to engage in no confederacy. Perhaps they would change

261 their mind if they lived among us; but yet, though treaties were more

262 religiously observed, they would still dislike the custom of making them, since

263 the world has taken up a false maxim upon it, as if there were no tie of nature

264 uniting one nation to another, only separated perhaps by a mountain or a river,

265 and that all were born in a state of hostility, and so might lawfully do all

266 that mischief to their neighbours against which there is no provision made by

267 treaties; and that when treaties are made they do not cut off the enmity or

268 restrain the licence of preying upon each other, if, by the unskilfulness of

269 wording them, there are not effectual provisoes made against them; they, on the

270 other hand, judge that no man is to be esteemed our enemy that has never

271 injured us, and that the partnership of human nature is instead of a league;

272 and that kindness and good nature unite men more effectually and with greater

273 strength than any agreements whatsoever, since thereby the engagements of

274 men’s hearts become stronger than the bond and obligation of words.

OF THEIR MILITARY DISCIPLINE

25 They detest war as a very brutal thing, and which, to the reproach of human

26 nature, is more practised by men than by any sort of beasts. They, in

27 opposition to the sentiments of almost all other nations, think that there is

28 nothing more inglorious than that glory that is gained by war; and therefore,

29 though they accustom themselves daily to military exercises and the discipline

30 of war, in which not only their men, but their women likewise, are trained up,

31 that, in cases of necessity, they may not be quite useless, yet they do not

32 rashly engage in war, unless it be either to defend themselves or their friends

33 from any unjust aggressors, or, out of good nature or in compassion, assist an

34 oppressed nation in shaking off the yoke of tyranny. They, indeed, help their

35 friends not only in defensive but also in offensive wars; but they never do

36 that unless they had been consulted before the breach was made, and, being

37 satisfied with the grounds on which they went, they had found that all demands

38 of reparation were rejected, so that a war was unavoidable. This they think to

39 be not only just when one neighbour makes an inroad on another by public order,

40 and carries away the spoils, but when the merchants of one country are

41 oppressed in another, either under pretence of some unjust laws, or by the

42 perverse wresting of good ones. This they count a juster cause of war than the

43 other, because those injuries are done under some colour of laws. This was the

44 only ground of that war in which they engaged with the Nephelogetes against the

45 Aleopolitanes, a little before our time; for the merchants of the former

46 having, as they thought, met with great injustice among the latter, which

47 (whether it was in itself right or wrong) drew on a terrible war, in which many

48 of their neighbours were engaged; and their keenness in carrying it on being

49 supported by their strength in maintaining it, it not only shook some very

50 flourishing states and very much afflicted others, but, after a series of much

51 mischief ended in the entire conquest and slavery of the Aleopolitanes, who,

52 though before the war they were in all respects much superior to the

53 Nephelogetes, were yet subdued; but, though the Utopians had assisted them in

54 the war, yet they pretended to no share of the spoil.

55 “But, though they so vigorously assist their friends in obtaining

56 reparation for the injuries they have received in affairs of this nature, yet,

57 if any such frauds were committed against themselves, provided no violence was

58 done to their persons, they would only, on their being refused satisfaction,

59 forbear trading with such a people. This is not because they consider their

60 neighbours more than their own citizens; but, since their neighbours trade

61 every one upon his own stock, fraud is a more sensible injury to them than it

62 is to the Utopians, among whom the public, in such a case, only suffers, as

63 they expect no thing in return for the merchandise they export but that in

64 which they so much abound, and is of little use to them, the loss does not much

65 affect them. They think, therefore, it would be too severe to revenge a loss

66 attended with so little inconvenience, either to their lives or their

67 subsistence, with the death of many persons; but if any of their people are

68 either killed or wounded wrongfully, whether it be done by public authority, or

69 only by private men, as soon as they hear of it they send ambassadors, and

70 demand that the guilty persons may be delivered up to them, and if that is

71 denied, they declare war; but if it be complied with, the offenders are

72 condemned either to death or slavery.

73 “They would be both troubled and ashamed of a bloody victory over their

74 enemies; and think it would be as foolish a purchase as to buy the most

75 valuable goods at too high a rate. And in no victory do they glory so much as

76 in that which is gained by dexterity and good conduct without bloodshed. In

77 such cases they appoint public triumphs, and erect trophies to the honour of

78 those who have succeeded; for then do they reckon that a man acts suitably to

79 his nature, when he conquers his enemy in such a way as that no other creature

80 but a man could be capable of, and that is by the strength of his

81 understanding. Bears, lions, boars, wolves, and dogs, and all other animals,

82 employ their bodily force one against another, in which, as many of them are

83 superior to men, both in strength and fierceness, so they are all subdued by

84 his reason and understanding.

85 “The only design of the Utopians in war is to obtain that by force which,

86 if it had been granted them in time, would have prevented the war; or, if that

87 cannot be done, to take so severe a revenge on those that have injured them

88 that they may be terrified from doing the like for the time to come. By these

89 ends they measure all their designs, and manage them so, that it is visible

90 that the appetite of fame or vainglory does not work so much on there as a just

91 care of their own security.

92 “As soon as they declare war, they take care to have a great many

93 schedules, that are sealed with their common seal, affixed in the most

94 conspicuous places of their enemies’ country. This is carried secretly,

95 and done in many places all at once. In these they promise great rewards to

96 such as shall kill the prince, and lesser in proportion to such as shall kill

97 any other persons who are those on whom, next to the prince himself, they cast

98 the chief balance of the war. And they double the sum to him that, instead of

99 killing the person so marked out, shall take him alive, and put him in their

100 hands. They offer not only indemnity, but rewards, to such of the persons

101 themselves that are so marked, if they will act against their countrymen. By

102 this means those that are named in their schedules become not only distrustful

103 of their fellow-citizens, but are jealous of one another, and are much

104 distracted by fear and danger; for it has often fallen out that many of them,

105 and even the prince himself, have been betrayed, by those in whom they have

106 trusted most; for the rewards that the Utopians offer are so immeasurably

107 great, that there is no sort of crime to which men cannot be drawn by them.

