BOOK I
HENRY VIII, the unconquered King of England, a prince adorned
with all the virtues that become a great monarch, having some
differences of no small consequence with Charles, the most serene
Prince of Castile, sent me into Flanders, as his ambassador, for
treating and composing matters between them. I was colleague and
com- panion to that incomparable man Cuthbert Tonstal, whom the
King with such universal applause lately made Master of the Rolls,
but of whom I will say nothing; not because I fear that the testimony
of a friend will be suspected, but rather because his learning
and virtues are too great for me to do them justice, and so well
known that they need not my commendations unless I would, according
to the proverb, "Show the sun with a lanthorn." Those
that were appointed by the Prince to treat with us, met us at
Bruges, according to agreement; they were all worthy men. The
Margrave of Bruges was their head, and the chief man among them;
but he that was esteemed the wisest, and that spoke for the rest,
was George Temse, the Provost of Casselsee; both art and nature
had concurred to make him eloquent: he was very learned in the
law; and as he had a great capacity, so by a long practice in
affairs he was very dexterous at unravelling them.
After we had several times met without coming to an agreement,
they went to Brussels for some days to know the Prince's pleasure.
And since our business would admit it, I went to Antwerp. While
I was there, among many that visited me, there was one that was
more acceptable to me than any other, Peter Giles, born at Antwerp,
who is a man of great honor, and of a good rank in his town, though
less than he deserves; for I do not know if there be anywhere
to be found a more learned and a better bred young man: for as
he is both a very worthy and a very knowing person, so he is so
civil to all men, so particularly kind to his friends, and so
full of candor and affection, that there is not perhaps above
one or two anywhere to be found that are in all respects so perfect
a friend. He is extraordinarily modest, there is no artifice in
him; and yet no man has more of a prudent simplicity: his conversation
was so pleasant and so innocently cheerful, that his company in
a great measure lessened any longings to go back to my country,
and to my wife and children, which an absence of four months had
quickened very much. One day as I was returning home from mass
at St. Mary's, which is the chief church, and the most frequented
of any in Antwerp, I saw him by accident talking with a stranger,
who seemed past the flower of his age; his face was tanned, he
had a long beard, and his cloak was hanging carelessly about him,
so that by his looks and habit I concluded he was a seaman.
As soon as Peter saw me, he came and saluted me; and as I was
returning his civility, he took me aside, and pointing to him
with whom he had been discoursing, he said: "Do you see that
man? I was just thinking to bring him to you."
I answered, "He should have been very welcome on your account."
"And on his own too," replied he, "if you knew
the man, for there is none alive that can give so copious an account
of unknown nations and countries as he can do; which I know you
very much desire."
Then said I, "I did not guess amiss, for at first sight I
took him for a seaman."
"But you are much mistaken," said he, "for he has
not sailed as a seaman, but as a traveller, or rather a philosopher.
This Raphael, who from his family carries the name of Hythloday,
is not ignorant of the Latin tongue, but is eminently learned
in the Greek, having applied himself more particularly to that
than to the former, because he had given himself much to philosophy,
in which he knew that the Romans have left us nothing that is
valuable, except what is to be found in Seneca and Cicero. He
is a Portuguese by birth, and was so desirous of seeing the world
that he divided his estate among his brothers, ran the same hazard
as Americus Vespucius, and bore a share in three of his four voyages,
that are now published; only he did not return with him in his
last, but obtained leave of him almost by force, that he might
be one of those twenty- four who were left at the farthest place
at which they touched, in their last voyage to New Castile. The
leaving him thus did not a little gratify one that was more fond
of travelling than of returning home to be buried in his own country;
for he used often to say that the way to heaven was the same from
all places; and he that had no grave had the heaven still over
him. Yet this disposition of mind had cost him dear, if God had
not been very gracious to him; for after he, with five Castilians,
had travelled over many countries, at last, by strange good- fortune,
he got to Ceylon, and from thence to Calicut, where he very happily
found some Portuguese ships, and, beyond all men's expectations,
returned to his native country."
When Peter had said this to me, I thanked him for his kindness,
in intending to give me the acquaintance of a man whose conversation
he knew would be so acceptable; and upon that Raphael and I embraced
each other. After those civilities were passed which are usual
with strangers upon their first meeting, we all went to my house,
and entering into the garden, sat down on a green bank, and entertained
one another in discourse. He told us that when Vespucius had sailed
away, he and his companions that stayed behind in New Castile,
by degrees insinuated themselves into the affections of the people
of the country, meeting often with them, and treating them gently:
and at last they not only lived among them without danger, but
conversed familiarly with them; and got so far into the heart
of a prince, whose name and country I have forgot, that he both
furnished them plentifully with all things necessary, and also
with the conveniences of travelling; both boats when they went
by water, and wagons when they travelled over land: he sent with
them a very faithful guide, who was to introduce and recommend
them to such other princes as they had a mind to see: and after
many days' journey, they came to towns and cities, and to commonwealths,
that were both happily governed and well-peopled. Under the equator,
and as far on both sides of it as the sun moves, there lay vast
deserts that were parched with the perpetual heat of the sun;
the soil was withered, all things looked dismally, and all places
were either quite uninhabited, or abounded with wild beasts and
serpents, and some few men that were neither less wild nor less
cruel than the beasts themselves.
But as they went farther, a new scene opened, all things grew
milder, the air less burning, the soil more verdant, and even
the beasts were less wild: and at last there were nations, towns,
and cities, that had not only mutual commerce among themselves,
and with their neighbors, but traded both by sea and land, to
very remote countries. There they found the conveniences of seeing
many countries on all hands, for no ship went any voyage into
which he and his companions were not very welcome. The first vessels
that they saw were flat-bottomed, their sails were made of reeds
and wicker woven close together, only some were of leather; but
afterward they found ships made with round keels and canvas sails,
and in all respects like our ships; and the seamen understood
both astronomy and navigation. He got wonderfully into their favor,
by showing them the use of the needle, of which till then they
were utterly ignorant. They sailed before with great caution,
and only in summer-time, but now they count all seasons alike,
trusting wholly to the loadstone, in which they are perhaps more
secure than safe; so that there is reason to fear that this discovery,
which was thought would prove so much to their advantage, may
by their imprudence become an occasion of much mischief to them.
But it were too long to dwell on all that he told us he had observed
in every place, it would be too great a digression from our present
purpose: whatever is necessary to be told, concerning those wise
and prudent institutions which he observed among civilized nations,
may perhaps be related by us on a more proper occasion. We asked
him many questions concerning all these things, to which he answered
very willingly; only we made no inquiries after monsters, than
which nothing is more common; for everywhere one may hear of ravenous
dogs and wolves, and cruel man-eaters; but it is not so easy to
find States that are well and wisely governed.
As he told us of many things that were amiss in those newdiscovered
countries, so he reckoned up not a few things from which patterns
might be taken for correcting the errors of these nations among
whom we live; of which an account may be given, as I have already
promised, at some other time; for at present I intend only to
relate those particulars that he told us of the manners and laws
of the Utopians: but I will begin with the occasion that led us
to speak of that commonwealth. After Raphael had discoursed with
great judgment on the many errors that were both among us and
these nations; had treated of the wise institutions both here
and there, and had spoken as distinctly of the customs and government
of every nation through which he had passed, as if he had spent
his whole life in it, Peter, being struck with admiration, said:
"I wonder, Raphael, how it comes that you enter into no king's
service, for I am sure there are none to whom you would not be
very acceptable: for your learning and knowledge both of men and
things, are such that you would not only entertain them very pleasantly,
but be of great use to them, by the examples you could set before
them and the advices you could give them; and by this means you
would both serve your own interest and be of great use to all
your friends."
"As for my friends," answered he, "I need not be
much concerned, having already done for them all that was incumbent
on me; for when I was not only in good health, but fresh and young,
I distributed that among my kindred and friends which other people
do not part with till they are old and sick, when they then unwillingly
give that which they can enjoy no longer themselves. I think my
friends ought to rest contented with this, and not to expect that
for their sake I should enslave myself to any king whatsoever."
"Soft and fair," said Peter, "I do not mean that
you should be a slave to any king, but only that you should assist
them, and be useful to them."
"The change of the word," said he, "does not alter
the matter."
"But term it as you will," replied Peter, "I do
not see any other way in which you can be so useful, both in private
to your friends, and to the public, and by which you can make
your own condition happier."
"Happier!" answered Raphael; "is that to be compassed
in a way so abhorrent to my genius? Now I live as I will, to which
I believe few courtiers can pretend. And there are so many that
court the favor of great men, that there will be no great loss
if they are not troubled either with me or with others of my temper."
Upon this, said I: "I perceive, Raphael, that you neither
desire wealth nor greatness; and indeed I value and admire such
a man much more than I do any of the great men in the world. Yet
I think you would do what would well become so generous and philosophical
a soul as yours is, if you would apply your time and thoughts
to public affairs, even though you may happen to find it a little
uneasy to yourself: and this you can never do with so much advantage,
as by being taken into the counsel of some great prince, and putting
him on noble and worthy actions, which I know you would do if
you were in such a post; for the springs both of good and evil
flow from the prince, over a whole nation, as from a lasting fountain.
So much learning as you have, even without practice in affairs,
or so great a practice as you have had, without any other learning,
would render you a very fit counsellor to any king whatsoever."
"You are doubly mistaken," said he, "Mr. More,
both in your opinion of me, and in the judgment you make of things:
for as I have not that capacity that you fancy I have, so, if
I had it, the public would not be one jot the better, when I had
sacrificed my quiet to it. For most princes apply themselves more
to affairs of war than to the useful arts of peace; and in these
I neither have any knowledge, nor do I much desire it: they are
generally more set on acquiring new kingdoms, right or wrong,
than on governing well those they possess. And among the ministers
of princes, there are none that are not so wise as to need no
assistance, or at least that do not think themselves so wise that
they imagine they need none; and if they court any, it is only
those for whom the prince has much personal favor, whom by their
fawnings and flatteries they endeavor to fix to their own interests:
and indeed Nature has so made us that we all love to be flattered,
and to please ourselves with our own notions. The old crow loves
his young, and the ape her cubs. Now if in such a court, made
up of persons who envy all others, and only admire themselves,
a person should but propose anything that he had either read in
history or observed in his travels, the rest would think that
the reputation of their wisdom would sink, and that their interest
would be much depressed, if they could not run it down: and if
all other things failed, then they would fly to this, that such
or such things pleased our ancestors, and it were well for us
if we could but match them. They would set up their rest on such
an answer, as a sufficient confutation of all that could be said,
as if it were a great misfortune, that any should be found wiser
than his ancestors; but though they willingly let go all the good
things that were among those of former ages, yet if better things
are proposed they cover themselves obstinately with this excuse
of reverence to past times. I have met with these proud, morose,
and absurd judgments of things in many places, particularly once
in England."
"Were you ever there?" said I.
"Yes, I was," answered he, "and stayed some months
there not long after the rebellion in the west was suppressed
with a great slaughter of the poor people that were engaged in
it. I was then much obliged to that reverend prelate, John Morton,
Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal, and Chancellor of England:
a man," said he, "Peter (for Mr. More knows well what
he was), that was not less venerable for his wisdom and virtues
than for the high character he bore. He was of a middle stature,
not broken with age; his looks begot reverence rather than fear;
his conversation was easy, but serious and gravehe sometimes took
pleasure to try the force of those that came as suitors to him
upon business, by speaking sharply though decently to them, and
by that he discovered their spirit and presence of mind, with
which he was much delighted, when it did not grow up to impudence,
as bearing a great resemblance to his own temper; and he looked
on such persons as the fittest men for affairs. He spoke both
gracefully and weightily; he was eminently skilled in the law,
had a vast understanding and a prodigious memory; and those excellent
talents with which nature had furnished him were improved by study
and experience. When I was in England the King depended much on
his counsels, and the government seemed to be chiefly supported
by him; for from his youth he had been all along practised in
affairs; and having passed through many traverses of fortune,
he had with great cost acquired a vast stock of wisdom, which
is not soon lost when it is purchased so dear.
