The Discourses of Raphael Hythloday, of the Best State of a Commonwealth

Book One

[1.1] When the most mighty King Henry VIII, a prince blessed with all the virtues of a great monarch, quarreled over important matters with Charles, the most serene Prince of Castile, he sent me as his ambassador into Flanders to negotiate and settle matters between them. Cuthbert Tunstall I was colleague and companion to that remarkable man Cuthbert Tunstall — the king recently made Master of the Rolls to universal applause. But I won’t say anything about him — not because I’m afraid people will question a friend’s testimony, but because his learning and virtues are so great Wise words I can’t do them justice, and they’re so well known that they don’t need my commendations. As the proverb goes, I’d just be “showing the sun with a lantern.”

[1.2] The people the prince appointed to negotiate with us met us at Bruges, as we agreed. They were all worthy men. The Margrave of Bruges was their leader, and the chief man among them. But the one considered the wisest, who spoke for the rest, was Georges de Themsecke, the Provost of Cassel. Nature and nurture had worked together to make him eloquent. He was very learned in the law and, because he had a great talent, after a long time practicing diplomacy he was very able to use them. After we met a few times without coming to an agreement, they went to Brussels for a few days, to find out what the prince wanted.

[1.3] Since I had some time, I went to Antwerp. While I was there, among the many people who visited me, Peter Giles there was one I liked more than any other — Peter Giles, born at Antwerp, a man of great honor and of a good rank in his town, though less than he deserves. I don’t know if you can find a more learned or better bred young man anywhere, because he’s very worthy and very knowing. He’s so polite to everyone, so particularly kind to his friends, and so full of candor and affection, that you won’t find more than one or two people anywhere who are better friends. He’s extraordinarily modest, there’s no trickery in him, and yet no man has more prudent simplicity. His conversation was so pleasant, so innocently cheerful, that his company relieved my longing to go back to my country, to my wife and children — after four months I felt it very much.

[1.4] One day, as I was coming home from mass at St. Mary’s (the chief church, and the most popular one in Antwerp), I happened to see him talking with a stranger. The man seemed past his prime. His face was tanned. He had a long beard, and his cloak was hanging carelessly around him. His looks and clothes told me he was a sailor.

[1.5] As soon as Peter saw me, he came and greeted me. As I was responding he took me aside and, pointing to the person he was speaking with, he said, “You see that man? I was just thinking to bring him to you.”

[1.6] I answered, “He’d be very welcome for your sake.”

[1.7] “And on his own, too,” he replied, “if you knew him. No one alive can give more extensive accounts of the unknown lands and countries he’s seen. I know you like that.”

[1.8] “Then,” I said, “I guessed right, because at first sight I took him for a sailor.”

[1.9] “No, you’re wrong,” he said. “He hasn’t sailed as a seaman but as a traveler — or, rather, a philosopher.

[1.10] “This man, Raphael Hythloday,° knows some Latin, but he’s extremely learned in Greek. He studied Greek more than Latin because he was devoted to philosophy — he says the Romans gave us no useful philosophy except in Seneca and Cicero. He’s Portuguese by birth, and he wanted to see the world so much that he divided his estate among his brothers, went on the same adventure as Amerigo Vespucci, and was an investor in three of his four voyages that are now published. But he didn’t come back with him in his last voyage. Instead he begged Amerigo’s permission to be one of the twenty-four people who were left at the farthest place they reached in their last voyage. Leaving him that way was pleasing to someone who preferred traveling to returning home to be buried in his own country. Wise saying He used often to say, ‘Everywhere is the same distance to heaven,’ and ‘if you don’t have a grave, you still have the heavens over you.’ But this way of thinking would have cost him dearly, if God hadn’t been very gracious to him. After he and five people from his fort traveled over many countries, at last, by strange good fortune, he got to Ceylon, and from there to Calicut, where he luckily found some Portuguese ships — and, though no one expected it, he returned to his native country.”

[1.11] When Peter told me this, I thanked him for his kindness in wanting to introduce me to a man whose conversation he knew I’d like. On that Raphael and I hugged each other. After the usual politeness when strangers meet, we all went to my house and, after entering the garden, we sat down on a green bank and entertained one another in conversation.

[1.12] He told us that when Amerigo had sailed away, he and his companions that stayed behind in the fort managed, bit by bit, to win over the people of that country, meeting often with them and treating them kindly. At last they not only lived with them safely, but spoke familiarly with them, and got so far into the heart of a prince (whose name and country I can’t remember) that he gave them everything they needed, including all the conveniences of traveling — boats when they went by water, wagons when they traveled over land. He sent with them a faithful guide, who was to introduce them to any other princes they might want to see. And after a journey of many days, they came to towns and cities, and to countries that were both well governed and fully populated. Under the equator, and as far on both sides of it as the sun moves, vast deserts were baked by the constant heat of the sun. The soil was barren, everything looked dismal, and all places were either entirely uninhabited or filled with wild beasts and serpents — as well as men who were just as wild and cruel as the beasts. But, as they went farther, a new scene opened. Everything grew milder, the air became cooler, the became soil more fertile, and even the beasts became less threatening.