108 They consider the risk that those run who undertake such services, and offer a

109 recompense proportioned to the danger—not only a vast deal of gold, but

110 great revenues in lands, that lie among other nations that are their friends,

111 where they may go and enjoy them very securely; and they observe the promises

112 they make of their kind most religiously. They very much approve of this way of

113 corrupting their enemies, though it appears to others to be base and cruel; but

114 they look on it as a wise course, to make an end of what would be otherwise a

115 long war, without so much as hazarding one battle to decide it. They think it

116 likewise an act of mercy and love to mankind to prevent the great slaughter of

117 those that must otherwise be killed in the progress of the war, both on their

118 own side and on that of their enemies, by the death of a few that are most

119 guilty; and that in so doing they are kind even to their enemies, and pity them

120 no less than their own people, as knowing that the greater part of them do not

121 engage in the war of their own accord, but are driven into it by the passions

122 of their prince.

123 “If this method does not succeed with them, then they sow seeds of

124 contention among their enemies, and animate the prince’s brother, or some

125 of the nobility, to aspire to the crown. If they cannot disunite them by

126 domestic broils, then they engage their neighbours against them, and make them

127 set on foot some old pretensions, which are never wanting to princes when they

128 have occasion for them. These they plentifully supply with money, though but

129 very sparingly with any auxiliary troops; for they are so tender of their own

130 people that they would not willingly exchange one of them, even with the prince

131 of their enemies’ country.

132 “But as they keep their gold and silver only for such an occasion, so,

133 when that offers itself, they easily part with it; since it would be no

134 convenience to them, though they should reserve nothing of it to themselves.

135 For besides the wealth that they have among them at home, they have a vast

136 treasure abroad; many nations round about them being deep in their debt: so

137 that they hire soldiers from all places for carrying on their wars; but chiefly

138 from the Zapolets, who live five hundred miles east of Utopia. They are a rude,

139 wild, and fierce nation, who delight in the woods and rocks, among which they

140 were born and bred up. They are hardened both against heat, cold, and labour,

141 and know nothing of the delicacies of life. They do not apply themselves to

142 agriculture, nor do they care either for their houses or their clothes: cattle

143 is all that they look after; and for the greatest part they live either by

144 hunting or upon rapine; and are made, as it were, only for war. They watch all

145 opportunities of engaging in it, and very readily embrace such as are offered

146 them. Great numbers of them will frequently go out, and offer themselves for a

147 very low pay, to serve any that will employ them: they know none of the arts of

148 life, but those that lead to the taking it away; they serve those that hire

149 them, both with much courage and great fidelity; but will not engage to serve

150 for any determined time, and agree upon such terms, that the next day they may

151 go over to the enemies of those whom they serve if they offer them a greater

152 encouragement; and will, perhaps, return to them the day after that upon a

153 higher advance of their pay. There are few wars in which they make not a

154 considerable part of the armies of both sides: so it often falls out that they

155 who are related, and were hired in the same country, and so have lived long and

156 familiarly together, forgetting both their relations and former friendship,

157 kill one another upon no other consideration than that of being hired to it for

158 a little money by princes of different interests; and such a regard have they

159 for money that they are easily wrought on by the difference of one penny a day

160 to change sides. So entirely does their avarice influence them; and yet this

161 money, which they value so highly, is of little use to them; for what they

162 purchase thus with their blood they quickly waste on luxury, which among them

163 is but of a poor and miserable form.

164 “This nation serves the Utopians against all people whatsoever, for they

165 pay higher than any other. The Utopians hold this for a maxim, that as they

166 seek out the best sort of men for their own use at home, so they make use of

167 this worst sort of men for the consumption of war; and therefore they hire them

168 with the offers of vast rewards to expose themselves to all sorts of hazards,

169 out of which the greater part never returns to claim their promises; yet they

170 make them good most religiously to such as escape. This animates them to

171 adventure again, whenever there is occasion for it; for the Utopians are not at

172 all troubled how many of these happen to be killed, and reckon it a service

173 done to mankind if they could be a means to deliver the world from such a lewd

174 and vicious sort of people, that seem to have run together, as to the drain of

175 human nature. Next to these, they are served in their wars with those upon

176 whose account they undertake them, and with the auxiliary troops of their other

177 friends, to whom they join a few of their own people, and send some man of

178 eminent and approved virtue to command in chief. There are two sent with him,

179 who, during his command, are but private men, but the first is to succeed him

180 if he should happen to be either killed or taken; and, in case of the like

181 misfortune to him, the third comes in his place; and thus they provide against

182 all events, that such accidents as may befall their generals may not endanger

183 their armies. When they draw out troops of their own people, they take such out

184 of every city as freely offer themselves, for none are forced to go against

185 their wills, since they think that if any man is pressed that wants courage, he

186 will not only act faintly, but by his cowardice dishearten others. But if an

187 invasion is made on their country, they make use of such men, if they have good

188 bodies, though they are not brave; and either put them aboard their ships, or

189 place them on the walls of their towns, that being so posted, they may find no

190 opportunity of flying away; and thus either shame, the heat of action, or the

191 impossibility of flying, bears down their cowardice; they often make a virtue

192 of necessity, and behave themselves well, because nothing else is left them.