"One day when I was dining with him there happened to be
at table one of the English lawyers, who took occasion to run
out in a high commendation of the severe execution of justice
upon thieves, who, as he said, were then hanged so fast that there
were sometimes twenty on one gibbet; and upon that he said he
could not wonder enough how it came to pass, that since so few
escaped, there were yet so many thieves left who were still robbing
in all places. Upon this, I who took the boldness to speak freely
before the cardinal, said there was no reason to wonder at the
matter, since this way of punishing thieves was neither just in
itself nor good for the public; for as the severity was too great,
so the remedy was not effectual; simple theft not being so great
a crime that it ought to cost a man his life, no punishment how
severe soever being able to restrain those from robbing who can
find out no other way of livelihood. 'In this,' said I, 'not only
you in England, but a great part of the world imitate some ill
masters that are readier to chastise their scholars than to teach
them. There are dreadful punishments enacted against thieves,
but it were much better to make such good provisions by which
every man might be put in a method how to live, and so be preserved
from the fatal necessity of stealing and of dying for it.'
"'There has been care enough taken for that,' said he, 'there
are many handicrafts, and there is husbandry, by which they may
make a shift to live unless they have a greater mind to follow
ill courses.'
"'That will not serve your turn,' said I, 'for many lose
their limbs in civil or foreign wars, as lately in the Cornish
rebellion, and some time ago in your wars with France, who being
thus mutilated in the service of their king and country, can no
more follow their old trades, and are too old to learn new ones:
but since wars are only accidental things, and have intervals,
let us consider those things that fall out every day. There is
a great number of noblemen among you, that are themselves as idle
as drones, that subsist on other men's labor, on the labor of
their tenants, whom, to raise their revenues, they pare to the
quick. This indeed is the only instance of their frugality, for
in all other things they are prodigal, even to the beggaring of
themselves: but besides this, they carry about with them a great
number of idle fellows, who never learned any art by which they
may gain their living; and these, as soon as either their lord
dies or they themselves fall sick, are turned out of doors; for
your lords are readier to feed idle people than to take care of
the sick; and often the heir is not able to keep together so great
a family as his predecessor did. Now when the stomachs of those
that are thus turned out of doors grow keen, they rob no less
keenly; and what else can they do? for when, by wandering about,
they have worn out both their health and their clothes, and are
tattered, and look ghastly, men of quality will not entertain
them, and poor men dare not do it, knowing that one who has been
bred up in idleness and pleasure, and who was used to walk about
with his sword and buckler, despising all the neighborhood with
an insolent scorn as far below him, is not fit for the spade and
mattock: nor will he serve a poor man for so small a hire, and
in so low a diet as he can afford to give him.'
"To this he answered: 'This sort of men ought to be particularly
cherished, for in them consists the force of the armies for which
we have occasion; since their birth inspires them with a nobler
sense of honor than is to be found among tradesmen or ploughmen.'
"'You may as well say,' replied I, 'that you must cherish
thieves on the account of wars, for you will never want the one
as long as you have the other; and as robbers prove sometimes
gallant soldiers, so soldiers often prove brave robbers; so near
an alliance there is between those two sorts of life. But this
bad custom, so common among you, of keeping many servants, is
not peculiar to this nation. In France there is yet a more pestiferous
sort of people, for the whole country is full of soldiers, still
kept up in time of peace, if such a state of a nation can be called
a peace: and these are kept in pay upon the same account that
you plead for those idle retainers about noblemen; this being
a maxim of those pretended statesmen that it is necessary for
the public safety to have a good body of veteran soldiers ever
in readiness. They think raw men are not to be depended on, and
they sometimes seek occasions for making war, that they may train
up their soldiers in the art of cutting throats; or as Sallust
observed, for keeping their hands in use, that they may not grow
dull by too long an intermission. But France has learned to its
cost how dangerous it is to feed such beasts.
"'The fate of the Romans, Carthaginians, and Syrians, and
many other nations and cities, which were both overturned and
quite ruined by those standing armies, should make others wiser:
and the folly of this maxim of the French appears plainly even
from this, that their trained soldiers often find your raw men
prove too hard for them; of which I will not say much, lest you
may think I flatter the English. Every day's experience shows
that the mechanics in the towns, or the clowns in the country,
are not afraid of fighting with those idle gentlemen, if they
are not disabled by some misfortune in their body, or dispirited
by extreme want, so that you need not fear that those well-shaped
and strong men (for it is only such that noblemen love to keep
about them, till they spoil them) who now grow feeble with ease,
and are softened with their effeminate manner of life, would be
less fit for action if they were well bred and well employed.
And it seems very unreasonable that for the prospect of a war,
which you need never have but when you please, you should maintain
so many idle men, as will always disturb you in time of peace,
which is ever to be more considered than war. But I do not think
that this necessity of stealing arises only from hence; there
is another cause of it more peculiar to England.'
"'What is that?' said the cardinal.
"'The increase of pasture,' said I, 'by which your sheep,
which are naturally mild, and easily kept in order, may be said
now to devour men, and unpeople, not only villages, but towns;
for wherever it is found that the sheep of any soil yield a softer
and richer wool than ordinary, there the nobility and gentry,
and even those holy men the abbots, not contented with the old
rents which their farms yielded, nor thinking it enough that they,
living at their ease, do no good to the public, resolve to do
it hurt instead of good. They stop the course of agriculture,
destroying houses and towns, reserving only the churches, and
enclose grounds that they may lodge their sheep in them. As if
forests and parks had swallowed up too little of the land, those
worthy countrymen turn the best inhabited places in solitudes,
for when an insatiable wretch, who is a plague to his country,
resolves to enclose many thousand acres of ground, the owners
as well as tenants are turned out of their possessions, by tricks,
or by main force, or being wearied out with ill-usage, they are
forced to sell them. By which means those miserable people, both
men and women, married and unmarried, old and young, with their
poor but numerous families (since country business requires many
hands), are all forced to change their seats, not knowing whither
to go; and they must sell almost for nothing their household stuff,
which could not bring them much money, even though they might
stay for a buyer. When that little money is at an end, for it
will be soon spent, what is left for them to do, but either to
steal and so to be hanged (God knows how justly), or to go about
and beg? And if they do this, they are put in prison as idle vagabonds;
while they would willingly work, but can find none that will hire
them; for there is no more occasion for country labor, to which
they have been bred, when there is no arable ground left. One
shepherd can look after a flock which will stock an extent of
ground that would require many hands if it were to be ploughed
and reaped. This likewise in many places raises the price of corn.
"'The price of wool is also so risen that the poor people
who were wont to make cloth are no more able to buy it; and this
likewise makes many of them idle. For since the increase of pasture,
God has punished the avarice of the owners by a rot among the
sheep, which has destroyed vast numbers of them; to us it might
have seemed more just had it fell on the owners themselves. But
suppose the sheep should increase ever so much, their price is
not like to fall; since though they cannot be called a monopoly,
because they are not engrossed by one person, yet they are in
so few hands, and these are so rich, that as they are not pressed
to sell them sooner than they have a mind to it, so they never
do it till they have raised the price as high as possible. And
on the same account it is, that the other kinds of cattle are
so dear, because many villages being pulled down, and all country
labor being much neglected, there are none who make it their business
to breed them. The rich do not breed cattle as they do sheep,
but buy them lean, and at low prices; and after they have fattened
them on their grounds sell them again at high rates. And I do
not think that all the inconveniences this will produce are yet
observed, for as they sell the cattle dear, so if they are consumed
faster than the breeding countries from which they are brought
can afford them, then the stock must decrease, and this must needs
end in great scarcity; and by these means this your island, which
seemed as to this particular the happiest in the world, will suffer
much by the cursed avarice of a few persons; besides this, the
rising of corn makes all people lessen their families as much
as they can; and what can those who are dismissed by them do,
but either beg or rob? And to this last, a man of a great mind
is much sooner drawn than to the former.
"'Luxury likewise breaks in apace upon you, to set forward
your poverty and misery; there is an excessive vanity in apparel,
and great cost in diet; and that not only in noblemen's families,
but even among tradesmen, among the farmers themselves, and among
all ranks of persons. You have also many infamous houses, and,
besides those that are known, the taverns and alehouses are no
better; add to these, dice, cards, tables, foot-ball, tennis,
and quoits, in which money runs fast away; and those that are
initiated into them, must in the conclusion betake themselves
to robbing for a supply. Banish these plagues, and give orders
that those who have dispeopled so much soil, may either rebuild
the villages they have pulled down, or let out their grounds to
such as will do it: restrain those engrossings of the rich, that
are as bad almost as monopolies; leave fewer occasions to idleness;
let agriculture be set up again, and the manufacture of the wool
be regulated, that so there may be work found for those companies
of idle people whom want forces to be thieves, or who, now being
idle vagabonds or useless servants, will certainly grow thieves
at last. If you do not find a remedy to these evils, it is a vain
thing to boast of your severity in punishing theft, which though
it may have the appearance of justice, yet in itself is neither
just nor convenient. For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated,
and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then
punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed
them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first
make thieves and then punish them ?'
"While I was talking thus, the counsellor who was present
had prepared an answer, and had resolved to resume all I had said,
according to the formality of a debate, in which things are generally
repeated more faithfully than they are answered; as if the chief
trial to be made were of men's memories.
"'You have talked prettily for a stranger,' said he, 'having
heard of many things among us which you have not been able to
consider well; but I will make the whole matter plain to you,
and will first repeat in order all that you have said, then I
will show how much your ignorance of our affairs has misled you,
and will in the last place answer all your arguments. And that
I may begin where I promised, there were four things --'
"'Hold your peace,' said the cardinal; 'this will take up
too much time; therefore we will at present ease you of the trouble
of answering, and reserve it to our next meeting, which shall
be to-morrow, if Raphael's affairs and yours can admit of it.
But, Raphael,' said he to me, 'I would gladly know upon what reason
it is that you think theft ought not to be punished by death?
Would you give way to it? Or do you propose any other punishment
that will be more useful to the public? For since death does not
restrain theft, if men thought their lives would be safe, what
fear or force could restrain ill men? On the contrary, they would
look on the mitigation of the punishment as an invitation to commit
more crimes.'
"I answered: 'It seems to me a very unjust thing to take
away a man's life for a little money; for nothing in the world
can be of equal value with a man's life: and if it is said that
it is not for the money that one suffers, but for his breaking
the law, I must say extreme justice is an extreme injury; for
we ought not to approve of these terrible laws that make the smallest
offences capital, nor of that opinion of the Stoics that makes
all crimes equal, as if there were no difference to be made between
the killing a man and the taking his purse, between which, if
we examine things impartially, there is no likeness nor proportion.
God has commanded us not to kill, and shall we kill so easily
for a little money? But if one shall say, that by that law we
are only forbid to kill any, except when the laws of the land
allow of it; upon the same grounds, laws may be made in some cases
to allow of adultery and perjury: for God having taken from us
the right of disposing, either of our own or of other people's
lives, if it is pretended that the mutual consent of man in making
laws can authorize manslaughter in cases in which God has given
us no example, that it frees people from the obligation of the
divine law, and so makes murder a lawful action; what is this,
but to give a preference to human laws before the divine?
"'And if this is once admitted, by the same rule men may
in all other things put what restrictions they please upon the
laws of God. If by the Mosaical law, though it was rough and severe,
as being a yoke laid on an obstinate and servile nation, men were
only fined and not put to death for theft, we cannot imagine that
in this new law of mercy, in which God treats us with the tenderness
of a father, he has given us a greater license to cruelty than
he did to the Jews. Upon these reasons it is that I think putting
thieves to death is not lawful; and it is plain and obvious that
it is absurd, and of ill-consequence to the commonwealth, that
a thief and a murderer should be equally punished; for if a robber
sees that his danger is the same, if he is convicted of theft
as if he were guilty of murder, this will naturally incite him
to kill the person whom otherwise he would only have robbed, since
if the punishment is the same, there is more security, and less
danger of discovery, when he that can best make it is put out
of the way; so that terrifying thieves too much, provokes them
to cruelty.