[1.13] At last they reached nations, towns, and cities that not only did business among themselves and their neighbors, but traded by sea and land with faraway countries. There everyone knew the advantages of traveling to many countries. No ship ever went where they weren’t welcome. The first ships they saw were flat-bottomed, with sails made of reeds and wicker woven close together, though some were made of leather. Later they found ships with round keels and canvas sails, just like our ships, and sailors who understood both astronomy and navigation. They came to like him when he showed them the compass, which they didn’t know about at all. They used to sail cautiously, and only in the summer, but now they treat all seasons the same way, trusting entirely to the compass’s magnet, which might make them more “secure” than “safe.”

[1.14] There’s reason to worry that this discovery, which they thought would be only an advantage, might, if they’re unwise, do a lot of harm. But it would take too long to dwell on everything he told us he saw everywhere, and it would take us too far from our present purpose. Maybe on some other occasion we can discuss what needs to be said about those wise and prudent institutions he saw among civilized nations. We asked him many questions about these things, and he answered them willingly. We didn’t ask about monsters, which is the usual thing to do; you can hear of ravenous dogs, wolves, cruel cannibals anywhere. It’s harder to find countries that are governed wisely.

[1.15] As he told us what was were wrong in accounts of those newly discovered countries, he made a list of things that might serve as models for us to correct the mistakes of the countries we live in. Again, I might tell that story, as I’ve promised, some other time. For now, I want to recount the specific things he told us about the manners and laws of the Utopians.

[1.16] I’ll begin, though, with what led us to talk about that commonwealth. After Raphael discussed the many errors that were both among us and these nations, after he discussed the wise institutions both here and there, and after he spoke about the customs and government of every nation he had passed through — so clearly that you’d think he spent his whole life there — Peter, amazed, said, “Raphael, I have to ask — why don’t you work for some king? I’m sure there are no kings who wouldn’t want you. Your learning and your knowledge about people and places is so great that you wouldn’t merely entertain them, but you’d be useful, too, by the examples and the advice you could give them. This way you’d help yourself and be of great use to all your friends.”

[1.17] “As for my friends,” he answered, “I don’t need to worry, since I’ve already done for them everything I had to do. When I was young and healthy, I gave away to my family and friends the thing other people don’t give away part until they’re old and sick, and then unwillingly give what they can enjoy no longer themselves. I think my friends should be content with this, and not to expect that, for their sakes, I’d enslave myself to any king.”

[1.18] “Fair!” said Peter. “I don’t mean that you should be a slave to any king, only that you should assist them and be useful to them.”

[1.19] “Changing one word,” he said, “doesn’t change the meaning.”

[1.20] “But — call it whatever you want,” Peter replied. “I see no other way you could be so useful, both in private to your friends and to the public, and by which you could improve your own situation.”

[1.21] “Improve?” Raphael responded. “Should I understand that in a way I find so horrible to my character? Now I live the way I want to — few courtiers, I think, can say that. So many people seek the favor of great men that it’d be no great loss if they don’t have to bother with me or with others like me.”

[1.22] On hearing this, I said, “Raphael, I see you don’t want either wealth or power. I value and admire a man like that more than any of the world’s great men. But I still think you could do something worthy of your generous and philosophical mind if you’d just devote your time and thoughts to public affairs, even though you might find it a little unpleasant. The best way to do this is to be taken into the council of some great prince, and get him to do noble and worthy actions. I know you’d do that if you had a job like that. The sources both of good and evil flow from the prince over a whole nation, as if from an inexhaustible fountain. Your learning, even without any experience in diplomacy or government, would make you a perfect counselor to any king.”

[1.23] “You’re doubly wrong,” he said, “Mr. More, both about me and about how the world works. I don’t have your imagination. But if I did, the public would be no better off if I had sacrificed my peace of mind to it. Most princes care more about war than the useful skills of peace, and I don’t know anything about these — and I don’t want to, either. Princes usually care more about acquiring new kingdoms, justly or unjustly, than on governing the ones they already have. And, among the advisers of princes, no one is so wise that they need no assistance — at least, that don’t think themselves so wise that they imagine they need none. And if they’re ambitious enough to want advice, it’s only the ones the prince likes, and they want to attach him to their own interests by fawning and flatteries.

[1.24] “Nature has so made us so that we all love to be flattered and to please ourselves with our own notions: the old crow loves his young, and the ape loves her babies. Now, in a royal court like that, made up of people who envy everyone else and admire only themselves, if someone proposed something he read in history books or observed in his travels, the rest would think that their reputation for wisdom would sink, and that their interests would be hurt if they couldn’t run it down. And if everything else failed, then they’d fly to this — that ‘Such-and-such pleased our ancestors, and we should try to be like them.’ They’d treat that answer as a sufficient refutation of everything that could be said — as if it were so terrible if someone was wiser than his ancestors! But though they happily get rid of all the good things from the past, still, if someone proposes better things, they insist on using the excuse of ‘respect for the olden days’! I’ve met with these proud, morose, and absurd judgments in many places, particularly once in England.”

[1.25] “Were you ever there?” I asked.

[1.26] “Yes, I was,” he answered, “and stayed there a few months, not long after the rebellion of the Western Englishmen against the king was suppressed, with a great slaughter of the poor people who were engaged in it.