193 But as they force no man to go into any foreign war against his will, so they

194 do not hinder those women who are willing to go along with their husbands; on

195 the contrary, they encourage and praise them, and they stand often next their

196 husbands in the front of the army. They also place together those who are

197 related, parents, and children, kindred, and those that are mutually allied,

198 near one another; that those whom nature has inspired with the greatest zeal

199 for assisting one another may be the nearest and readiest to do it; and it is

200 matter of great reproach if husband or wife survive one another, or if a child

201 survives his parent, and therefore when they come to be engaged in action, they

202 continue to fight to the last man, if their enemies stand before them: and as

203 they use all prudent methods to avoid the endangering their own men, and if it

204 is possible let all the action and danger fall upon the troops that they hire,

205 so if it becomes necessary for themselves to engage, they then charge with as

206 much courage as they avoided it before with prudence: nor is it a fierce charge

207 at first, but it increases by degrees; and as they continue in action, they

208 grow more obstinate, and press harder upon the enemy, insomuch that they will

209 much sooner die than give ground; for the certainty that their children will be

210 well looked after when they are dead frees them from all that anxiety

211 concerning them which often masters men of great courage; and thus they are

212 animated by a noble and invincible resolution. Their skill in military affairs

213 increases their courage: and the wise sentiments which, according to the laws

214 of their country, are instilled into them in their education, give additional

215 vigour to their minds: for as they do not undervalue life so as prodigally to

216 throw it away, they are not so indecently fond of it as to preserve it by base

217 and unbecoming methods. In the greatest heat of action the bravest of their

218 youth, who have devoted themselves to that service, single out the general of

219 their enemies, set on him either openly or by ambuscade; pursue him everywhere,

220 and when spent and wearied out, are relieved by others, who never give over the

221 pursuit, either attacking him with close weapons when they can get near him, or

222 with those which wound at a distance, when others get in between them. So that,

223 unless he secures himself by flight, they seldom fail at last to kill or to

224 take him prisoner. When they have obtained a victory, they kill as few as

225 possible, and are much more bent on taking many prisoners than on killing those

226 that fly before them. Nor do they ever let their men so loose in the pursuit of

227 their enemies as not to retain an entire body still in order; so that if they

228 have been forced to engage the last of their battalions before they could gain

229 the day, they will rather let their enemies all escape than pursue them when

230 their own army is in disorder; remembering well what has often fallen out to

231 themselves, that when the main body of their army has been quite defeated and

232 broken, when their enemies, imagining the victory obtained, have let themselves

233 loose into an irregular pursuit, a few of them that lay for a reserve, waiting

234 a fit opportunity, have fallen on them in their chase, and when straggling in

235 disorder, and apprehensive of no danger, but counting the day their own, have

236 turned the whole action, and, wresting out of their hands a victory that seemed

237 certain and undoubted, while the vanquished have suddenly become victorious.

238 “It is hard to tell whether they are more dexterous in laying or avoiding

239 ambushes. They sometimes seem to fly when it is far from their thoughts; and

240 when they intend to give ground, they do it so that it is very hard to find out

241 their design. If they see they are ill posted, or are like to be overpowered by

242 numbers, they then either march off in the night with great silence, or by some

243 stratagem delude their enemies. If they retire in the day-time, they do it in

244 such order that it is no less dangerous to fall upon them in a retreat than in

245 a march. They fortify their camps with a deep and large trench; and throw up

246 the earth that is dug out of it for a wall; nor do they employ only their

247 slaves in this, but the whole army works at it, except those that are then upon

248 the guard; so that when so many hands are at work, a great line and a strong

249 fortification is finished in so short a time that it is scarce credible. Their

250 armour is very strong for defence, and yet is not so heavy as to make them

251 uneasy in their marches; they can even swim with it. All that are trained up to

252 war practise swimming. Both horse and foot make great use of arrows, and are

253 very expert. They have no swords, but fight with a pole-axe that is both sharp

254 and heavy, by which they thrust or strike down an enemy. They are very good at

255 finding out warlike machines, and disguise them so well that the enemy does not

256 perceive them till he feels the use of them; so that he cannot prepare such a

257 defence as would render them useless; the chief consideration had in the making

258 them is that they may be easily carried and managed.

259 “If they agree to a truce, they observe it so religiously that no

260 provocations will make them break it. They never lay their enemies’

261 country waste nor burn their corn, and even in their marches they take all

262 possible care that neither horse nor foot may tread it down, for they do not

263 know but that they may have use for it themselves. They hurt no man whom they

264 find disarmed, unless he is a spy. When a town is surrendered to them, they

265 take it into their protection; and when they carry a place by storm they never

266 plunder it, but put those only to the sword that oppose the rendering of it up,

267 and make the rest of the garrison slaves, but for the other inhabitants, they

268 do them no hurt; and if any of them had advised a surrender, they give them

269 good rewards out of the estates of those that they condemn, and distribute the

270 rest among their auxiliary troops, but they themselves take no share of the

271 spoil.

272 “When a war is ended, they do not oblige their friends to reimburse their

273 expenses; but they obtain them of the conquered, either in money, which they

274 keep for the next occasion, or in lands, out of which a constant revenue is to

275 be paid them; by many increases the revenue which they draw out from several

276 countries on such occasions is now risen to above 700,000 ducats a year. They

277 send some of their own people to receive these revenues, who have orders to

278 live magnificently and like princes, by which means they consume much of it

279 upon the place; and either bring over the rest to Utopia or lend it to that

280 nation in which it lies. This they most commonly do, unless some great

281 occasion, which falls out but very seldom, should oblige them to call for it

282 all. It is out of these lands that they assign rewards to such as they

283 encourage to adventure on desperate attempts. If any prince that engages in war

284 with them is making preparations for invading their country, they prevent him,

285 and make his country the seat of the war; for they do not willingly suffer any

286 war to break in upon their island; and if that should happen, they would only

287 defend themselves by their own people; but would not call for auxiliary troops

288 to their assistance.

OF THE RELIGIONS OF THE UTOPIANS

28 “There are several sorts of religions, not only in different parts of the

29 island, but even in every town; some worshipping the sun, others the moon or

30 one of the planets. Some worship such men as have been eminent in former times

31 for virtue or glory, not only as ordinary deities, but as the supreme god. Yet

32 the greater and wiser sort of them worship none of these, but adore one

33 eternal, invisible, infinite, and incomprehensible Deity; as a Being that is

34 far above all our apprehensions, that is spread over the whole universe, not by

35 His bulk, but by His power and virtue; Him they call the Father of All, and

36 acknowledge that the beginnings, the increase, the progress, the vicissitudes,

37 and the end of all things come only from Him; nor do they offer divine honours

38 to any but to Him alone. And, indeed, though they differ concerning other

39 things, yet all agree in this: that they think there is one Supreme Being that

40 made and governs the world, whom they call, in the language of their country,

41 Mithras. They differ in this: that one thinks the god whom he worships is this

42 Supreme Being, and another thinks that his idol is that god; but they all agree

43 in one principle, that whoever is this Supreme Being, He is also that great

44 essence to whose glory and majesty all honours are ascribed by the consent of

45 all nations.