"But as to the question, What more convenient way of punishment
can be found? I think it is much more easier to find out that
than to invent anything that is worse; why should we doubt but
the way that was so long in use among the old Romans, who understood
so well the arts of government, was very proper for their punishment?
They condemned such as they found guilty of great crimes, to work
their whole lives in quarries, or to dig in mines with chains
about them. But the method that I liked best, was that which I
observed in my travels in Persia, among the Polylerits, who are
a considerable and well-governed people. They pay a yearly tribute
to the King of Persia; but in all other respects they are a free
nation, and governed by their own laws. They lie far from the
sea, and are environed with hills; and being contented with the
productions of their own country, which is very fruitful, they
have little commerce with any other nation; and as they, according
to the genius of their country, have no inclination to enlarge
their borders; so their mountains, and the pension they pay to
the Persians, secure them from all invasions.
"'Thus they have no wars among them; they live rather conveniently
than with splendor, and may be rather called a happy nation, than
either eminent or famous; for I do not think that they are known
so much as by name to any but their next neighbors. Those that
are found guilty of theft among them are bound to make restitution
to the owner, and not as it is in other places, to the prince,
for they reckon that the prince has no more right to the stolen
goods than the thief; but if that which was stolen is no more
in being, then the goods of the thieves are estimated, and restitution
being made out of them, the remainder is given to their wives
and children: and they themselves are condemned to serve in the
public works, but are neither imprisoned, nor chained, unless
there happened to be some extraordinary circumstances in their
crimes. They go about loose and free, working for the public.
If they are idle or backward to work, they are whipped; but if
they work hard, they are well used and treated without any mark
of reproach, only the lists of them are called always at night,
and then they are shut up. They suffer no other uneasiness, but
this of constant labor; for as they work for the public, so they
are well entertained out of the public stock, which is done differently
in different places. In some places, whatever is bestowed on them,
is raised by a charitable contribution; and though this way may
seem uncertain, yet so merciful are the inclinations of that people,
that they are plentifully supplied by it; but in other places,
public revenues are set aside for them; or there is a constant
tax of a poll-money raised for their maintenance. In some places
they are set to no public work, but every private man that has
occasion to hire workmen goes to the market-places and hires them
of the public, a little lower than he would do a freeman: if they
go lazily about their task, he may quicken them with the whip.
"'By this means there is always some piece of work or other
to be done by them; and beside their livelihood, they earn somewhat
still to the public. They all wear a peculiar habit, of one certain
color, and their hair is cropped a little above their ears, and
a piece of one of their ears is cut off. Their friends are allowed
to give them either meat, drink, or clothes so they are of their
proper color, but it is death, both to the giver and taker, if
they give them money; nor is it less penal for any freeman to
take money from them, upon any account whatsoever: and it is also
death for any of these slaves (so they are called) to handle arms.
Those of every division of the country are distinguished by a
peculiar mark; which it is capital for them to lay aside, to go
out of their bounds, or to talk with a slave of another jurisdiction;
and the very attempt of an escape is no less penal than an escape
itself; it is death for any other slave to be accessory to it;
and if a freeman engages in it he is condemned to slavery. Those
that discover it are rewarded -if freemen, in money; and if slaves,
with liberty, together with a pardon for being accessory to it;
that so they might find their account, rather in repenting of
their engaging in such a design, than in persisting in it.
"'These are their laws and rules in relation to robbery,
and it is obvious that they are as advantageous as they are mild
and gentle; since vice is not only destroyed, and men preserved,
but they treated in such a manner as to make them see the necessity
of being honest, and of employing the rest of their lives in repairing
the injuries they have formerly done to society. Nor is there
any hazard of their falling back to their old customs: and so
little do travellers apprehend mischief from them, that they generally
make use of them for guides, from one jurisdiction to another;
for there is nothing left them by which they can rob, or be the
better for it, since, as they are disarmed, so the very having
of money is a sufficient conviction: and as they are certainly
punished if discovered, so they cannot hope to escape; for their
habit being in all the parts of it different from what is commonly
worn, they cannot fly away, unless they would go naked, and even
then their cropped ear would betray them. The only danger to be
feared from them is their conspiring against the government: but
those of one division and neighborhood can do nothing to any purpose,
unless a general conspiracy were laid among all the slaves of
the several jurisdictions, which cannot be done, since they cannot
meet or talk together; nor will any venture on a design where
the concealment would be so dangerous and the discovery so profitable.
None are quite hopeless of recovering their freedom, since by
their obedience and patience, and by giving good grounds to believe
that they will change their manner of life for the future, they
may expect at last to obtain their liberty: and some are every
year restored to it, upon the good character that is given of
them.'
"When I had related all this, I added that I did not see
why such a method might not be followed with more advantage than
could ever be expected from that severe justice which the counsellor
magnified so much. To this he answered that it could never take
place in England without endangering the whole nation. As he said
this he shook his head, made some grimaces, and held his peace,
while all the company seemed of his opinion, except the cardinal,
who said that it was not easy to form a judgment of its success,
since it was a method that never yet had been tried.
"'But if,' said he, 'when the sentence of death was passed
upon a thief, the prince would reprieve him for a while, and make
the experiment upon him, denying him the privilege of a sanctuary;
and then if it had a good effect upon him, it might take place;
and if it did not succeed, the worst would be, to execute the
sentence on the condemned persons at last. And I do not see,'
added he, 'why it would be either unjust, inconvenient, or at
all dangerous, to admit of such a delay: in my opinion, the vagabonds
ought to be treated in the same manner; against whom, though we
have made many laws, yet we have not been able to gain our end.'
When the cardinal had done, they all commended the motion, though
they had despised it when it came from me; but more particularly
commended what related to the vagabonds, because it was his own
observation.
"I do not know whether it be worth while to tell what followed,
for it was very ridiculous; but I shall venture at it, for as
it is not foreign to this matter, so some good use may be made
of it. There was a jester standing by, that counterfeited the
fool so naturally that he seemed to be really one. The jests which
he offered were so cold and dull that we laughed more at him than
at them; yet sometimes he said, as it were by chance, things that
were not unpleasant; so as to justify the old proverb, 'That he
who throws the dice often, will sometimes have a lucky hit.' When
one of the company had said that I had taken care of the thieves,
and the cardinal had taken care of the vagabonds, so that there
remained nothing but that some public provision might be made
for the poor, whom sickness or old age had disabled from labor,
'Leave that to me,' said the fool, 'and I shall take care of them;
for there is no sort of people whose sight I abhor more, having
been so often vexed with them, and with their sad complaints;
but as dolefully soever as they have told their tale, they could
never prevail so far as to draw one penny from me: for either
I had no mind to give them anything, or when I had a mind to do
it I had nothing to give them: and they now know me so well that
they will not lose their labor, but let me pass without giving
me any trouble, because they hope for nothing, no more in faith
than if I were a priest: but I would have a law made, for sending
all these beggars to monasteries, the men to the Benedictines
to be made lay-brothers, and the women to be nuns.'
"The cardinal smiled, and approved of it in jest; but the
rest liked it in earnest. There was a divine present, who though
he was a grave, morose man, yet he was so pleased with this reflection
that was made on the priests and the monks, that he began to play
with the fool, and said to him, 'This will not deliver you from
all beggars, except you take care of us friars.'
"'That is done already,' answered the fool, 'for the cardinal
has provided for you, by what he proposed for restraining vagabonds,
and setting them to work, for I know no vagabonds like you.'
"This was well entertained by the whole company, who, looking
at the cardinal, perceived that he was not ill-pleased at it;
only the friar himself was vexed, as may be easily imagined, and
fell into such a passion that he could not forbear railing at
the fool, and calling him knave, slanderer, backbiter, and son
of perdition, and then cited some dreadful threatenings out of
the Scriptures against him. Now the jester thought he was in his
element, and laid about him freely.
"'Good friar,' said he, 'be not angry, for it is written,
"In patience possess your soul."'
"The friar answered (for I shall give you his own words),
'I am not angry, you hangman; at least I do not sin in it, for
the Psalmist says, "Be ye angry, and sin not."'
"Upon this the cardinal admonished him gently, and wished
him to govern his passions.
"'No, my lord,' said he, 'I speak not but from a good zeal,
which I ought to have; for holy men have had a good zeal, as it
is said, "The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up;" and
we sing in our church, that those, who mocked Elisha as he went
up to the house of God, felt the effects of his zeal; which that
mocker, that rogue, that scoundrel, will perhaps feel.'
"'You do this perhaps with a good intention,' said the cardinal;
'but in my opinion it were wiser in you, and perhaps better for
you, not to engage in so ridiculous a contest with a fool.'
"'No, my lord,' answered he, 'that were not wisely done;
for Solomon, the wisest of men, said, "Answer a fool according
to his folly;" which I now do, and show him the ditch into
which he will fall, if he is not aware of it; for if the many
mockers of Elisha, who was but one bald man, felt the effect of
his zeal, what will become of one mocker of so many friars, among
whom there are so many bald men? We have likewise a bull, by which
all that jeer us are excommunicated.'
"When the cardinal saw that there was no end of this matter,
he made a sign to the fool to withdraw, turned the discourse another
way, and soon after rose from the table, and, dismissing us, went
to hear causes.
"Thus, Mr. More, I have run out into a tedious story, of
the length of which I had been ashamed, if, as you earnestly begged
it of me, I had not observed you to hearken to it, as if you had
no mind to lose any part of it. I might have contracted it, but
I resolved to give it to you at large, that you might observe
how those that despised what I had proposed, no sooner perceived
that the cardinal did not dislike it, but presently approved of
it, fawned so on him, and flattered him to such a degree, that
they in good earnest applauded those things that he only liked
in jest. And from hence you may gather, how little courtiers would
value either me or my counsels."
To this I answered: "You have done me a great kindness in
this relation; for as everything has been related by you, both
wisely and pleasantly, so you have made me imagine that I was
in my own country, and grown young again, by recalling that good
cardinal to my thoughts, in whose family I was bred from my childhood:
and though you are upon other accounts very dear to me, yet you
are the dearer, because you honor his memory so much; but after
all this I cannot change my opinion, for I still think that if
you could overcome that aversion which you have to the courts
of princes, you might, by the advice which it is in your power
to give, do a great deal of good to mankind; and this is the chief
design that every good man ought to propose to himself in living;
for your friend Plato thinks that nations will be happy, when
either philosophers become kings or kings become philosophers,
it is no wonder if we are so far from that happiness, while philosophers
will not think it their duty to assist kings with their councils.
"'They are not so base-minded,' said he, 'but that they would
willingly do it: many of them have already done it by their books,
if those that are in power would but hearken to their good advice.'
But Plato judged right, that except kings themselves became philosophers,
they who from their childhood are corrupted with false notions
would never fall in entirely with the councils of philosophers,
and this he himself found to be true in the person of Dionysius.
"Do not you think that if I were about any king, proposing
good laws to him, and endeavoring to root out all the cursed seeds
of evil that I found in him, I should either be turned out of
his court or at least be laughed at for my pains? For instance,
what could it signify if I were about the King of France, and
were called into his Cabinet Council, where several wise men,
in his hearing, were proposing many expedients, as by what arts
and practices Milan may be kept, and Naples, that had so oft slipped
out of their hands, recovered; how the Venetians, and after them
the rest of Italy, may be subdued; and then how Flanders, Brabant,
and all Burgundy, and some other kingdoms which he has swallowed
already in his designs, may be added to his empire. One proposes
a league with the Venetians, to be kept as long as he finds his
account in it, and that he ought to communicate councils with
them, and give them some share of the spoil, till his success
makes him need or fear them less, and then it will be easily taken
out of their hands. Another proposes the hiring the Germans, and
the securing the Switzers by pensions. Another proposes the gaining
the Emperor by money, which is omnipotent with him. Another proposes
a peace with the King of Arragon, and, in order to cement it,
the yielding up the King of Navarre's pretensions. Another thinks
the Prince of Castile is to be wrought on, by the hope of an alliance;
and that some of his courtiers are to be gained to the French
faction by pensions. The hardest point of all is what to do with
England: a treaty of peace is to be set on foot, and if their
alliance is not to be depended on, yet it is to be made as firm
as possible; and they are to be called friends, but suspected
as enemies: therefore the Scots are to be kept in readiness, to
be let loose upon England on every occasion: and some banished
nobleman is to be supported underhand (for by the league it cannot
be done avowedly) who has a pretension to the crown, by which
means that suspected prince may be kept in awe.