[1.27] “I was then much obliged to that great clergyman John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal, and Chancellor of England — a man,” he said, “Peter (for Mr. More knows who he was), who was as praiseworthy for his wisdom and virtues as he was for his character. He was of average height, not broken with age. His looks produced reverence, not fear. His conversation was easy but serious and dignified. Sometimes he liked testing people who do business with him by speaking sharply (but harmlessly) to them — that way he found out their spirit and their presence of mind. He loved it when it did not turn into impudence, because that was his own temper, and he though people like that were best suited for business. He spoke both gracefully and seriously. He was eminently skilled in the law, had a great understanding and a prodigious memory. All the talents nature gave him were improved by study and experience. When I was in England the King relied on his advice, and the government seemed to be chiefly supported by him. From his youth he had received practice in government. After suffering many reversals of fortune, he had, at great cost, acquired a vast stock of wisdom, which you don’t easily lose when you buy it at such a cost.

[1.28] “One day, when I was having dinner with him, one of the English lawyers happened to be at the table. He took the opportunity to speak in favor of harsh justice for thieves,Unjust laws ‘who,’ as he said, ‘were then hanged so fast that there were sometimes twenty people could be hanged on one platform!’ And, on that, he said, ‘I can’t wonder enough how, since so few escaped, there are still so many thieves left, who are still robbing all over the place.’

[1.29] “When I heard this, I (who took the boldness to speak freely before the Cardinal) said, ‘There’s no reason to wonder about it. This way of punishing thieves is neither just nor good for the public. The remedy was too severe, and therefore it wasn’t effective — simple theft isn’t such a terrible crime that it should cost someone his life. No punishment, however severe, can stop people from robbing when they can find no other livelihood. In this,’ Reducing the number of thieves I said, ‘not only you in England, but a great part of the world, are like bad teachers, who would rather beat their students than teach them. Dreadful punishments are inflicted on thieves, but it would be much better just to make a good system in which everyone could live — it would keep them from having to steal and then dying for it.’

[1.30] “‘We’ve taken enough care of that,’ he said. ‘There are many trades, and there’s farming, by which they might try to earn a living — unless they’d rather follow bad examples.’

[1.31] “‘That won’t work,’ I said, ‘because many lose limbs in civil or foreign wars — such as in the recent Cornish rebellion, and a while ago in the wars with France — and these people, mutilated in the service of their king and country, can’t follow their old trades anymore, and are too old to learn new ones.

[1.32] “‘But wars are only accidental things, and there are breaks between them, so let’s consider things that happen every day. Many noblemen among you are as idle as drones, who live on other people’s labor, on the labor of their tenants — they raise their income by cutting those people to the bone. Of course this is the only way they’re frugal, since in everything else they spend freely, even at the risk of becoming beggars themselves. Besides, they bring with them many idle people who learned a skill to earn a living; and these — as soon as either their lord dies, or they fall sick themselves — are kicked out of the house. Your lords would rather feed idle people than take care of sick ones. Often an heir can’t keep together a family as great as his predecessor did. Now, when the stomachs of those who are kicked out of the house become hungry, they rob just as eagerly. What else can they do? By wandering about, they’ve worn out both their health and their clothes — when they’re tattered and look ghastly — people of high social rank won’t entertain them, and poor people don’t dare to 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, isn’t fit to use a spade and an axe. And he won’t serve a poor man for such a small fee, and in such a bad diet, as he can afford to give him.’

[1.33] “He replied, ‘We should cherish men like this, because they make up our armies. Their noble birth inspires them with a nobler sense of honor than tradesmen or farmers.’

[1.34] “‘You might as well say,’ I answered, ‘that you have to love thieves on account of wars. You’ll never go without the one as long as you have the other. As robbers sometimes turn out to be gallant soldiers, so soldiers often turn out to be brave robbers, since their lives are so similar. But this bad custom of keeping many servants, so common among you, isn’t specific to this country. In France there’s an even more disgraceful sort of people: the whole country is full of soldiers, still kept up in time of peace (if you can call it “peace”). The danger of standing armies They’re kept on the payrolls for the same reason as the layabouts who hang around noblemen. It’s a maxim of those supposed statesmen that the public safety requires a lot of veteran soldiers always in readiness. They think they can’t depend on new recruits, and sometimes they look for opportunities to make war just so they can train up their soldiers in how to cut throats — or, as Sallust put it, “for keeping their hands in use, so they can’t grow dull by a long intermission.”

[1.35] “But France learned a costly lesson about how dangerous it is to feed these animals. The fate of the Romans, the Carthaginians, the Syrians, and so many others that were ruined by standing armies should make others wiser. The stupidity of this French saying is obvious: trained soldiers often find the “raw men” turn out to be too tough for them. I won’t say much about this; I don’t want you to think I flatter the English. Experience shows that the manual laborers in the towns or the country bumpkins aren’t afraid of fighting with those idle gentlemen, as long as they’re not disabled by some bodily misfortune or dispirited by extreme poverty. You don’t need to worry that those well-shaped and strong men (noblemen love to keep only the well-shaped strong men around them and spoil them), who now grow weak 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 unreasonable that, just because you might have a war — you never need to have, except when you please — you should keep so many idle men on the payroll, people who’ll disturb you in peacetime, which is always more important than war. But I don’t think this need to steal comes only from this; there’s another cause of it, more peculiar to England.’