46 “By degrees they fall off from the various superstitions that are among

47 them, and grow up to that one religion that is the best and most in request;

48 and there is no doubt to be made, but that all the others had vanished long

49 ago, if some of those who advised them to lay aside their superstitions had not

50 met with some unhappy accidents, which, being considered as inflicted by

51 heaven, made them afraid that the god whose worship had like to have been

52 abandoned had interposed and revenged themselves on those who despised their

53 authority.

54 “After they had heard from us an account of the doctrine, the course of

55 life, and the miracles of Christ, and of the wonderful constancy of so many

56 martyrs, whose blood, so willingly offered up by them, was the chief occasion

57 of spreading their religion over a vast number of nations, it is not to be

58 imagined how inclined they were to receive it. I shall not determine whether

59 this proceeded from any secret inspiration of God, or whether it was because it

60 seemed so favourable to that community of goods, which is an opinion so

61 particular as well as so dear to them; since they perceived that Christ and His

62 followers lived by that rule, and that it was still kept up in some communities

63 among the sincerest sort of Christians. From whichsoever of these motives it

64 might be, true it is, that many of them came over to our religion, and were

65 initiated into it by baptism. But as two of our number were dead, so none of

66 the four that survived were in priests’ orders, we, therefore, could only

67 baptise them, so that, to our great regret, they could not partake of the other

68 sacraments, that can only be administered by priests, but they are instructed

69 concerning them and long most vehemently for them. They have had great disputes

70 among themselves, whether one chosen by them to be a priest would not be

71 thereby qualified to do all the things that belong to that character, even

72 though he had no authority derived from the Pope, and they seemed to be

73 resolved to choose some for that employment, but they had not done it when I

74 left them.

75 “Those among them that have not received our religion do not fright any

76 from it, and use none ill that goes over to it, so that all the while I was

77 there one man was only punished on this occasion. He being newly baptised did,

78 notwithstanding all that we could say to the contrary, dispute publicly

79 concerning the Christian religion, with more zeal than discretion, and with so

80 much heat, that he not only preferred our worship to theirs, but condemned all

81 their rites as profane, and cried out against all that adhered to them as

82 impious and sacrilegious persons, that were to be damned to everlasting

83 burnings. Upon his having frequently preached in this manner he was seized, and

84 after trial he was condemned to banishment, not for having disparaged their

85 religion, but for his inflaming the people to sedition; for this is one of

86 their most ancient laws, that no man ought to be punished for his religion. At

87 the first constitution of their government, Utopus having understood that

88 before his coming among them the old inhabitants had been engaged in great

89 quarrels concerning religion, by which they were so divided among themselves,

90 that he found it an easy thing to conquer them, since, instead of uniting their

91 forces against him, every different party in religion fought by themselves.

92 After he had subdued them he made a law that every man might be of what

93 religion he pleased, and might endeavour to draw others to it by the force of

94 argument and by amicable and modest ways, but without bitterness against those

95 of other opinions; but that he ought to use no other force but that of

96 persuasion, and was neither to mix with it reproaches nor violence; and such as

97 did otherwise were to be condemned to banishment or slavery.

98 “This law was made by Utopus, not only for preserving the public peace,

99 which he saw suffered much by daily contentions and irreconcilable heats, but

100 because he thought the interest of religion itself required it. He judged it

101 not fit to determine anything rashly; and seemed to doubt whether those

102 different forms of religion might not all come from God, who might inspire man

103 in a different manner, and be pleased with this variety; he therefore thought

104 it indecent and foolish for any man to threaten and terrify another to make him

105 believe what did not appear to him to be true. And supposing that only one

106 religion was really true, and the rest false, he imagined that the native force

107 of truth would at last break forth and shine bright, if supported only by the

108 strength of argument, and attended to with a gentle and unprejudiced mind;

109 while, on the other hand, if such debates were carried on with violence and

110 tumults, as the most wicked are always the most obstinate, so the best and most

111 holy religion might be choked with superstition, as corn is with briars and

112 thorns; he therefore left men wholly to their liberty, that they might be free

113 to believe as they should see cause; only he made a solemn and severe law

114 against such as should so far degenerate from the dignity of human nature, as

115 to think that our souls died with our bodies, or that the world was governed by

116 chance, without a wise overruling Providence: for they all formerly believed

117 that there was a state of rewards and punishments to the good and bad after

118 this life; and they now look on those that think otherwise as scarce fit to be

119 counted men, since they degrade so noble a being as the soul, and reckon it no

120 better than a beast’s: thus they are far from looking on such men as fit

121 for human society, or to be citizens of a well-ordered commonwealth; since a

122 man of such principles must needs, as oft as he dares do it, despise all their

123 laws and customs: for there is no doubt to be made, that a man who is afraid of

124 nothing but the law, and apprehends nothing after death, will not scruple to

125 break through all the laws of his country, either by fraud or force, when by

126 this means he may satisfy his appetites. They never raise any that hold these

127 maxims, either to honours or offices, nor employ them in any public trust, but

128 despise them, as men of base and sordid minds. Yet they do not punish them,

129 because they lay this down as a maxim, that a man cannot make himself believe

130 anything he pleases; nor do they drive any to dissemble their thoughts by

131 threatenings, so that men are not tempted to lie or disguise their opinions;

132 which being a sort of fraud, is abhorred by the Utopians: they take care indeed

133 to prevent their disputing in defence of these opinions, especially before the

134 common people: but they suffer, and even encourage them to dispute concerning

135 them in private with their priest, and other grave men, being confident that

136 they will be cured of those mad opinions by having reason laid before them.