"Now when things are in so great a fermentation, and so many
gallant men are joining councils, how to carry on the war, if
so mean a man as I should stand up, and wish them to change all
their councils, to let Italy alone, and stay at home, since the
Kingdom of France was indeed greater than could be well governed
by one man; that therefore he ought not to think of adding others
to it: and if after this, I should propose to them the resolutions
of the Achorians, a people that lie on the southeast of Utopia,
who long ago engaged in war, in order to add to the dominions
of their prince another kingdom, to which he had some pretensions
by an ancient alliance. This they conquered, but found that the
trouble of keeping it was equal to that by which it was gained;
that the conquered people were always either in rebellion or exposed
to foreign invasions, while they were obliged to be incessantly
at war, either for or against them, and consequently could never
disband their army; that in the meantime they were oppressed with
taxes, their money went out of the kingdom, their blood was spilt
for the glory of their King, without procuring the least advantage
to the people, who received not the smallest benefit from it even
in time of peace; and that their manners being corrupted by a
long war, robbery and murders everywhere abounded, and their laws
fell into contempt; while their King, distracted with the care
of two kingdoms, was the less able to apply his mind to the interests
of either.
"When they saw this, and that there would be no end to these
evils, they by joint councils made an humble address to their
King, desiring him to choose which of the two kingdoms he had
the greatest mind to keep, since he could not hold both; for they
were too great a people to be governed by a divided king, since
no man would willingly have a groom that should be in common between
him and another. Upon which the good prince was forced to quit
his new kingdom to one of his friends (who was not long after
dethroned), and to be contented with his old one. To this I would
add that after all those warlike attempts, the vast confusions,
and the consumption both of treasure and of people that must follow
them; perhaps upon some misfortune, they might be forced to throw
up all at last; therefore it seemed much more eligible that the
King should improve his ancient kingdom all he could, and make
it flourish as much as possible; that he should love his people,
and be beloved of them; that he should live among them, govern
them gently, and let other kingdoms alone, since that which had
fallen to his share was big enough, if not too big for him. Pray
how do you think would such a speech as this be heard?"
"I confess," said I, "I think not very well."
"But what," said he, "if I should sort with another
kind of ministers, whose chief contrivances and consultations
were, by what art the prince's treasures might be increased. Where
one proposes raising the value of specie when the King's debts
are large, and lowering it when his revenues were to come in,
that so he might both pay much with a little, and in a little
receive a great deal: another proposes a pretence of a war, that
money might be raised in order to carry it on, and that a peace
be concluded as soon as that was done; and this with such appearances
of religion as might work on the people, and make them impute
it to the piety of their prince, and to his tenderness for the
lives of his subjects. A third offers some old musty laws, that
have been antiquated by a long disuse; and which, as they had
been forgotten by all the subjects, so they had been also broken
by them; and proposes the levying the penalties of these laws,
that as it would bring in a vast treasure, so there might be a
very good pretence for it, since it would look like the executing
a law, and the doing of justice. A fourth proposes the prohibiting
of many things under severe penalties, especially such as were
against the interest of the people, and then the dispensing with
these prohibitions upon great compositions, to those who might
find their advantage in breaking them. This would serve two ends,
both of them acceptable to many; for as those whose avarice led
them to transgress would be severely fined, so the selling licenses
dear would look as if a prince were tender of his people, and
would not easily, or at low rates, dispense with anything that
might be against the public good.
"Another proposes that the judges must be made sure, that
they may declare always in favor of the prerogative, that they
must be often sent for to court, that the King may hear them argue
those points in which he is concerned; since how unjust soever
any of his pretensions may be, yet still some one or other of
them, either out of contradiction to others or the pride of singularity
or to make their court, would find out some pretence or other
to give the King a fair color to carry the point: for if the judges
but differ in opinion, the clearest thing in the world is made
by that means disputable, and truth being once brought in question,
the King may then take advantage to expound the law for his own
profit; while the judges that stand out will be brought over,
either out of fear or modesty; and they being thus gained, all
of them may be sent to the bench to give sentence boldly, as the
King would have it; for fair pretences will never be wanting when
sentence is to be given in the prince's favor. It will either
be said that equity lies on his side, or some words in the law
will be found sounding that way, or some forced sense will be
put on them; and when all other things fail, the King's undoubted
prerogative will be pretended, as that which is above all law;
and to which a religious judge ought to have a special regard.
"Thus all consent to that maxim of Crassus, that a prince
cannot have treasure enough, since he must maintain his armies
out of it: that a king, even though he would, can do nothing unjustly;
that all property is in him, not excepting the very persons of
his subjects: and that no man has any other property, but that
which the King out of his goodness thinks fit to leave him. And
they think it is the prince's interest, that there be as little
of this left as may be, as if it were his advantage that his people
should have neither riches nor liberty; since these things make
them less easy and less willing to submit to a cruel and unjust
government; whereas necessity and poverty blunt them, make them
patient, beat them down, and break that height of spirit, that
might otherwise dispose them to rebel. Now what if after all these
propositions were made, I should rise up and assert, that such
councils were both unbecoming a king, and mischievous to him:
and that not only his honor but his safety consisted more in his
people's wealth, than in his own; if I should show that they choose
a king for their own sake, and not for his; that by his care and
endeavors they may be both easy and safe; and that therefore a
prince ought to take more care of his people's happiness than
of his own, as a shepherd is to take more care of his flock than
of himself.
"It is also certain that they are much mistaken that think
the poverty of a nation is a means of the public safety. Who quarrel
more than beggars? Who does more earnestly long for a change,
than he that is uneasy in his present circumstances? And who run
to create confusions with so desperate a boldness, as those who
have nothing to lose hope to gain by them? If a king should fall
under such contempt or envy, that he could not keep his subjects
in their duty, but by oppression and illusage, and by rendering
them poor and miserable, it were certainly better for him to quit
his kingdom, than to retain it by such methods, as makes him while
he keeps the name of authority, lose the majesty due to it. Nor
is it so becoming the dignity of a king to reign over beggars,
as over rich and happy subjects. And therefore Fabricius, a man
of a noble and exalted temper, said, he would rather govern rich
men than be rich himself; since for one man to abound in wealth
and pleasure, when all about him are mourning and groaning, is
to a gaoler and not a king. He is an unskilful physician, that
cannot cure one disease without casting his patient into another:
so he that can find no other way for correcting the errors of
his people, but by taking from them the conveniences of life,
shows that he knows not what it is to govern a free nation. He
himself ought rather to shake off his sloth, or to lay down his
pride; for the contempt or hatred that his people have for him,
takes its rise from the vices in himself. Let him live upon what
belongs to him, without wronging others, and accommodate his expense
to his revenue. Let him punish crimes, and by his wise conduct
let him endeavor to prevent them, rather than be severe when he
has suffered them to be too common: let him not rashly revive
laws that are abrogated by disuse, especially if they have been
long forgotten, and never wanted; and let him never take any penalty
for the breach of them, to which a judge would not give way in
a private man, but would look on him as a crafty and unjust person
for pretending to it.
"To these things I would add that law among the Macarians,
a people that live not far from Utopia, by which their King, on
the day on which he begins to reign, is tied by an oath confirmed
by solemn sacrifices, never to have at once above 1,000 pounds
of gold in his treasures, or so much silver as is equal to that
in value. This law, they tell us, was made by an excellent king,
who had more regard to the riches of his country than to his own
wealth, and therefore provided against the heaping up of so much
treasure as might impoverish the people. He thought that a moderate
sum might be sufficient for any accident, if either the King had
occasion for it against rebels, or the kingdom against the invasion
of an enemy; but that it was not enough to encourage a prince
to invade other men's rights, a circumstance that was the chief
cause of his making that law. He also thought that it was a good
provision for that free circulation of money, so necessary for
the course of commerce and exchange: and when a king must distribute
all those extraordinary accessions that increase treasure beyond
the due pitch, it makes him less disposed to oppress his subjects.
Such a king as this will be the terror of ill men, and will be
beloved by all the good.
"If, I say, I should talk of these or such like things, to
men that had taken their bias another way, how deaf would they
be to all I could say?"
"No doubt, very deaf," answered I; "and no wonder,
for one is never to offer at propositions or advice that we are
certain will not be entertained. Discourses so much out of the
road could not avail anything, nor have any effect on men whose
minds were prepossessed with different sentiments. This philosophical
way of speculation is not unpleasant among friends in a free conversation,
but there is no room for it in the courts of princes where great
affairs are carried on by authority."
"That is what I was saying," replied he, "that
there is no room for philosophy in the courts of princes."
"Yes, there is," said I, "but not for this speculative
philosophy that makes everything to be alike fitting at all times:
but there is another philosophy that is more pliable, that knows
its proper scene, accommodates itself to it, and teaches a man
with propriety and decency to act that part which has fallen to
his share. If when one of Plautus's comedies is upon the stage
and a company of servants are acting their parts, you should come
out in the garb of a philosopher, and repeat out of 'Octavia,'
a discourse of Seneca's to Nero, would it not be better for you
to say nothing than by mixing things of such different natures
to make an impertinent tragi-comedy? For you spoil and corrupt
the play that is in hand when you mix with it things of an opposite
nature, even though they are much better. Therefore go through
with the play that is acting, the best you can, and do not confound
it because another that is pleasanter comes into your thoughts.
It is even so in a commonwealth and in the councils of princes;
if ill opinions cannot be quite rooted out, and you cannot cure
some received vice according to your wishes, you must not therefore
abandon the commonwealth; for the same reasons you should not
forsake the ship in a storm because you cannot command the winds.
You are not obliged to assault people with discourses that are
out of their road, when you see that their received notions must
prevent your making an impression upon them. You ought rather
to cast about and to manage things with all the dexterity in your
power, so that if you are not able to make them go well they may
be as little ill as possible; for except all men were good everything
cannot be right, and that is a blessing that I do not at present
hope to see."
"According to your arguments," answered he, "all
that I could be able to do would be to preserve myself from being
mad while I endeavored to cure the madness of others; for if I
speak truth, I must repeat what I have said to you; and as for
lying, whether a philosopher can do it or not, I cannot tell;
I am sure I cannot do it. But though these discourses may be uneasy
and ungrateful to them, I do not see why they should seem foolish
or extravagant: indeed if I should either propose such things
as Plato has contrived in his commonwealth, or as the Utopians
practise in theirs, though they might seem better, as certainly
they are, yet they are so different from our establishment, which
is founded on property, there being no such thing among them,
that I could not expect that it would have any effect on them;
but such discourses as mine, which only call past evils to mind
and give warning of what may follow, have nothing in them that
is so absurd that they may not be used at any time, for they can
only be unpleasant to those who are resolved to run headlong the
contrary way; and if we must let alone everything as absurd or
extravagant which by reason of the wicked lives of many may seem
uncouth, we must, even among Christians, give over pressing the
greatest part of those things that Christ hath taught us, though
He has commanded us not to conceal them, but to proclaim on the
house-tops that which he taught in secret.
"The greatest parts of his precepts are more opposite to
the lives of the men of this age than any part of my discourse
has been; but the preachers seemed to have learned that craft
to which you advise me, for they observing that the world would
not willingly suit their lives to the rules that Christ has given,
have fitted his doctrine as if it had been a leaden rule, to their
lives, that so some way or other they might agree with one another.
But I see no other effect of this compliance except it be that
men become more secure in their wickedness by it. And this is
all the success that I can have in a court, for I must always
differ from the rest, and then I shall signify nothing; or if
I agree with them, I shall then only help forward their madness.