[1.36] “‘What’s that?’ asked the Cardinal.

[1.37] “‘The increase of pasture land,’ I said. ‘Because of it your sheep, naturally mild and easily kept in order, now devour people. They devastate not only villages but whole towns. Wherever someone discovers the sheep on some plot of soil have unusually soft and rich wool, the nobility and gentry — and even those holy men, the abbots! — not content with the old rents from their farms, and not thinking it’s enough for them to live in luxury and do nothing for the public good, decide to hurt it instead. They interfere with agriculture, they destroy houses and towns (protecting only the churches), and they enclose the land in fences in order to put 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 into abandoned wilderness.

[1.38] “When a greedy wretch, a plague to his country, decides to fence off thousands of acres for himself, the tenants who are kicked off their land — by force, by deception, or just be being worn down by bad treatment — are forced to sell. This way those miserable people — men and women, married and unmarried, old and young, with their poor but numerous families (country business requires many hands) — all are forced to leave their homes, not knowing where to go. They have to sell, almost for nothing, their household goods, which wouldn’t bring them much money, even if they could afford to wait for a buyer. And when that little money runs out (and it will be spent soon), what can they do except steal be hanged (God knows how justly!), or go around and beg? And if they do this they’re thrown in jail for being idle vagabonds, even though they’d willingly work, but just can’t find anyone who’ll hire them.

[1.39] “‘There’s no more need for country labor, which they were raised to do, when there’s no ground left suitable for planting. A single shepherd can look after a flock, which will stock an extent of ground that would require many hands if it were to be plowed and harvested. This, likewise, in many places raises the price of grain. The price of wool has also gone up so much that the poor people, who used to make cloth, can’t even buy it anymore. And this, likewise, makes many of them idle. Since they increased the amount of pasture, God has punished the owners’ greed by a disease among the sheep, which has destroyed vast numbers of them — though it might have seemed fairer if the disease afflicted the owners themselves.

[1.40] “‘Even if the sheep increase however much — their price probably won’t come down. They’re not strictly a monopoly (because they’re not limited to a single person), but they’re still in so few hands, and these are so rich, that, as they’re not pressured to sell them sooner than they want, they don’t do it until they’ve raised the price as high as possible. For the same reason cattle are so expensive — with so many villages being pulled down, and all the country labor being neglected, there’s no one left to make it their business to breed them. The rich don’t breed cattle the way they breed sheep. Instead they just buy them cheap and lean, and after they’ve fattened them on their lands, they sell them again at high prices. And I don’t think people have noticed all the problems this will produce. Since they sell cattle at high prices, if they’re eaten faster than they can be bred, then the stock has to decrease, and this has to end in great scarcity. By these means this, your island, which seemed in this respect the happiest in the world, will suffer much by the cursed greed of a few people. Besides this, growing grain makes everyone want to reduce the size of their households as much as they can. And what can the people who are laid off do except beg or rob? Great minds would prefer to rob than to beg. Luxury sneaks in to direct you to poverty and misery.

[1.41] “‘There’s too much vanity in clothing, and too much money spent on food — not only in noblemen’s families, but even among tradesmen, among the farmers themselves, and among all ranks of people. You have also many houses of sin, and, besides the ones that are known, the bars and alehouses are no better. Add in dice, cards, backgammon, football, tennis, and quoits, which makes money run away fast. The ones who get involved in them must finally end up robbery. Get rid of these plagues, and give orders that the ones who’ve dispeopled so much soil can either rebuild the villages they’ve pulled down, or rent their land to people who’ll do it. Restrain those deals of the rich, that are as bad almost as monopolies. Give fewer opportunities for people to be idle. Let agriculture be set up again, and regulate the manufacture of wool, so we can find work for the people forced by poverty to be thieves — if not, the ones who are now idle vagabonds or useless servants will certainly become thieves at last. If you don’t find a remedy to these evils it’s pointless to boast that you punish theft severely. It might have the appearance of justice, but it’s neither just nor convenient. If you let your people be poorly educated, and let their manners be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes their education set them up for, what else can you conclude except you first make thieves and then punish them?’

[1.42] “While I was talking this way, the counsellor who was present prepared an answer, and decided to respond to everything I said with all the formality of a debate, where things are usually repeated more faithfully than they’re answered, as if the most important trial was of people’s memories. ‘You’ve talked prettily, for a stranger,’ he said. ‘You’ve heard a lot of things about us that you haven’t been able to think through. But I’ll make everything clear to you, and will first repeat in order everything you’ve said. Then I’ll show how your ignorance of our affairs has misled you. Last, I’ll answer all your arguments. And, so I can begin where I promised, there were four things——’

[1.43] “‘Quiet!’ said the Cardinal. ‘This will take too long. For now, we’ll save you the trouble of answering, and save it for our next meeting, which will be tomorrow, if Raphael’s affairs and yours can admit of it. The Cardinal likes to interrupt But, Raphael,’ he said to me, ‘I’d like to know why you think theft shouldn’t be punished by death. Would you just give in to it? — or can you suggest some other punishment that will be more useful to the public? Since even death doesn’t discourage theft, if people thought their lives would be safe, what fear or force could discourage evil people? On the contrary, they’d look on the reduction of the punishment as an invitation to commit more crimes.’