137 There are many among them that run far to the other extreme, though it is

138 neither thought an ill nor unreasonable opinion, and therefore is not at all

139 discouraged. They think that the souls of beasts are immortal, though far

140 inferior to the dignity of the human soul, and not capable of so great a

141 happiness. They are almost all of them very firmly persuaded that good men will

142 be infinitely happy in another state: so that though they are compassionate to

143 all that are sick, yet they lament no man’s death, except they see him

144 loath to part with life; for they look on this as a very ill presage, as if the

145 soul, conscious to itself of guilt, and quite hopeless, was afraid to leave the

146 body, from some secret hints of approaching misery. They think that such a

147 man’s appearance before God cannot be acceptable to Him, who being called

148 on, does not go out cheerfully, but is backward and unwilling, and is as it

149 were dragged to it. They are struck with horror when they see any die in this

150 manner, and carry them out in silence and with sorrow, and praying God that He

151 would be merciful to the errors of the departed soul, they lay the body in the

152 ground: but when any die cheerfully, and full of hope, they do not mourn for

153 them, but sing hymns when they carry out their bodies, and commending their

154 souls very earnestly to God: their whole behaviour is then rather grave than

155 sad, they burn the body, and set up a pillar where the pile was made, with an

156 inscription to the honour of the deceased. When they come from the funeral,

157 they discourse of his good life, and worthy actions, but speak of nothing

158 oftener and with more pleasure than of his serenity at the hour of death. They

159 think such respect paid to the memory of good men is both the greatest

160 incitement to engage others to follow their example, and the most acceptable

161 worship that can be offered them; for they believe that though by the

162 imperfection of human sight they are invisible to us, yet they are present

163 among us, and hear those discourses that pass concerning themselves. They

164 believe it inconsistent with the happiness of departed souls not to be at

165 liberty to be where they will: and do not imagine them capable of the

166 ingratitude of not desiring to see those friends with whom they lived on earth

167 in the strictest bonds of love and kindness: besides, they are persuaded that

168 good men, after death, have these affections; and all other good dispositions

169 increased rather than diminished, and therefore conclude that they are still

170 among the living, and observe all they say or do. From hence they engage in all

171 their affairs with the greater confidence of success, as trusting to their

172 protection; while this opinion of the presence of their ancestors is a

173 restraint that prevents their engaging in ill designs.

174 “They despise and laugh at auguries, and the other vain and superstitious

175 ways of divination, so much observed among other nations; but have great

176 reverence for such miracles as cannot flow from any of the powers of nature,

177 and look on them as effects and indications of the presence of the Supreme

178 Being, of which they say many instances have occurred among them; and that

179 sometimes their public prayers, which upon great and dangerous occasions they

180 have solemnly put up to God, with assured confidence of being heard, have been

181 answered in a miraculous manner.

182 “They think the contemplating God in His works, and the adoring Him for

183 them, is a very acceptable piece of worship to Him.

184 “There are many among them that upon a motive of religion neglect

185 learning, and apply themselves to no sort of study; nor do they allow

186 themselves any leisure time, but are perpetually employed, believing that by

187 the good things that a man does he secures to himself that happiness that comes

188 after death. Some of these visit the sick; others mend highways, cleanse

189 ditches, repair bridges, or dig turf, gravel, or stone. Others fell and cleave

190 timber, and bring wood, corn, and other necessaries, on carts, into their

191 towns; nor do these only serve the public, but they serve even private men,

192 more than the slaves themselves do: for if there is anywhere a rough, hard, and

193 sordid piece of work to be done, from which many are frightened by the labour

194 and loathsomeness of it, if not the despair of accomplishing it, they

195 cheerfully, and of their own accord, take that to their share; and by that

196 means, as they ease others very much, so they afflict themselves, and spend

197 their whole life in hard labour: and yet they do not value themselves upon

198 this, nor lessen other people’s credit to raise their own; but by their

199 stooping to such servile employments they are so far from being despised, that

200 they are so much the more esteemed by the whole nation.

201 “Of these there are two sorts: some live unmarried and chaste, and

202 abstain from eating any sort of flesh; and thus weaning themselves from all the

203 pleasures of the present life, which they account hurtful, they pursue, even by

204 the hardest and painfullest methods possible, that blessedness which they hope

205 for hereafter; and the nearer they approach to it, they are the more cheerful

206 and earnest in their endeavours after it. Another sort of them is less willing

207 to put themselves to much toil, and therefore prefer a married state to a

208 single one; and as they do not deny themselves the pleasure of it, so they

209 think the begetting of children is a debt which they owe to human nature, and

210 to their country; nor do they avoid any pleasure that does not hinder labour;

211 and therefore eat flesh so much the more willingly, as they find that by this

212 means they are the more able to work: the Utopians look upon these as the wiser

213 sect, but they esteem the others as the most holy. They would indeed laugh at

214 any man who, from the principles of reason, would prefer an unmarried state to

215 a married, or a life of labour to an easy life: but they reverence and admire

216 such as do it from the motives of religion. There is nothing in which they are

217 more cautious than in giving their opinion positively concerning any sort of

218 religion. The men that lead those severe lives are called in the language of

219 their country Brutheskas, which answers to those we call Religious Orders.