I do not comprehend what you mean by your casting about, or by
the bending and handling things so dexterously, that if they go
not well they may go as little ill as may be; for in courts they
will not bear with a man's holding his peace or conniving at what
others do. A man must barefacedly approve of the worst counsels,
and consent to the blackest designs: so that he would pass for
a spy, or possibly for a traitor, that did but coldly approve
of such wicked practices: and therefore when a man is engaged
in such a society, he will be so far from being able to mend matters
by his casting about, as you call it, that he will find no occasions
of doing any good: the ill company will sooner corrupt him than
be the better for him: or if notwithstanding all their ill company,
he still remains steady and innocent, yet their follies and knavery
will be imputed to him; and by mixing counsels with them, he must
bear his share of all the blame that belongs wholly to others.
"It was no ill simile by which Plato set forth the unreasonableness
of a philosopher's meddling with government. If a man, says he,
was to see a great company run out every day into the rain, and
take delight in being wet; if he knew that it would be to no purpose
for him to go and persuade them to return to their houses, in
order to avoid the storm, and that all that could be expected
by his going to speak to them would be that he himself should
be as wet as they, it would be best for him to keep within doors;
and since he had not influence enough to correct other people's
folly, to take care to preserve himself.
"Though to speak plainly my real sentiments, I must freely
own that as long as there is any property, and while money is
the standard of all other things, I cannot think that a nation
can be governed either justly or happily: not justly, because
the best things will fall to the share of the worst men; nor happily,
because all things will be divided among a few (and even these
are not in all respects happy), the rest being left to be absolutely
miserable. Therefore when I reflect on the wise and good constitution
of the Utopians -among whom all things are so well governed, and
with so few laws; where virtue hath its due reward, and yet there
is such an equality, that every man lives in plenty -when I compare
with them so many other nations that are still making new laws,
and yet can never bring their constitution to a right regulation,
where notwithstanding everyone has his property; yet all the laws
that they can invent have not the power either to obtain or preserve
it, or even to enable men certainly to distinguish what is their
own from what is another's; of which the many lawsuits that every
day break out, and are eternally depending, give too plain a demonstration;
when, I say, I balance all these things in my thoughts, I grow
more favorable to Plato, and do not wonder that he resolved not
to make any laws for such as would not submit to a community of
all things: for so wise a man could not but foresee that the setting
all upon a level was the only way to make a nation happy, which
cannot be obtained so long as there is property: for when every
man draws to himself all that he can compass, by one title or
another, it must needs follow, that how plentiful soever a nation
may be, yet a few dividing the wealth of it among themselves,
the rest must fall into indigence.
"So that there will be two sorts of people among them, who
deserve that their fortunes should be interchanged; the former
useless, but wicked and ravenous; and the latter, who by their
constant industry serve the public more than themselves, sincere
and modest men. From whence I am persuaded, that till property
is taken away there can be no equitable or just distribution of
things, nor can the world be happily governed: for as long as
that is maintained, the greatest and the far best part of mankind
will be still oppressed with a load of cares and anxieties. I
confess without taking it quite away, those pressures that lie
on a great part of mankind may be made lighter; but they can never
be quite removed. For if laws were made to determine at how great
an extent in soil, and at how much money every man must stop,
to limit the prince that he might not grow too great, and to restrain
the people that they might not become too insolent, and that none
might factiously aspire to public employments; which ought neither
to be sold, nor made burdensome by a great expense; since otherwise
those that serve in them would be tempted to reimburse themselves
by cheats and violence, and it would become necessary to find
out rich men for undergoing those employments which ought rather
to be trusted to the wise -these laws, I say, might have such
effects, as good diet and care might have on a sick man, whose
recovery is desperate: they might allay and mitigate the disease,
but it could never be quite healed, nor the body politic be brought
again to a good habit, as long as property remains; and it will
fall out as in a complication of diseases, that by applying a
remedy to one sore, you will provoke another; and that which removes
the one ill symptom produces others, while the strengthening one
part of the body weakens the rest."
"On the contrary," answered I, "it seems to me
that men cannot live conveniently where all things are common:
how can there be any plenty, where every man will excuse himself
from labor? For as the hope of gain doth not excite him, so the
confidence that he has in other men's industry may make him slothful:
if people come to be pinched with want, and yet cannot dispose
of anything as their own; what can follow upon this but perpetual
sedition and bloodshed, especially when the reverence and authority
due to magistrates fall to the ground? For I cannot imagine how
that can be kept up among those that are in all things equal to
one another."
"I do not wonder," said he, "that it appears so
to you, since you have no notion, or at least no right one, of
such a constitution: but if you had been in Utopia with me, and
had seen their laws and rules, as I did, for the space of five
years, in which I lived among them; and during which time I was
so delighted with them, that indeed I should never have left them,
if it had not been to make the discovery of that new world to
the Europeans; you would then confess that you had never seen
a people so well constituted as they."
"You will not easily persuade me," said Peter, "that
any nation in that new world is better governed than those among
us. For as our understandings are not worse than theirs, so our
government, if I mistake not, being more ancient, a long practice
has helped us to find out many conveniences of life: and some
happy chances have discovered other things to us, which no man's
understanding could ever have invented."
"As for the antiquity, either of their government or of ours,"
said he, "you cannot pass a true judgment of it unless you
had read their histories; for if they are to be believed, they
had towns among them before these parts were so much as inhabited.
And as for those discoveries, that have been either hit on by
chance, or made by ingenious men, these might have happened there
as well as here. I do not deny but we are more ingenious than
they are, but they exceed us much in industry and application.
They knew little concerning us before our arrival among them;
they call us all by a general name of the nations that lie beyond
the equinoctial line; for their chronicle mentions a shipwreck
that was made on their coast 1,200 years ago; and that some Romans
and Egyptians that were in the ship, getting safe ashore, spent
the rest of their days among them; and such was their ingenuity,
that from this single opportunity they drew the advantage of learning
from those unlooked-for guests, and acquired all the useful arts
that were then among the Romans, and which were known to these
shipwrecked men: and by the hints that they gave them, they themselves
found out even some of those arts which they could not fully explain;
so happily did they improve that accident, of having some of our
people cast upon their shore.
"But if such an accident has at any time brought any from
thence into Europe, we have been so far from improving it, that
we do not so much as remember it; as in after-times perhaps it
will be forgot by our people that I was ever there. For though
they from one such accident made themselves masters of all the
good inventions that were among us; yet I believe it would be
long before we should learn or put in practice any of the good
institutions that are among them. And this is the true cause of
their being better governed, and living happier than we, though
we come not short of them in point of understanding or outward
advantages."
Upon this I said to him: "I earnestly beg you would describe
that island very particularly to us. Be not too short, but set
out in order all things relating to their soil, their rivers,
their towns, their people, their manners, constitution, laws,
and, in a word, all that you imagine we desire to know. And you
may well imagine that we desire to know everything concerning
them, of which we are hitherto ignorant."
"I will do it very willingly," said he, "for I
have digested the whole matter carefully; but it will take up
some time."
"Let us go then," said I, "first and dine, and
then we shall have leisure enough."
He consented. We went in and dined, and after dinner came back
and sat down in the same place. I ordered my servants to take
care that none might come and interrupt us. And both Peter and
I desired Raphael to be as good as his word. When he saw that
we were very intent upon it, he paused a little to recollect himself,
and began in this manner:
BOOK II
THE island of Utopia is in the middle 200 miles broad, and holds
almost at the same breadth over a great part of it; but it grows
narrower toward both ends. Its figure is not unlike a crescent:
between its horns, the sea comes in eleven miles broad, and spreads
itself into a great bay, which is environed with land to the compass
of about 500 miles, and is well secured from winds. In this bay
there is no great current; the whole coast is, as it were, one
continued harbor, which gives all that live in the island great
convenience for mutual commerce; but the entry into the bay, occasioned
by rocks on the one hand, and shallows on the other, is very dangerous.
In the middle of it there is one single rock which appears above
water, and may therefore be easily avoided, and on the top of
it there is a tower in which a garrison is kept; the other rocks
lie under water, and are very dangerous. The channel is known
only to the natives, so that if any stranger should enter into
the bay, without one of their pilots, he would run great danger
of shipwreck; for even they themselves could not pass it safe,
if some marks that are on the coast did not direct their way;
and if these should be but a little shifted, any fleet that might
come against them, how great soever it were, would be certainly
lost.
On the other side of the island there are likewise many harbors;
and the coast is so fortified, both by nature and art, that a
small number of men can hinder the descent of a great army. But
they report (and there remain good marks of it to make it credible)
that this was no island at first, but a part of the continent.
Utopus that conquered it (whose name it still carries, for Abraxa
was its first name) brought the rude and uncivilized inhabitants
into such a good government, and to that measure of politeness,
that they now far excel all the rest of mankind; having soon subdued
them, he designed to separate them from the continent, and to
bring the sea quite round them. To accomplish this, he ordered
a deep channel to be dug fifteen miles long; and that the natives
might not think he treated them like slaves, he not only forced
the inhabitants, but also his own soldiers, to labor in carrying
it on. As he set a vast number of men to work, he beyond all men's
expectations brought it to a speedy conclusion. And his neighbors
who at first laughed at the folly of the undertaking, no sooner
saw it brought to perfection than they were struck with admiration
and terror.
There are fifty-four cities in the island, all large and well
built: the manners, customs, and laws of which are the same, and
they are all contrived as near in the same manner as the ground
on which they stand will allow. The nearest lie at least twenty-four
miles distance from one another, and the most remote are not so
far distant but that a man can go on foot in one day from it to
that which lies next it. Every city sends three of its wisest
Senators once a year to Amaurot, to consult about their common
concerns; for that is the chief town of the island, being situated
near the centre of it, so that it is the most convenient place
for their assemblies. The jurisdiction of every city extends at
least twenty miles: and where the towns lie wider, they have much
more ground: no town desires to enlarge its bounds, for the people
consider themselves rather as tenants than landlords. They have
built over all the country, farmhouses for husbandmen, which are
well contrived, and are furnished with all things necessary for
country labor. Inhabitants are sent by turns from the cities to
dwell in them; no country family has fewer than forty men and
women in it, besides two slaves. There is a master and a mistress
set over every family; and over thirty families there is a magistrate.
Every year twenty of this family come back to the town, after
they have stayed two years in the country; and in their room there
are other twenty sent from the town, that they may learn country
work from those that have been already one year in the country,
as they must teach those that come to them the next from the town.
By this means such as dwell in those country farms are never ignorant
of agriculture, and so commit no errors, which might otherwise
be fatal, and bring them under a scarcity of corn. But though
there is every year such a shifting of the husbandmen, to prevent
any man being forced against his will to follow that hard course
of life too long, yet many among them take such pleasure in it
that they desire leave to continue in it many years. These husbandmen
till the ground, breed cattle, hew wood, and convey it to the
towns, either by land or water, as is most convenient. They breed
an infinite multitude of chickens in a very curious manner; for
the hens do not sit and hatch them, but vast numbers of eggs are
laid in a gentle and equal heat, in order to be hatched, and they
are no sooner out of the shell, and able to stir about, but they
seem to consider those that feed them as their mothers, and follow
them as other chickens do the hen that hatched them.
They breed very few horses, but those they have are full of mettle,
and are kept only for exercising their youth in the art of sitting
and riding them; for they do not put them to any work, either
of ploughing or carriage, in which they employ oxen; for though
their horses are stronger, yet they find oxen can hold out longer;
and as they are not subject to so many diseases, so they are kept
upon a less charge, and with less trouble; and even when they
are so worn out, that they are no more fit for labor, they are
good meat at last. They sow no corn, but that which is to be their
bread; for they drink either wine, cider, or perry, and often
water, sometimes boiled with honey or licorice, with which they
abound; and though they know exactly how much corn will serve
every town, and all that tract of country which belongs to it,
yet they sow much more, and breed more cattle than are necessary
for their consumption; and they give that overplus of which they
make no use to their neighbors. When they want anything in the
country which it does not produce, they fetch that from the town,
without carrying anything in exchange for it. And the magistrates
of the town take care to see it given them; for they meet generally
in the town once a month, upon a festival day. When the time of
harvest comes, the magistrates in the country send to those in
the towns, and let them know how many hands they will need for
reaping the harvest; and the number they call for being sent to
them, they commonly despatch it all in one day.