[1.44] “I answered, ‘It seems to me very unjust to take away someone’s life for a little money, since nothing in the world can be of equal value with a person’s life. And if someone says that he suffers not for the money but for breaking the law, I’d have to answer, extreme justice is an extreme injury. We shouldn’t approve of those terrible laws that turn the smallest offenses into death-penalty cases, Manlian laws nor of the Stoic philosophers’ opinion that all crimes are equal — as if there were no difference between the killing someone and taking their wallet. If we think about it seriously, they’re completely different. God commanded, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ so should we kill so easily for a little money? Some people say that, according to the law, we’re only forbidden to kill except when the laws of the land allow of it, but by that logic, we could have laws to permit adultery and perjury.

[1.45] “Since God took from us the right to decide the fate of either of our own or of other people’s lives, if it’s pretended that the mutual consent of people in making laws can authorize manslaughter in cases in which God has given us no example, that it frees people from divine law, and so makes murder legal — what is this, but to put human laws ahead of God’s laws? — and, if we admit this once, then in every case we can put any restrictions we like on God’s laws. If, by the law of Moses — even though it was rough and severe, as being imposed on a stubborn and servile nation — people were only fined, and not executed for theft, we can’t imagine that in this new law of mercy, where God treats us with a father’s tenderness, He has given us more freedom to be cruel than He gave the Jews. Therefore giving thieves the death penalty is unjust. It’s obviously absurd, and will hurt the society, if a thief and a murderer are punished the same way. If a robber realizes he runs the same risk if he’s convicted of theft and if he’s guilty of murder, of course he’ll want to kill the person, when before he only wanted to rob them. If the punishment is the same, there’s more safety and less risk of being caught when the person who can identify him is out of the way. Frightening thieves too much just makes them more cruel.

[1.46] “But as to the question, ‘What better punishment can be found?’ I think it’s easier to discover that than to invent anything that’s worse. Why should we doubt the way that was so long used by the ancient Romans, who understood so well the arts of government, was very proper for their punishment? They condemned everyone they found guilty of great crimes to work their whole lives in quarries, or to dig in mines with chains about them. The Polylerites in Persia But the method that I liked best was the one I saw in my travels in Persia, among the Polylerites,° a considerable and well-governed people. They pay a yearly tribute to the King of Persia, but in all other respects they’re a free nation, and governed by their own laws. They lie far from the sea, and are surrounded by hills. Since they’re content with what their own fruitful country produces, they have little trade with any other nation, and since they, in keeping with their national character, aren’t interested in expanding their borders, their mountains and the payments to the Persian king keep them safe from invasions.

[1.47] “‘So they have no wars; they live conveniently, not splendidly, and it’s more accurate to call their nation ‘happy’ rather than ‘eminent’ or ‘famous.’ I don’t think they’re known, even by name, to anyone but their closest neighbors. Those of us who do otherwise should pay attention Anyone found guilty of theft among them is bound to repay the owner — and not, as it is in other places, to the prince — because they believe the prince has no more right to the stolen goods than the thief. But if they decide that what was stolen doesn’t exist anymore, then they estimate how much the thieves are worth, and make restitution out of that; they give what’s left over to their wives and children, and they themselves are condemned to serve in the public works. But they’re not imprisoned or chained unless there happens to be some unusual circumstance in their crimes. They go about loose and free, working for the public: if they’re idle, or refuse to work, they’re whipped; but if they work hard they’re treated well, without any mark of shame — only the lists of their names are read every night, and then they’re shut up. They allow no other uneasiness but this of constant labor; for, as they work for the public, so they’re well supported out of the public funds, which is done differently in different places. In some places whatever they get is raised by a charitable contribution; and, though it may seem unreliable, the people are so merciful that they’ve got more than enough. But in other places public funds are set aside for them, or there’s a constant tax or poll-money raised to support them. In some places they’re set to no public work, but every private citizen that has occasion to hire workers goes to the marketplaces and hires them of the public, for a little less money than he’d pay a free citizen. If they go lazily about their task he might quicken them with the whip.

[1.48] “‘This way there’s always some work or other for them to do. Besides their livelihood, they still earn something for the public. Servants of noblemen think this is admirable They all wear a specific kind of clothes, of one particular 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 food, drink, or clothes, as long as they’re of their proper color. But it’s death, both to the giver and taker, if they give them money. It’s just as illegal for any free citizen to take money from them for any reason at all. And it’s also death for any of these slaves — that’s what they’re called — to handle weapons. Those of every division of the country are distinguished by a particular mark, which it’s a capital crime for them to lay aside, to go out of their bounds, or to talk with a slave of another jurisdiction. Even attempting to escape is just as illegal as an actual escape. It’s death for any other slave to assist, and if a free citizen does it, he’s condemned to slavery. Anyone who discovers it is rewarded — free citizens are rewarded in money, and slaves are rewarded with freedom, together with a pardon, so they see more advantage in repenting of their scheme rather than in sticking with it.