220 “Their priests are men of eminent piety, and therefore they are but few,

221 for there are only thirteen in every town, one for every temple; but when they

222 go to war, seven of these go out with their forces, and seven others are chosen

223 to supply their room in their absence; but these enter again upon their

224 employments when they return; and those who served in their absence, attend

225 upon the high priest, till vacancies fall by death; for there is one set over

226 the rest. They are chosen by the people as the other magistrates are, by

227 suffrages given in secret, for preventing of factions: and when they are

228 chosen, they are consecrated by the college of priests. The care of all sacred

229 things, the worship of God, and an inspection into the manners of the people,

230 are committed to them. It is a reproach to a man to be sent for by any of them,

231 or for them to speak to him in secret, for that always gives some suspicion:

232 all that is incumbent on them is only to exhort and admonish the people; for

233 the power of correcting and punishing ill men belongs wholly to the Prince, and

234 to the other magistrates: the severest thing that the priest does is the

235 excluding those that are desperately wicked from joining in their worship:

236 there is not any sort of punishment more dreaded by them than this, for as it

237 loads them with infamy, so it fills them with secret horrors, such is their

238 reverence to their religion; nor will their bodies be long exempted from their

239 share of trouble; for if they do not very quickly satisfy the priests of the

240 truth of their repentance, they are seized on by the Senate, and punished for

241 their impiety. The education of youth belongs to the priests, yet they do not

242 take so much care of instructing them in letters, as in forming their minds and

243 manners aright; they use all possible methods to infuse, very early, into the

244 tender and flexible minds of children, such opinions as are both good in

245 themselves and will be useful to their country, for when deep impressions of

246 these things are made at that age, they follow men through the whole course of

247 their lives, and conduce much to preserve the peace of the government, which

248 suffers by nothing more than by vices that rise out of ill opinions. The wives

249 of their priests are the most extraordinary women of the whole country;

250 sometimes the women themselves are made priests, though that falls out but

251 seldom, nor are any but ancient widows chosen into that order.

252 “None of the magistrates have greater honour paid them than is paid the

253 priests; and if they should happen to commit any crime, they would not be

254 questioned for it; their punishment is left to God, and to their own

255 consciences; for they do not think it lawful to lay hands on any man, how

256 wicked soever he is, that has been in a peculiar manner dedicated to God; nor

257 do they find any great inconvenience in this, both because they have so few

258 priests, and because these are chosen with much caution, so that it must be a

259 very unusual thing to find one who, merely out of regard to his virtue, and for

260 his being esteemed a singularly good man, was raised up to so great a dignity,

261 degenerate into corruption and vice; and if such a thing should fall out, for

262 man is a changeable creature, yet, there being few priests, and these having no

263 authority but what rises out of the respect that is paid them, nothing of great

264 consequence to the public can proceed from the indemnity that the priests

265 enjoy.

266 “They have, indeed, very few of them, lest greater numbers sharing in the

267 same honour might make the dignity of that order, which they esteem so highly,

268 to sink in its reputation; they also think it difficult to find out many of

269 such an exalted pitch of goodness as to be equal to that dignity, which demands

270 the exercise of more than ordinary virtues. Nor are the priests in greater

271 veneration among them than they are among their neighbouring nations, as you

272 may imagine by that which I think gives occasion for it.

273 “When the Utopians engage in battle, the priests who accompany them to

274 the war, apparelled in their sacred vestments, kneel down during the action (in

275 a place not far from the field), and, lifting up their hands to heaven, pray,

276 first for peace, and then for victory to their own side, and particularly that

277 it may be gained without the effusion of much blood on either side; and when

278 the victory turns to their side, they run in among their own men to restrain

279 their fury; and if any of their enemies see them or call to them, they are

280 preserved by that means; and such as can come so near them as to touch their

281 garments have not only their lives, but their fortunes secured to them; it is

282 upon this account that all the nations round about consider them so much, and

283 treat them with such reverence, that they have been often no less able to

284 preserve their own people from the fury of their enemies than to save their

285 enemies from their rage; for it has sometimes fallen out, that when their

286 armies have been in disorder and forced to fly, so that their enemies were

287 running upon the slaughter and spoil, the priests by interposing have separated

288 them from one another, and stopped the effusion of more blood; so that, by

289 their mediation, a peace has been concluded on very reasonable terms; nor is

290 there any nation about them so fierce, cruel, or barbarous, as not to look upon

291 their persons as sacred and inviolable.

292 “The first and the last day of the month, and of the year, is a festival;

293 they measure their months by the course of the moon, and their years by the

294 course of the sun: the first days are called in their language the Cynemernes,

295 and the last the Trapemernes, which answers in our language, to the festival

296 that begins or ends the season.

297 “They have magnificent temples, that are not only nobly built, but

298 extremely spacious, which is the more necessary as they have so few of them;

299 they are a little dark within, which proceeds not from any error in the

300 architecture, but is done with design; for their priests think that too much

301 light dissipates the thoughts, and that a more moderate degree of it both

302 recollects the mind and raises devotion. Though there are many different forms

303 of religion among them, yet all these, how various soever, agree in the main

304 point, which is the worshipping the Divine Essence; and, therefore, there is

305 nothing to be seen or heard in their temples in which the several persuasions

306 among them may not agree; for every sect performs those rites that are peculiar

307 to it in their private houses, nor is there anything in the public worship that

308 contradicts the particular ways of those different sects. There are no images

309 for God in their temples, so that every one may represent Him to his thoughts

310 according to the way of his religion; nor do they call this one God by any

311 other name but that of Mithras, which is the common name by which they all

312 express the Divine Essence, whatsoever otherwise they think it to be; nor are

313 there any prayers among them but such as every one of them may use without

314 prejudice to his own opinion.

315 “They meet in their temples on the evening of the festival that concludes

316 a season, and not having yet broke their fast, they thank God for their good

317 success during that year or month which is then at an end; and the next day,

318 being that which begins the new season, they meet early in their temples, to

319 pray for the happy progress of all their affairs during that period upon which

320 they then enter. In the festival which concludes the period, before they go to

321 the temple, both wives and children fall on their knees before their husbands

322 or parents and confess everything in which they have either erred or failed in

323 their duty, and beg pardon for it. Thus all little discontents in families are

324 removed, that they may offer up their devotions with a pure and serene mind;

325 for they hold it a great impiety to enter upon them with disturbed thoughts, or

326 with a consciousness of their bearing hatred or anger in their hearts to any

327 person whatsoever; and think that they should become liable to severe

328 punishments if they presumed to offer sacrifices without cleansing their

329 hearts, and reconciling all their differences. In the temples the two sexes are

330 separated, the men go to the right hand, and the women to the left; and the

331 males and females all place themselves before the head and master or mistress

332 of the family to which they belong, so that those who have the government of

333 them at home may see their deportment in public. And they intermingle them so,

334 that the younger and the older may be set by one another; for if the younger

335 sort were all set together, they would, perhaps, trifle away that time too much

336 in which they ought to beget in themselves that religious dread of the Supreme

337 Being which is the greatest and almost the only incitement to virtue.

338 “They offer up no living creature in sacrifice, nor do they think it

339 suitable to the Divine Being, from whose bounty it is that these creatures have

340 derived their lives, to take pleasure in their deaths, or the offering up their

341 blood. They burn incense and other sweet odours, and have a great number of wax

342 lights during their worship, not out of any imagination that such oblations can

343 add anything to the divine nature (which even prayers cannot do), but as it is

344 a harmless and pure way of worshipping God; so they think those sweet savours

345 and lights, together with some other ceremonies, by a secret and unaccountable

346 virtue, elevate men’s souls, and inflame them with greater energy and

347 cheerfulness during the divine worship.