Of Their Towns, Particularly of Amaurot
HE that knows one of their towns knows them all, they are so like
one another, except w here the situation makes some difference.
I shall therefore describe one of them; and none is so proper
as Amaurot; for as none is more eminent, all the rest yielding
in precedence to this, because it is the seat of their Supreme
Council, so there was none of them better known to me, I having
lived five years altogether in it.
It lies upon the side of a hill, or rather a rising ground: its
figure is almost square, for from the one side of it, which shoots
up almost to the top of the hill, it runs down in a descent for
two miles to the river Anider; but it is a little broader the
other way that runs along by the bank of that river. The Anider
rises about eighty miles above Amaurot, in a small spring at first,
but other brooks falling into it, of which two are more considerable
than the rest. As it runs by Amaurot, it is grown half a mile
broad; but it still grows larger and larger, till after sixty
miles course below it, it is lost in the ocean, between the town
and the sea, and for some miles above the town, it ebbs and flows
every six hours, with a strong current. The tide comes up for
about thirty miles so full that there is nothing but salt water
in the river, the fresh water being driven back with its force;
and above that, for some miles, the water is brackish; but a little
higher, as it runs by the town, it is quite fresh; and when the
tide ebbs, it continues fresh all along to the sea. There is a
bridge cast over the river, not of timber, but of fair stone,
consisting of many stately arches; it lies at that part of the
town which is farthest from the sea, so that ships without any
hinderance lie all along the side of the town.
There is likewise another river that runs by it, which, though
it is not great, yet it runs pleasantly, for it rises out of the
same hill on which the town stands, and so runs down through it,
and falls into the Anider. The inhabitants have fortified the
fountain-head of this river, which springs a little without the
town; so that if they should happen to be besieged, the enemy
might not be able to stop or divert the course of the water, nor
poison it; from thence it is carried in earthen pipes to the lower
streets; and for those places of the town to which the water of
that shall river cannot be conveyed, they have great cisterns
for receiving the rain-water, which supplies the want of the other.
The town is cormpassed with a high and thick wall, in which there
are many towers and forts; there is also a broad and deep dry
ditch, set thick with thorns, cast round three sides of the town,
and the river is instead of a ditch on the fourth side. The streets
are very convenient for all carriage, and are well sheltered from
the winds. Their buildings are good, and are so uniform that a
whole side of a street looks like one house. The streets are twenty
feet broad; there lie gardens behind all their houses; these are
large but enclosed with buildings that on all hands face the streets;
so that every house has both a door to the street, and a back
door to the garden. Their doors have all two leaves, which, as
they are easily opened, so they shut of their own accord; and
there being no property among them, every man may freely enter
into any house whatsoever. At every ten years' end they shift
their houses by lots.
They cultivate their gardens with great care, so that they have
vines, fruits, herbs, and flowers in them; and all is so well
ordered, and so finely kept, that I never saw gardens anywhere
that were both so fruitful and so beautiful as theirs. And this
humor of ordering their gardens so well is not only kept up by
the pleasure they find in it, but also by an emulation between
the inhabitants of the several streets, who vie with each other;
and there is indeed nothing belonging to the whole town that is
both more useful and more pleasant. So that he who founded the
town seems to have taken care of nothing more than of their gardens;
for they say, the whole scheme of the town was designed at first
by Utopus, but he left all that belonged to the ornament and improvement
of it to be added by those that should come after him, that being
too much for one man to bring to perfection. Their records, that
contain the history of their town and State, are preserved with
an exact care, and run backward 1,760 years. From these it appears
that their houses were at first low and mean, like cottages, made
of any sort of timber, and were built with mud walls and thatched
with straw. But now their houses are three stories high: the fronts
of them are faced with stone, plastering, or brick; and between
the facings of their walls they throw in their rubbish. Their
roofs are flat, and on them they lay a sort of plaster, which
costs very little, and yet is so tempered that it is not apt to
take fire, and yet resists the weather more than lead. They have
great quantities of glass among them, with which they glaze their
windows. They use also in their windows a thin linen cloth, that
is so oiled or gummed that it both keeps out the wind and gives
free admission to the light.
Of Their Magistrates
THIRTY families choose every year a magistrate, who was anciently
called the syphogrant, but is now called the philarch; and over
every ten syphogrants, with the families subject to them, there
is another magistrate, who was anciently called the tranibor,
but of late the archphilarch. All the syphogrants, who are in
number 200, choose the Prince out of a list of four, who are named
by the people of the four divisions of the city; but they take
an oath before they proceed to an election, that they will choose
him whom they think most fit for the office. They give their voices
secretly, so that it is not known for whom everyone gives his
suffrage. The Prince is for life, unless he is removed upon suspicion
of some design to enslave the people. The tranibors are new-chosen
every year, but yet they are for the most part continued. All
their other magistrates are only annual. The tranibors meet every
third day, and oftener if necessary, and consult with the prince,
either concerning the affairs of the State in general or such
private differences as may arise sometimes among the people; though
that falls out but seldom. There are always two syphogrants called
into the council-chamber, and these are changed every day. It
is a fundamental rule of their government that no conclusion can
be made in anything that relates to the public till it has been
first debated three several days in their Council. It is death
for any to meet and consult concerning the State, unless it be
either in their ordinary Council, or in the assembly of the whole
body of the people.
These things have been so provided among them, that the prince
and the tranibors may not conspire together to change the government
and enslave the people; and therefore when anything of great importance
is set on foot, it is sent to the syphogrants; who after they
have communicated it to the families that belong to their divisions,
and have considered it among themselves, make report to the Senate;
and upon great occasions, the matter is referred to the Council
of the whole island. One rule observed in their Council, is, never
to debate a thing on the same day in which it is first proposed;
for that is always referred to the next meeting, that so men may
not rashly, and in the heat of discourse, engage themselves too
soon, which might bias them so much, that instead of consulting
the good of the public, they might rather study to support their
first opinions, and by a perverse and preposterous sort of shame,
hazard their country rather than endanger their own reputation,
or venture the being suspected to have wanted foresight in the
expedients that they at first proposed. And therefore to prevent
this, they take care that they may rather be deliberate than sudden
in their motions.
Of Their Trades, and Manner of Life
AGRICULTURE is that which is so universally understood among them
that no person, either man or woman, is ignorant of it; they are
instructed in it from their childhood, partly by what they learn
at school and partly by practice; they being led out often into
the fields, about the town, where they not only see others at
work, but are likewise exercised in it themselves. Besides agriculture,
which is so common to them all, every man has some peculiar trade
to which he applies himself, such as the manufacture of wool,
or flax, masonry, smith's work, or carpenter's work; for there
is no sort of trade that is not in great esteem among them. Throughout
the island they wear the same sort of clothes without any other
distinction, except what is necessary to distinguish the two sexes,
and the married and unmarried. The fashion never alters; and as
it is neither disagreeable nor uneasy, so it is suited to the
climate, and calculated both for their summers and winters. Every
family makes their own clothes; but all among them, women as well
as men, learn one or other of the trades formerly mentioned. Women,
for the most part, deal in wool and flax, which suit best with
their weakness, leaving the ruder trades to the men. The same
trade generally passes down from father to son, inclinations often
following descent; but if any man's genius lies another way, he
is by adoption translated into a family that deals in the trade
to which he is inclined: and when that is to be done, care is
taken not only by his father, but by the magistrate, that he may
be put to a discreet and good man. And if after a person has learned
one trade, he desires to acquire another, that is also allowed,
and is managed in the same manner as the former. When he has learned
both, he follows that which he likes best, unless the public has
more occasion for the other.
The chief, and almost the only business of the syphogrants, is
to take care that no man may live idle, but that every one may
follow his trade diligently: yet they do not wear themselves out
with perpetual toil, from morning to night, as if they were beasts
of burden, which, as it is indeed a heavy slavery, so it is everywhere
the common course of life among all mechanics except the Utopians;
but they dividing the day and night into twenty-four hours, appoint
six of these for work; three of which are before dinner, and three
after. They then sup, and at eight o'clock, counting from noon,
go to bed and sleep eight hours. The rest of their time besides
that taken up in work, eating and sleeping, is left to every man's
discretion; yet they are not to abuse that interval to luxury
and idleness, but must employ it in some proper exercise according
to their various inclinations, which is for the most part reading.
It is ordinary to have public lectures every morning before daybreak;
at which none are obliged to appear but those who are marked out
for literature; yet a great many, both men and women of all ranks,
go to hear lectures of one sort of other, according to their inclinations.
But if others, that are not made for contemplation, choose rather
to employ themselves at that time in their trades, as many of
them do, they are not hindered, but are rather commended, as men
that take care to serve their country. After supper, they spend
an hour in some diversion, in summer in their gardens, and in
winter in the halls where they eat; where they entertain each
other, either with music or discourse. They do not so much as
know dice, or any such foolish and mischievous games: they have,
however, two sorts of games not unlike our chess; the one is between
several numbers, in which one number, as it were, consumes another:
the other resembles a battle between the virtues and the vices,
in which the enmity in the vices among themselves, and their agreement
against virtue, is not unpleasantly represented; together with
the special oppositions between the particular virtues and vices;
as also the methods by which vice either openly assaults or secretly
undermines virtue, and virtue on the other hand resists it. But
the time appointed for labor is to be narrowly examined, otherwise
you may imagine, that since there are only six hours appointed
for work, they may fall under a scarcity of necessary provisions.
But it is so far from being true, that this time is not sufficient
for supplying them with plenty of all things, either necessary
or convenient, that it is rather too much; and this you will easily
apprehend, if you consider how great a part of all other nations
is quite idle.
First, women generally do little, who are the half of mankind;
and if some few women are diligent, their husbands are idle: then
consider the great company of idle priests, and of those that
are called religious men; add to these all rich men, chiefly those
that have estates in land, who are called noblemen and gentlemen,
together with their families, made up of idle persons, that are
kept more for show than use; add to these, all those strong and
lusty beggars, that go about pretending some disease, in excuse
for their begging; and upon the whole account you will find that
the number of those by whose labors mankind is supplied, is much
less than you perhaps imagined. Then consider how few of those
that work are employed in labors that are of real service; for
we who measure all things by money, give rise to many trades that
are both vain and superfluous, and serve only to support riot
and luxury. For if those who work were employed only in such things
as the conveniences of life require, there would be such an abundance
of them that the prices of them would so sink that tradesmen could
not be maintained by their gains; if all those who labor about
useless things were set to more profitable employments, and if
all they that languish out their lives in sloth and idleness,
every one of whom consumes as much as any two of the men that
are at work, were forced to labor, you may easily imagine that
a small proportion of time would serve for doing all that is either
necessary, profitable, or pleasant to mankind, especially while
pleasure is kept within its due bounds.
This appears very plainly in Utopia, for there, in a great city,
and in all the territory that lies round it, you can scarce find
500, either men or women, by their age and strength, are capable
of labor, that are not engaged in it; even the syphogrants, though
excused by the law, yet do not excuse themselves, but work, that
by their examples they may excite the industry of the rest of
the people. The like exemption is allowed to those who, being
recommended to the people by the priests, are by the secret suffrages
of the syphogrants privileged from labor, that they may apply
themselves wholly to study; and if any of these fall short of
those hopes that they seemed at first to give, they are obliged
to return to work. And sometimes a mechanic, that so employs his
leisure hours, as to make a considerable advancement in learning,
is eased from being a tradesman, and ranked among their learned
men. Out of these they choose their ambassadors, their priests,
their tranibors, and the prince himself, anciently called their
Barzenes, but is called of late their Ademus.