[1.491.50] “These are their laws and rules regarding theft, and it’s obvious they’re as beneficial as they’re merciful. Not only is vice only destroyed and people’s lives preserved; but they’re treated in a way that makes them see the necessity to be honest and to spend the rest of their lives repairing the injuries they did to society. Nor is there any risk of their falling back to their old habits. And travelers fear mischief from them so little that they usually use them as guides to get from one jurisdiction to another — there’s nothing left them by which they can rob or be the better for it, since, as they’re disarmed, simply having money is proof of guilt. And because they’re certainly punished if discovered, they can’t hope to escape; because their clothing is so unusual, that they can’t escape without going naked — and even then their cropped ear would give them away. The only thing to fear from them is conspiring against the government — but those from one district or neighborhood couldn’t do anything unless there were a general conspiracy were among all the slaves of the various jurisdictions, which can’t be done because they can’t meet or talk together. Nor will anyone try a scheme where it would be so difficult to hide and so profitable to reveal. None of them have entirely given up hope of recovering their freedom, since by obedience and patience, and by making people believe they’ll change their life for the future, they can expect to get their freedom at last. And every year a few are restored to freedom on the basis of a good character that’s given of them.

[1.50] “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.

[1.51] “To this he answered, ‘It could never take place in England without endangering the whole nation.’

[1.52] “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, ‘It’s not easy to form a judgment of its success, since it was a method that never yet had been tried; but if,’ he said, ‘when a thief was sentenced to death, the prince would reprieve him for a while, and try the experiment of denying him the privilege of sanctuary. Then, if it had a good effect on him, it might take place. And if it did not succeed, the worst would be finally to carry out the sentence on the condemned people. And I don’t see,’ he added, ‘why it would be either unjust, ineffective, or the least bit dangerous to put up with such a delay. In my opinion we should treat vagabonds the same way — even though we’ve made many laws against them, we haven’t succeeded in our goals.’ 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.

[1.53] “I don’t know whether it would be worthwhile to tell what followed — it was all so ridiculous. But I’ll try, because it’s not unrelated to this subject, and there might be some good in it. Discussion between a friar and a hanger-on There was a hanger-on standing nearby, someone who played the role of a jester so naturally that he really seemed to be one. The jokes he told were so cold and dull that we laughed at him more than at them, but sometimes he said, as if by chance, things that were not unpleasant, justifying the old proverb, ‘Throw the dice often, and sometimes you’ll get lucky.’ When someone in the group said I had taken care of the thieves and the Cardinal taken care of the vagabonds, so that nothing was left except for someone to make plans to support sick and old people who couldn’t work, the hanger-on said, ‘Leave it to me! I’ll take care of them. There’s no kind of people I hate more. I’ve been bothered by them and their sad complaints so many times. A saying among beggars But however sadly they told their story, they could never get even a single penny from me; for either I didn’t want to give them anything, or, if I wanted to, I didn’t have any money to give them. Now they know me so well that they won’t lose their labor, but let me pass without giving me any trouble, because they hope for nothing — no more, really, than if I were a priest. But I’d make a law for sending all these beggars to monasteries, the men to the Benedictines, to be made lay brothers, and the women to be nuns.’

[1.54] “The Cardinal smiled, and approved of it in jest, but the rest actually liked it. There was a priest there; he was a dignified, morose man, but he was so pleased with this comment on the priests and the monks that he began to play with the hanger-on, and said to him, ‘This won’t save you from all beggars, unless you take care of us friars.’

[1.55] “‘Already done!’ answered the Fool. ‘The Cardinal has provided for you by what he proposed for restraining vagabonds and setting them to work. I don’t know any vagabonds like you.’

[1.56] “This was well received by the whole group, who looked at the Cardinal and saw he was happy with it; only the friar, ‘deluged by these jokes,’ See Horace’s “deluged by Italian vinegar” was upset, as you can imagine, and became so angry he couldn’t stop criticizing the joker, and calling him ‘rogue,’ ‘slanderer,’ ‘backbiter,’ and ‘son of perdition,’ and then cited some dreadful threats out of the Scriptures against him.

[1.57] “Now the jester thought he was in his element, and attacked him freely. ‘Good Friar,’ he said, ‘don’t be angry, A brilliant pairing of character and speech! for it is written, “In patience possess your soul.”’

[1.58] “The Friar answered — I’ll give you his own words — ‘I’m not angry, you hangman; at least, I don’t sin in it, for the Psalmist says, “Be ye angry and sin not.”’

[1.59] “At this point the Cardinal gently criticized him, and advised him to control his emotions.

[1.60] “‘No, my lord,’ he said, ‘I speak only out of a good zeal, which I should have, The friar, bad at Latin, confuses “zeal” with “this crime” for holy men have had a good zeal, as it is said, “The zeal of your house has 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, may feel.’

[1.61] “‘You can do this with good intentions,’ the Cardinal said, ‘but, in my opinion, it would be wiser, and maybe better, not to engage in so ridiculous a contest with a jester.’