348 “All the people appear in the temples in white garments; but the

349 priest’s vestments are parti-coloured, and both the work and colours are

350 wonderful. They are made of no rich materials, for they are neither embroidered

351 nor set with precious stones; but are composed of the plumes of several birds,

352 laid together with so much art, and so neatly, that the true value of them is

353 far beyond the costliest materials. They say, that in the ordering and placing

354 those plumes some dark mysteries are represented, which pass down among their

355 priests in a secret tradition concerning them; and that they are as

356 hieroglyphics, putting them in mind of the blessing that they have received

357 from God, and of their duties, both to Him and to their neighbours. As soon as

358 the priest appears in those ornaments, they all fall prostrate on the ground,

359 with so much reverence and so deep a silence, that such as look on cannot but

360 be struck with it, as if it were the effect of the appearance of a deity. After

361 they have been for some time in this posture, they all stand up, upon a sign

362 given by the priest, and sing hymns to the honour of God, some musical

363 instruments playing all the while. These are quite of another form than those

364 used among us; but, as many of them are much sweeter than ours, so others are

365 made use of by us. Yet in one thing they very much exceed us: all their music,

366 both vocal and instrumental, is adapted to imitate and express the passions,

367 and is so happily suited to every occasion, that, whether the subject of the

368 hymn be cheerful, or formed to soothe or trouble the mind, or to express grief

369 or remorse, the music takes the impression of whatever is represented, affects

370 and kindles the passions, and works the sentiments deep into the hearts of the

371 hearers. When this is done, both priests and people offer up very solemn

372 prayers to God in a set form of words; and these are so composed, that

373 whatsoever is pronounced by the whole assembly may be likewise applied by every

374 man in particular to his own condition. In these they acknowledge God to be the

375 author and governor of the world, and the fountain of all the good they

376 receive, and therefore offer up to him their thanksgiving; and, in particular,

377 bless him for His goodness in ordering it so, that they are born under the

378 happiest government in the world, and are of a religion which they hope is the

379 truest of all others; but, if they are mistaken, and if there is either a

380 better government, or a religion more acceptable to God, they implore His

381 goodness to let them know it, vowing that they resolve to follow him

382 whithersoever he leads them; but if their government is the best, and their

383 religion the truest, then they pray that He may fortify them in it, and bring

384 all the world both to the same rules of life, and to the same opinions

385 concerning Himself, unless, according to the unsearchableness of His mind, He

386 is pleased with a variety of religions. Then they pray that God may give them

387 an easy passage at last to Himself, not presuming to set limits to Him, how

388 early or late it should be; but, if it may be wished for without derogating

389 from His supreme authority, they desire to be quickly delivered, and to be

390 taken to Himself, though by the most terrible kind of death, rather than to be

391 detained long from seeing Him by the most prosperous course of life. When this

392 prayer is ended, they all fall down again upon the ground; and, after a little

393 while, they rise up, go home to dinner, and spend the rest of the day in

394 diversion or military exercises.

395 “Thus have I described to you, as particularly as I could, the

396 Constitution of that commonwealth, which I do not only think the best in the

397 world, but indeed the only commonwealth that truly deserves that name. In all

398 other places it is visible that, while people talk of a commonwealth, every man

399 only seeks his own wealth; but there, where no man has any property, all men

400 zealously pursue the good of the public, and, indeed, it is no wonder to see

401 men act so differently, for in other commonwealths every man knows that, unless

402 he provides for himself, how flourishing soever the commonwealth may be, he

403 must die of hunger, so that he sees the necessity of preferring his own

404 concerns to the public; but in Utopia, where every man has a right to

405 everything, they all know that if care is taken to keep the public stores full

406 no private man can want anything; for among them there is no unequal

407 distribution, so that no man is poor, none in necessity, and though no man has

408 anything, yet they are all rich; for what can make a man so rich as to lead a

409 serene and cheerful life, free from anxieties; neither apprehending want

410 himself, nor vexed with the endless complaints of his wife? He is not afraid of

411 the misery of his children, nor is he contriving how to raise a portion for his

412 daughters; but is secure in this, that both he and his wife, his children and

413 grand-children, to as many generations as he can fancy, will all live both

414 plentifully and happily; since, among them, there is no less care taken of

415 those who were once engaged in labour, but grow afterwards unable to follow it,

416 than there is, elsewhere, of these that continue still employed. I would gladly

417 hear any man compare the justice that is among them with that of all other

418 nations; among whom, may I perish, if I see anything that looks either like

419 justice or equity; for what justice is there in this: that a nobleman, a

420 goldsmith, a banker, or any other man, that either does nothing at all, or, at

421 best, is employed in things that are of no use to the public, should live in

422 great luxury and splendour upon what is so ill acquired, and a mean man, a

423 carter, a smith, or a ploughman, that works harder even than the beasts

424 themselves, and is employed in labours so necessary, that no commonwealth could

425 hold out a year without them, can only earn so poor a livelihood and must lead

426 so miserable a life, that the condition of the beasts is much better than

427 theirs? For as the beasts do not work so constantly, so they feed almost as

428 well, and with more pleasure, and have no anxiety about what is to come, whilst

429 these men are depressed by a barren and fruitless employment, and tormented

430 with the apprehensions of want in their old age; since that which they get by

431 their daily labour does but maintain them at present, and is consumed as fast

432 as it comes in, there is no overplus left to lay up for old age.