And thus from the great numbers among them that are neither suffered
to be idle, nor to be employed in any fruitless labor, you may
easily make the estimate how much may be done in those few hours
in which they are obliged to labor. But besides all that has been
already said, it is to be considered that the needful arts among
them are managed with less labor than anywhere else. The building
or the repairing of houses among us employ many hands, because
often a thriftless heir suffers a house that his father built
to fall into decay, so that his successor must, at a great cost,
repair that which he might have kept up with a small charge: it
frequently happens that the same house which one person built
at a vast expense is neglected by another, who thinks he has a
more delicate sense of the beauties of architecture; and he suffering
it to fall to ruin, builds another at no less charge. But among
the Utopians all things are so regulated that men very seldom
build upon a new piece of ground; and are not only very quick
in repairing their houses, but show their foresight in preventing
their decay: so that their buildlngs are preserved very long,
with but little labor, and thus the builders to whom that care
belongs are often without employment, except the hewing of timber
and the squaring of stones, that the materials may be in readiness
for raising a building very suddenly when there is any occasion
for it.
As to their clothes, observe how little work is spent in them:
while they are at labor, they are clothed with leather and skins.
cast carelessly about them, which will last seven years; and when
they appear in public they put on an upper garment, which hides
the other; and these are all of one color, and that is the natural
color of the wool. As they need less woollen cloth than is used
anywhere else, so that which they make use of is much less costly.
They use linen cloth more; but that is prepared with less labor,
and they value cloth only by the whiteness of the linen or the
cleanness of the wool, without much regard to the fineness of
the thread: while in other places, four or five upper garments
of woollen cloth, of different colors, and as many vests of silk,
will scarce serve one man; and while those that are nicer think
ten are too few, every man there is content with one, which very
often serves him two years. Nor is there anything that can tempt
a man to desire more; for if he had them, he would neither be
the warmer nor would he make one jot the better appearance for
it. And thus, since they are all employed in some useful labor,
and since they content themselves with fewer things, it falls
out that there is a great abundance of all things among them:
so that it frequently happens that, for want of other work, vast
numbers are sent out to mend the highways. But when no public
undertaking is to be performed, the hours of working are lessened.
The magistrates never engage the people in unnecessary labor,
since the chief end of the constitution is to regulate labor by
the necessities of the public, and to allow all the people as
much time as is necessary for the improvement of their minds,
in which they think the happiness of life consists.
Of Their Traffic
BUT it is now time to explain to you the mutual intercourse of
this people, their commerce, and the rules by which all things
are distributed among them.
As their cities are composed of families, so their families are
made up of those that are nearly related to one another. Their
women, when they grow up, are married out; but all the males,
both children and grandchildren, live still in the same house,
in great obedience to their common parent, unless age has weakened
his understanding: and in that case, he that is next to him in
age comes in his room. But lest any city should become either
too great, or by any accident be dispeopled, provision is made
that none of their cities may contain above 6,000 families, besides
those of the country round it. No family may have less than ten
and more than sixteen persons in it; but there can be no determined
number for the children under age. This rule is easily observed,
by removing some of the children of a more fruitful couple to
any other family that does not abound so much in them.
By the same rule, they supply cities that do not increase so fast,
from others that breed faster; and if there is any increase over
the whole island, then they draw out a number of their citizens
out of the several towns, and send them over to the neighboring
continent; where, if they find that the inhabitants have more
soil than they can well cultivate, they fix a colony, taking the
inhabitants into their society, if they are willing to live with
them; and where they do that of their own accord, they quickly
enter into their method of life, and conform to their rules, and
this proves a happiness to both nations; for according to their
constitution, such care is taken of the soil that it becomes fruitful
enough for both, though it might be otherwise too narrow and barren
for any one of them. But if the natives refuse to conform themselves
to their laws, they drive them out of those bounds which they
mark out for themselves, and use force if they resist. For they
account it a very just cause of war, for a nation to hinder others
from possessing a part of that soil of which they make no use,
but which is suffered to lie idle and uncultivated; since every
man has by the law of nature a right to such a waste portion of
the earth as is necessary for his subsistence. If an accident
has so lessened the number of the inhabitants of any of their
towns that it cannot be made up from the other towns of the island,
without diminishing them too much, which is said to have fallen
out but twice since they were first a people, when great numbers
were carried off by the plague, the loss is then supplied by recalling
as many as are wanted from their colonies; for they will abandon
these, rather than suffer the towns in the island to sink too
low.
But to return to their manner of living in society, the oldest
man of every family, as has been already said, is its governor.
Wives serve their husbands, and children their parents, and always
the younger serves the elder. Every city is divided into four
equal parts, and in the middle of each there is a marketplace:
what is brought thither, and manufactured by the several families,
is carried from thence to houses appointed for that purpose, in
which all things of a sort are laid by themselves; and thither
every father goes and takes whatsoever he or his family stand
in need of, without either paying for it or leaving anything in
exchange. There is no reason for giving a denial to any person,
since there is such plenty of everything among them; and there
is no danger of a man's asking for more than he needs; they have
no inducements to do this, since they are sure that they shall
always be supplied. It is the fear of want that makes any of the
whole race of animals either greedy or ravenous; but besides fear,
there is in man a pride that makes him fancy it a particular glory
to excel others in pomp and excess. But by the laws of the Utopians,
there is no room for this. Near these markets there are others
for all sorts of provisions, where there are not only herbs, fruits,
and bread, but also fish, fowl, and cattle.
There are also, without their towns, places appointed near some
running water, for killing their beasts, and for washing away
their filth, which is done by their slaves: for they suffer none
of their citizens to kill their cattle, because they think that
pity and good-nature, which are among the best of those affections
that are born with us, are much impaired by the butchering of
animals: nor do they suffer anything that is foul or unclean to
be brought within their towns, lest the air should be infected
by ill-smells which might prejudice their health. In every street
there are great halls that lie at an equal distance from each
other, distinguished by particular names. The syphogrants dwell
in those that are set over thirty families, fifteen lying on one
side of it, and as many on the other. In these halls they all
meet and have their repasts. The stewards of every one of them
come to the market-place at an appointed hour; and according to
the number of those that belong to the hall, they carry home provisions.
But they take more care of their sick than of any others: these
are lodged and provided for in public hospitals they have belonging
to every town four hospitals, that are built without their walls,
and are so large that they may pass for little towns: by this
means, if they had ever such a number of sick persons, they could
lodge them conveniently, and at such a distance, that such of
them as are sick of infectious diseases may be kept so far from
the rest that there can be no danger of contagion. The hospitals
are furnished and stored with all things that are convenient for
the ease and recovery of the sick; and those that are put in them
are looked after with such tender and watchful care, and are so
constantly attended by their skilful physicians, that as none
is sent to them against their will, so there is scarce one in
a whole town that, if he should fall ill, would not choose rather
to go thither than lie sick at home.
After the steward of the hospitals has taken for the sick whatsoever
the physician prescribes, then the best things that are left in
the market are distributed equally among the halls, in proportion
to their numbers, only, in the first place, they serve the Prince,
the chief priest, the tranibors, the ambassadors, and strangers,
if there are any, which indeed falls out but seldom, and for whom
there are houses well furnished, particularly appointed for their
reception when they come among them. At the hours of dinner and
supper, the whole syphogranty being called together by sound of
trumpet, they meet and eat together, except only such as are in
the hospitals or lie sick at home. Yet after the halls are served,
no man is hindered to carry provisions home from the market-place;
for they know that none does that but for some good reason; for
though any that will may eat at home, yet none does it willingly,
since it is both ridiculous and foolish for any to give themselves
the trouble to make ready an ill dinner at home, when there is
a much more plentiful one made ready for him so near at hand.
All the uneasy and sordid services about these halls are performed
by their slaves; but the dressing and cooking their meat, and
the ordering their tables, belong only to the women, all those
of every family taking it by turns. They sit at three or more
tables, according to their number; the men sit toward the wall,
and the women sit on the other side, that if any of them should
be taken suddenly ill, which is no uncommon case among women with
child, she may, without disturbing the rest, rise and go to the
nurses' room, who are there with the sucking children, where there
is always clean water at hand, and cradles in which they may lay
the young children, if there is occasion for it, and a fire that
they may shift and dress them before it.
Every child is nursed by its own mother, if death or sickness
does not intervene; and in that case the syphogrants' wives find
out a nurse quickly, which is no hard matter; for anyone that
can do it offers herself cheerfully; for as they are much inclined
to that piece of mercy, so the child whom the nurse considers
the nurse as its mother. All the children under five years old
sit among the nurses, the rest of the younger sort of both sexes,
till they are fit for marriage, either serve those that sit at
table or, if they are not strong enough for that, stand by them
in great silence, and eat what is given them; nor have they any
other formality of dining. In the middle of the first table, which
stands across the upper end of the hall, sit the syphogrant and
his wife; for that is the chief and most conspicuous place: next
to him sit two of the most ancient, for there go always four to
a mess. If there is a temple within that syphogranty, the priest
and his wife sit with the syphogrant ahove all the rest: next
them there is a mixture of old and young, who are so placed, that
as the young are set near others, so they are mixed with the more
ancient; which they say was appointed on this account, that the
gravity of the old people, and the reverence that is due to them,
might restrain the younger from all indecent words and gestures.
Dishes are not served up to the whole table at first, but the
best are first set before the old, whose seats are distinguished
from the young, and after them all the rest are served alike.
The old men distribute to the younger any curious meats that happen
to be set before them, if there is not such an abundance of them
that the whole company may be served alike.
Thus old men are honored with a particular respect; yet all the
rest fare as well as they. Both dinner and supper are begun with
some lecture of morality that is read to them; but it is so short,
that it is not tedious nor uneasy to them to hear it: from hence
the old men take occasion to entertain those about them with some
useful and pleasant enlargements; but they do not engross the
whole discourse so to themselves, during their meals, that the
younger may not put in for a share: on the contrary, they engage
them to talk, that so they may in that free way of conversation
find out the force of everyone's spirit and observe his temper.
They despatch their dinners quickly, but sit long at supper; because
they go to work after the one, and are to sleep after the other,
during which they think the stomach carries on the concoction
more vigorously. They never sup without music; and there is always
fruit served up after meat; while they are at table, some burn
perfumes and sprinkle about fragrant ointments and sweet waters:
in short, they want nothing that may cheer up their spirits: they
give themselves a large allowance that way, and indulge themselves
in all such pleasures as are attended with no inconvenience. Thus
do those that are in the towns live together; but in the country,
where they live at great distance, everyone eats at home, and
no family wants any necessary sort of provision, for it is from
them that provisions are sent unto those that live in the towns.
Of the Travelling of the Utopians
IF any man has a mind to visit his friends that live in some other
town, or desires to travel and see the rest of the country, he
obtains leave very easily from the syphogrant and tranibors when
there is no particular occasion for him at home: such as travel,
carry with them a passport from the Prince, which both certifies
the license that is granted for travelling, and limits the time
of their return. They are furnished with a wagon, and a slave
who drives the oxen and looks after them; but unless there are
women in the company, the wagon is sent back at the end of the
journey as a needless encumbrance. While they are on the road,
they carry no provisions with them; yet they want nothing, but
are everywhere treated as if they were at home. If they stay in
any place longer than a night, everyone follows his proper occupation,
and is very well used by those of his own trade; but if any man
goes out of the city to which he belongs, without leave, and is
found rambling without a passport, he is severely treated, he
is punished as a fugitive, and sent home disgracefully; and if
he falls again into the like fault, is condemned to slavery. If
any man has a mind to travel only over the precinct of his own
city, he may freely do it, with his father's permission and his
wife's consent; but when he comes into any of the country houses,
if he expects to be entertained by them, he must labor with them
and conform to their rules: and if he does this, he may freely
go over the whole precinct; being thus as useful to the city to
which he belongs, as if he were still within it. Thus you see
that there are no idle persons among them, nor pretences of excusing
any from labor. There are no taverns, no alehouses nor stews among
them; nor any other occasions of corrupting each other, of getting
into corners, or forming themselves into parties: all men live
in full view, so that all are obliged, both to perform their ordinary
tasks, and to employ themselves well in their spare hours. And
it is certain that a people thus ordered must live in great abundance
of all things; and these being equally distributed among them,
no man can want, or be obliged to beg.