[1.62] “‘No, my lord,’ he answered, ‘that would not be wise, for Solomon, the wisest of men, said, “Answer a Fool according to his foolishness,” which I now do, and show him the ditch into which he will fall, if he’s not aware of it. If the many mockers of Elisha, who was but one bald man, felt the effect of his zeal, what will become of someone who mocked so many friars, including so many bald men? We have, likewise, a papal bull that excommunicates everyone who jeers at us.’ When the Cardinal saw that there was no end of this matter he made a sign to the jester to withdraw, turned the discussion another way, and soon after rose from the table, and, dismissing us, went to hear cases.

[1.63] “And so, Mr. More, I’ve told a tedious story, and I’d be ashamed of how long it is if, as you earnestly begged me, I hadn’t noticed you listening to it as if you didn’t want to miss a word. I might have condensed it, but I decided to give it to you at full length, so you could see how the people who hated my suggestion noticed the cardinal didn’t dislike it, and immediately approved of it — they fawned so on him and flattered him so much that they seriously applauded things he only liked in jest. And from this you can understand how little courtiers would value either me or my advice.”

[1.64] To this I answered, “You’ve been very kind to tell me this. You’ve said everything so wisely and so pleasantly that you’ve made me imagine I was in my own country and grown young again, by remembering that good Cardinal, in whose family I was bred from my childhood. And though you’re very dear to me for other reasons, you’re even dearer because you honor his memory so much. But, after all this, I can’t change my mind. I still think that, if you could get over your dislike for the courts of princes, you could do a lot of good to mankind through the advice you’re able to give. And this is the most important plan that every good person should live by. Your friend Plato thinks that nations will be happy when either philosophers become kings or kings become philosophers. It’s no wonder we’re so far from that happiness while philosophers won’t think it their duty to assist kings with their counsels.”

[1.65] “They’re not so base-minded,” he said, “but that they’d willingly do it. Many of them have already done it by their books, if those that are in power would only listen to their good advice. But Plato was right: unless kings themselves became philosophers, they who from their childhood are corrupted with false notions would never fall in entirely with the counsels of philosophers, and this he himself found to be true in the person of Dionysius.

[1.66] “Don’t you think that, if I were around a king, proposing good laws to him, and trying to root out all the cursed seeds of evil that I found in him, I’d either be kicked out of his court, or, at least, be laughed at for my trouble? For instance, what could I say if I were around the king of France, called into his cabinet council, where several wise men, in his hearing, were making many suggestions — The speaker tries to stop the French from seizing Italy such as how to keep Milan, and how to recover Naples, which over and over slipped out of their hands — how to subdue the Venetians, and then the rest of Italy — how he might add Flanders, Brabant, all of Burgundy, and some other kingdoms which he has swallowed already in his plans to his empire? One suggests an alliance with the Venetians, to be kept as long as he finds his account in it, and that he should communicate counsels with them, and give them some share of the profits till his success makes him need or fear them less, and then it will be easily taken out of their hands; Swiss mercenaries another suggests hiring the Germans and the securing the Swiss by pensions; another suggests winning over the Emperor with money, which has complete control over him; another suggests a peace with the king of Aragon, and, in order to cement it, giving up the king of Navarre’s claims; another thinks the prince of Castile should be worked on by the hope of an alliance, and that pensions would win over some of his courtiers for the French faction.

[1.67] “The hardest point of all is what to do with England. A peace treaty is to be started, and if we can’t depend on their alliance, it should still be as firm as possible. We should call them friends, but suspect them as enemies. The Scots, therefore, should be kept readiness to be let loose on England on every occasion. And we should secretly support some banished nobleman (because the alliance can’t do it openly) who has a claim to the crown, by which means that suspected prince can be kept in awe.

[1.68] “Now when things are in so great a state of confusion, and so many brave people are joining counsels how to carry on the war, if a lowly man like me should stand up and tell them to change all their counsels — to let Italy alone and stay at home, since the kingdom of France was indeed greater than could be well governed by one person; that therefore he shouldn’t think of adding others to it. A good example If, after all this, I’d suggest the resolutions of the Achorians,° a people who lie on the southeast of Utopia.

[1.69] “Long ago the Achorians went to war to add to the dominions of their prince another kingdom, to which he had some claims by an ancient alliance: this they conquered, but found that it was as hard to keep as it was to conquer; 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 spilled for the king’s glory without the people’s gaining the smallest advantage, who didn’t get the smallest benefit from it, even in peacetime; and that, because their manners were corrupted by a long war, robbery and murders everywhere abounded, and their laws fell into contempt; while their king, distracted by trying to rule two kingdoms, was less able to apply his mind to the interest of either.

[1.70] “When they saw this, and that there would be no end to these evils, they by joint counsels made a humble address to their king, asking him to choose which of the two kingdoms he most wanted to keep, since he couldn’t hold both; for they were too great a people to be governed by a divided king, since no one would willingly share a groom with another man. With all of this, the good prince was forced to leave his new kingdom to one of his friends (who shortly afterward was dethroned), and to be contented with his old one. I’d add that, after all those warlike attempts, the confusion, and the spending of both treasure and people who have to follow them, maybe on some misfortune they might be forced to throw up all at last; therefore it seemed much more eligible that the king should improve his original kingdom as much as he could, and make it flourish as much as possible; that he should love his people, and be loved by them; that he should live among them, govern them gently, and leave other kingdoms alone, since his share was already big enough, if not too big, for him: — tell me, how do you think would a speech like this would be heard?”