433 “Is not that government both unjust and ungrateful, that is so prodigal

434 of its favours to those that are called gentlemen, or goldsmiths, or such

435 others who are idle, or live either by flattery or by contriving the arts of

436 vain pleasure, and, on the other hand, takes no care of those of a meaner sort,

437 such as ploughmen, colliers, and smiths, without whom it could not subsist? But

438 after the public has reaped all the advantage of their service, and they come

439 to be oppressed with age, sickness, and want, all their labours and the good

440 they have done is forgotten, and all the recompense given them is that they are

441 left to die in great misery. The richer sort are often endeavouring to bring

442 the hire of labourers lower, not only by their fraudulent practices, but by the

443 laws which they procure to be made to that effect, so that though it is a thing

444 most unjust in itself to give such small rewards to those who deserve so well

445 of the public, yet they have given those hardships the name and colour of

446 justice, by procuring laws to be made for regulating them.

447 “Therefore I must say that, as I hope for mercy, I can have no other

448 notion of all the other governments that I see or know, than that they are a

449 conspiracy of the rich, who, on pretence of managing the public, only pursue

450 their private ends, and devise all the ways and arts they can find out; first,

451 that they may, without danger, preserve all that they have so ill-acquired, and

452 then, that they may engage the poor to toil and labour for them at as low rates

453 as possible, and oppress them as much as they please; and if they can but

454 prevail to get these contrivances established by the show of public authority,

455 which is considered as the representative of the whole people, then they are

456 accounted laws; yet these wicked men, after they have, by a most insatiable

457 covetousness, divided that among themselves with which all the rest might have

458 been well supplied, are far from that happiness that is enjoyed among the

459 Utopians; for the use as well as the desire of money being extinguished, much

460 anxiety and great occasions of mischief is cut off with it, and who does not

461 see that the frauds, thefts, robberies, quarrels, tumults, contentions,

462 seditions, murders, treacheries, and witchcrafts, which are, indeed, rather

463 punished than restrained by the severities of law, would all fall off, if money

464 were not any more valued by the world? Men’s fears, solicitudes, cares,

465 labours, and watchings would all perish in the same moment with the value of

466 money; even poverty itself, for the relief of which money seems most necessary,

467 would fall. But, in order to the apprehending this aright, take one

468 instance:—

469 “Consider any year, that has been so unfruitful that many thousands have

470 died of hunger; and yet if, at the end of that year, a survey was made of the

471 granaries of all the rich men that have hoarded up the corn, it would be found

472 that there was enough among them to have prevented all that consumption of men

473 that perished in misery; and that, if it had been distributed among them, none

474 would have felt the terrible effects of that scarcity: so easy a thing would it

475 be to supply all the necessities of life, if that blessed thing called money,

476 which is pretended to be invented for procuring them was not really the only

477 thing that obstructed their being procured!

478 “I do not doubt but rich men are sensible of this, and that they well

479 know how much a greater happiness it is to want nothing necessary, than to

480 abound in many superfluities; and to be rescued out of so much misery, than to

481 abound with so much wealth: and I cannot think but the sense of every

482 man’s interest, added to the authority of Christ’s commands, who,

483 as He was infinitely wise, knew what was best, and was not less good in

484 discovering it to us, would have drawn all the world over to the laws of the

485 Utopians, if pride, that plague of human nature, that source of so much misery,

486 did not hinder it; for this vice does not measure happiness so much by its own

487 conveniences, as by the miseries of others; and would not be satisfied with

488 being thought a goddess, if none were left that were miserable, over whom she

489 might insult. Pride thinks its own happiness shines the brighter, by comparing

490 it with the misfortunes of other persons; that by displaying its own wealth

491 they may feel their poverty the more sensibly. This is that infernal serpent

492 that creeps into the breasts of mortals, and possesses them too much to be

493 easily drawn out; and, therefore, I am glad that the Utopians have fallen upon

494 this form of government, in which I wish that all the world could be so wise as

495 to imitate them; for they have, indeed, laid down such a scheme and foundation

496 of policy, that as men live happily under it, so it is like to be of great

497 continuance; for they having rooted out of the minds of their people all the

498 seeds, both of ambition and faction, there is no danger of any commotions at

499 home; which alone has been the ruin of many states that seemed otherwise to be

500 well secured; but as long as they live in peace at home, and are governed by

501 such good laws, the envy of all their neighbouring princes, who have often,

502 though in vain, attempted their ruin, will never be able to put their state

503 into any commotion or disorder.”

504 When Raphael had thus made an end of speaking, though many things occurred to

505 me, both concerning the manners and laws of that people, that seemed very

506 absurd, as well in their way of making war, as in their notions of religion and

507 divine matters—together with several other particulars, but chiefly what

508 seemed the foundation of all the rest, their living in common, without the use

509 of money, by which all nobility, magnificence, splendour, and majesty, which,

510 according to the common opinion, are the true ornaments of a nation, would be

511 quite taken away—yet since I perceived that Raphael was weary, and was

512 not sure whether he could easily bear contradiction, remembering that he had

513 taken notice of some, who seemed to think they were bound in honour to support

514 the credit of their own wisdom, by finding out something to censure in all

515 other men’s inventions, besides their own, I only commended their

516 Constitution, and the account he had given of it in general; and so, taking him

517 by the hand, carried him to supper, and told him I would find out some other

518 time for examining this subject more particularly, and for discoursing more

519 copiously upon it. And, indeed, I shall be glad to embrace an opportunity of

520 doing it. In the meanwhile, though it must be confessed that he is both a very

521 learned man and a person who has obtained a great knowledge of the world, I

522 cannot perfectly agree to everything he has related. However, there are many

523 things in the commonwealth of Utopia that I rather wish, than hope, to see

524 followed in our governments.