In their great Council at Amaurot, to which there are three sent
from every town once a year, they examine what towns abound in
provisions and what are under any scarcity, that so the one may
be furnished from the other; and this is done freely, without
any sort of exchange; for according to their plenty or scarcity
they supply or are supplied from one another; so that indeed the
whole island is, as it were, one family. When they have thus taken
care of their whole country, and laid up stores for two years,
which they do to prevent the ill-consequences of an unfavorable
season, they order an exportation of the overplus, of corn, honey,
wool, flax, wood, wax, tallow, leather, and cattle; which they
send out commonly in great quantities to other nations. They order
a seventh part of all these goods to be freely given to the poor
of the countries to which they send them, and sell the rest at
moderate rates. And by this exchange, they not only bring back
those few things that they need at home (for indeed they scarce
need anything but iron), but likewise a great deal of gold and
silver; and by their driving this trade so long, it is not to
be imagined how vast a treasure they have got among them: so that
now they do not much care whether they sell off their merchandise
for money in hand, or upon trust.
A great part of their treasure is now in bonds; but in all their
contracts no private man stands bound, but the writing runs in
the name of the town; and the towns that owe them money raise
it from those private hands that owe it to them, lay it Up in
their public chamber, or enjoy the profit of it till the Utopians
call for it; and they choose rather to let the greatest part of
it lie in their hands who make advantage by it, than to call for
it themselves: but if they see that any of their other neighbors
stand more in need of it, then they call it in and lend it to
them: whenever they are engaged in war, which is the only occasion
in which their treasure can be usefully employed, they make use
of it themselves. In great extremities or sudden accidents they
employ it in hiring foreign troops, whom they more willingly expose
to danger than their own people: they give them great pay, knowing
well that this will work even on their enemies, that it will engage
thern either to betray their own side, or at least to desert it,
and that it is the best means of raising mutual jealousies among
them: for this end they have an incredible treasure; but they
do not keep it as a treasure, but in such a manner as I am almost
afraid to tell, lest you think it so extravagant, as to be hardly
credible. This I have the more reason to apprehend, because if
I had not seen it myself, I could not have been easily persuaded
to have believed it upon any man's report.
It is certain that all things appear incredible to us, in proportion
as they differ from our own customs. But one who can judge aright
will not wonder to find that, since their constitution differs
so much from ours, their value of gold and silver should be measured
by a very different standard; for since they have no use for money
among themselves, but keep it as a provision against events which
seldom happen, and between which there are generally long intervening
intervals, they value it no farther than it deserves, that is,
in proportion to its use. So that it is plain they must prefer
iron either to gold or silver; for men can no more live without
iron than without fire or water, but nature has marked out no
use for the other metals, so essential as not easily to be dispensed
with. The folly of men has enhanced the value of gold and silver,
because of their scarcity. Whereas, on the contrary, it is their
opinion that nature, as an indulgent parent, has freely given
us all the best things in great abundance, such as water and earth,
but has laid up and hid from us the things that are vain and useless.
If these metals were laid up in any tower in the kingdom, it would
raise a jealousy of the Prince and Senate, and give birth to that
foolish mistrust into which the people are apt to fall, a jealousy
of their intending to sacrifice the interest of the public to
their own private advantage. If they should work it into vessels
or any sort of plate, they fear that the people might grow too
fond of it, and so be unwilling to let the plate be run down if
a war made it necessary to employ it in paying their soldiers.
To prevent all these inconveniences, they have fallen upon an
expedient, which, as it agrees with their other policy, so is
it very different from ours, and will scarce gain belief among
us, who value gold so much and lay it up so carefully. They eat
and drink out of vessels of earth, or glass, which make an agreeable
appearance though formed of brittle materials: while they make
their chamber-pots and close-stools of gold and silver; and that
not only in their public halls, but in their private houses: of
the same metals they likewise make chains and fetters for their
slaves; to some of which, as a badge of infamy, they hang an ear-ring
of gold, and make others wear a chain or coronet of the same metal;
and thus they take care, by all possible means, to render gold
and silver of no esteem. And from hence it is that while other
nations part with their gold and silver as unwillingly as if one
tore out their bowels, those of Utopia would look on their giving
in all they possess of those (metals, when there was any use for
them) but as the parting with a trifle, or as we would esteem
the loss of a penny. They find pearls on their coast, and diamonds
and carbuncles on their rocks; they do not look after them, but,
if they find them by chance, they polish them, and with them they
adorn their children, who are delighted with them, and glory in
them during their childhood; but when they grow to years, and
see that none but children use such baubles, they of their own
accord, without being bid by their parents, lay them aside; and
would be as much ashamed to use them afterward as children among
us, when they come to years, are of their puppets and other toys.
I never saw a clearer instance of the opposite impressions that
different customs make on people, than I observed in the ambassadors
of the Anemolians, who came to Amaurot when I was there. As they
came to treat of affairs of great consequence, the deputies from
several towns met together to wait for their coming. The ambassadors
of the nations that lie near Utopia, knowing their customs, and
that fine clothes are in no esteem among them, that silk is despised,
and gold is a badge of infamy, used to come very modestly clothed;
but the Anemolians, lying more remote, and having had little commerce
with them, understanding that they were coarsely clothed, and
all in the same manner, took it for granted that they had none
of those fine things among them of which they made no use; and
they being a vainglorious rather than a wise people, resolved
to set themselves out with so much pomp, that they should look
like gods, and strike the eyes of the poor Utopians with their
splendor. Thus three ambassadors made their entry with 100 attendants,
all clad in garments of different colors, and the greater part
in silk; the ambassadors themselves, who were of the nobility
of their country, were in cloth-of-gold, and adorned with massy
chains, ear-rings, and rings of gold: their caps were covered
with bracelets set full of pearls and other gems: in a word, they
were set out with all those things that, among the Utopians, were
the badges of slavery, the marks of infamy, or the playthings
of children.
It was not unpleasant to see, on the one side, how they looked
big, when they compared their rich habits with the plain clothes
of the Utopians, who were come out in great numbers to see them
make their entry: and, on the other, to observe how much they
were mistaken in the impression which they hoped this pomp would
have made on them. It appeared so ridiculous a show to all that
had never stirred out of their country, and had not seen the customs
of other nations, that though they paid some reverence to those
that were the most meanly clad, as if they had been the ambassadors,
yet when they saw the ambassadors themselves, so full of gold
and chains, they looked upon them as slaves, and forbore to treat
them with reverence. You might have seen the children, who were
grown big enough to despise their playthings, and who had thrown
away their jewels, call to their mothers, push them gently, and
cry out, "See that great fool that wears pearls and gems,
as if he were yet a child." While their mothers very innocently
replied, "Hold your peace; this, I believe, is one of the
ambassador's fools." Others censured the fashion of their
chains, and observed that they were of no use; for they were too
slight to bind their slaves, who could easily break them; and
besides hung so loose about them that they thought it easy to
throw them away, and so get from them.
But after the ambassadors had stayed a day among them, and saw
so vast a quantity of gold in their houses, which was as much
despised by them as it was esteemed in other nations, and beheld
more gold and silver in the chains and fetters of one slave than
all their ornaments amounted to, their plumes fell, and they were
ashamed of all that glory for which they had formerly valued themselves,
and accordingly laid it aside; a resolution that they immediately
took, when on their engaging in some free discourse with the Utopians,
they discovered their sense of such things and their other customs.
The Utopians wonder how any man should be so much taken with the
glaring doubtful lustre of a jewel or a stone, that can look up
to a star or to the sun himself; or how any should value himself
because his cloth is made of a finer thread: for how fine soever
that thread may be, it was once no better than the fleece of a
sheep, and that sheep was a sheep still for all its wearing it.
They wonder much to hear that gold which in itself is so useless
a thing, should be everywhere so much esteemed, that even men
for whom it was made, and by whom it has its value, should yet
be thought of less value than this metal. That a man of lead,
who has no more sense than a log of wood, and is as bad as he
is foolish, should have many wise and good men to serve him, only
because he has a great heap of that metal; and that if it should
happen that by some accident or trick of law (which sometimes
produces as great changes as chance itself) all this wealth should
pass from the master to the meanest varlet of his whole family,
he himself would very soon become one of his servants, as if he
were a thing that belonged to his wealth, and so were bound to
follow its fortune. But they much more admire and detest the folly
of those who, when they see a rich man, though they neither owe
him anything nor are in any sort dependent on his bounty, yet
merely because he is rich give him little less than divine honors,
even though they know him to be so covetous and base-minded that
notwithstanding all his wealth he will not part with one farthing
of it to them as long as he lives.
These and such like notions has that people imbibed, partly from
their education, being bred in a country whose customs and laws
are opposite to all such foolish maxims, and partly from their
learning and studies; for though there are but few in any town
that are so wholly excused from labor as to give themselves entirely
up to their studies, these being only such persons as discover
from their childhood an extraordinary capacity and disposition
for letters; yet their children, and a great part of the nation,
both men and women, are taught to spend those hours in which they
are not obliged to work, in reading: and this they do through
the whole progress of life. They have all their learning in their
own tongue, which is both a copious and pleasant language, and
in which a man can fully express his mind. It runs over a great
tract of many countries, but it is not equally pure in all places.
They had never so much as heard of the names of any of those philosophers
that are so famous in these parts of the world, before we went
among them; and yet they had made the same discoveries as the
Greeks, in music, logic, arithmetic, and geometry. But as they
are almost in everything equal to the ancient philosophers, so
they far exceed our modern logicians; for they have never yet
fallen upon the barbarous niceties that our youth are forced to
learn in those trifling logical schools that are among us; they
are so far from minding chimeras, and fantastical images made
in the mind, that none of them could comprehend what we meant
when we talked to them of man in the abstract, as common to all
men in particular (so that though we spoke of him as a thing that
we could point at with our fingers, yet none of them could perceive
him), and yet distinct from everyone, as if he were some monstrous
Colossus or giant.
Yet for all this ignorance of these empty notions, they knew astronomy,
and were perfectly acquainted with the motions of the heavenly
bodies, and have many instruments, well contrived and divided,
by which they very accurately compute the course and positions
of the sun, moon, and stars. But for the cheat, of divining by
the stars by their oppositions or conjunctions, it has not so
much as entered into their thoughts. They have a particular sagacity,
founded upon much observation, in judging of the weather, by which
they know when they may look for rain, wind, or other alterations
in the air; but as to the philosophy of these things, the causes
of the saltness of the sea, of its ebbing and flowing, and of
the origin and nature both of the heavens and the earth; they
dispute of them, partly as our ancient philosophers have done,
and partly upon some new hypothesis, in which, as they differ
from them, so they do not in all things agree among themselves.
As to moral philosophy, they have the same disputes among them
as we have here: they examine what are properly good both for
the body and the mind, and whether any outward thing can be called
truly good, or if that term belong only to the endowments of the
soul. They inquire likewise into the nature of virtue and pleasure;
but their chief dispute is concerning the happiness of a man,
and wherein it consists? Whether in some one thing, or in a great
many? They seem, indeed, more inclinable to that opinion that
places, if not the whole, yet the chief part of a man's happiness
in pleasure; and, what may seem more strange, they make use of
arguments even from religion, notwithstanding its severity and
roughness, for the support of that opinion so indulgent to pleasure;
for they never dispute concerning happiness without fetching some
arguments from the principles of religion, as well as from natural
reason, since without the former they reckon that all our inquiries
after happiness must be but conjectural and defective.
These are their religious principles, that the soul of man is immortal, and that God of his goodness has designed that it should be happy; and that he has therefore appointed rewards for good and virtuous actions, and punishments for vice, to be distributed after this life. Though these principles of religion are conveyed down among them by tradition, they think that even reason itself determines a man to believe and acknowledge them, and freely confess that if these were taken away no man would be so insensible as not to seek after pleasure by all possible means, lawful or unlawful; using only this caution, that a lesser pleasure might not stand in the way of a greater, and that no pleasure ought to be pursued that should draw a great