[1.71] “I admit,” I said, “not very well.”

[1.72] “But,” he said, “what if I spent time with a different kind of ministers, whose most important plans and advice were about how to make the prince even richer? This one suggests raising the value of coins when the king’s debts are large, and lowering it when his revenues come in, so he could both pay much with a little, and in a little receive a great deal. Someone else suggests pretending to start a war to raise money, and then settling on peace as soon as that was done — doing this with enough appearance of religion to work on the people, and make them say it’s because the prince is pious and loves his subjects. A third offers some old forgotten laws that haven’t been used in ages (and which, since they’d been forgotten by all the subjects, they’d also been broken by them), and suggests collecting the fines for breaking these laws — since it would bring in a lot of money, there’d be a good excuse for it, because it would look like executing the law and carrying out justice. A fourth proposes prohibiting many things under severe penalties, especially those that went against the interest of the people, and then dispensing with these prohibitions, for money, to those who might find their advantage in breaking them. This would serve two ends, both of them good. The greedy ones who broke the law would be fined severely, and the sale of expensive licenses would make it seem the prince cared about his people, and wouldn’t give away anything that might be against the public good. Someone else suggests that the judges must be made always to rule in favor of the prince’s power, that they should often be sent for to court, so that the king could hear them argue those points in which he’s concerned; since, however unjust his schemes may be, still at least one judge, either to spite the others or just to be different, would find an excuse to rule for the king. If the judges just differ in opinion, the clearest thing in the world becomes worthy of dispute, and once truth is made questionable, the king can take advantage and use the law for his own profit. Meanwhile the judges that stand out will be brought over, either through fear or modesty.

[1.73] “Once they’re won over this way, all of them may be sent to court to make their rulings as boldly as the king would have it; there will always be good excuses when sentence is to be handed out in the prince’s favor. Some might say that he’s got the fair argument; some that the text of the statute will mean one thing, or some forced sense will be put on them. When everything else fails, the king will assert his authority as above the law, something a religious judge should bear in mind. And so everyone agrees with Crassus’s saying, that a prince can never have enough money, since he has to use it to maintain his armies; that a king can never do anything unjust, even if he wanted to; that he alone owns everything, including what his subjects use; and that no one owns any property other than what the king, out of his goodness, is willing to give him. And they think it’s the prince’s interest that there should be as little left as possible, as if it were his advantage that his people should have neither riches nor liberty, since these things make them less easy and willing to submit to a cruel and unjust government. Whereas necessity and poverty blunts them, makes them patient, beats them down, and breaks that height of spirit that might otherwise dispose them to rebel.

[1.74] “Now what if, after all these propositions were made, I rose up and insisted that advice like this was unbecoming a king and did him harm — that not only his honor, but his safety, consisted more in his people’s wealth than in his own; if I showed that they choose a king for their own sake, and not for his; that, by his care and his efforts, they may be both easy and safe; and that, therefore, a prince should 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’s also obviously wrong that a nation’s poverty promotes the public safety. Who fights more than beggars? — who longs for change more eagerly than someone who’s in a bad situation now? — and who tries to create confusion with so desperate a boldness more than those who have nothing to lose, and hope to gain by them?

[1.75] “If a king experiences so much contempt or envy that he can’t rule his subjects but by oppressing them and treating them badly, by making them poor and miserable, it would be better to leave his kingdom than to keep it and lose his dignity, even if he can keep his power. And it’s beneath the dignity of a king to reign over beggars instead of than rich and happy subjects. And therefore Fabricius, a man of a noble and exalted temper, said ‘he would rather govern rich people than be rich himself. For one be rich and merry while everyone around him is mourning and groaning — that’s not a king, it’s a jailer.’ Only a terrible doctor can’t cure a disease without giving his patient a different one. A ruler whose only way of correcting the errors of his people by depriving them of the conveniences of life just demonstrates he doesn’t know how to rule a free nation. He himself should rather to shake off his laziness or lay down his pride, since the contempt or hatred that his people have for him arises from the vices in himself. Let him live on what belongs to him without wronging others, and accommodate his expense to his revenue. Let him punish crimes, and, by his wise conduct, try to prevent them, rather than be harsh when he’s allowed crime to be too common. Let him not rashly revive long-forgotten laws, especially if they were never wanted in the first place. And let him never take any penalty for the breach of them to which a judge wouldn’t give way in a private citizen, but would look on him as a crafty and unjust person for pretending to it.

[1.76] “I’d add a law among the Macarians — a people who live not far from Utopia — their king, on the first day of his reign, is bound by an oath, confirmed by solemn sacrifices, Macarian law never to have more than a thousand pounds of gold in his treasury at any one time (or the same amount in silver). This law, they tell us, was made by an excellent king who cared about his country’s wealth more than his own, and therefore provided against hoarding so much treasure that it impoverishes the people. He thought that a moderate amount might be enough for any accident, if either the king had occasion for it against rebels, or the kingdom against the invasion of an enemy. But it’s not enough money to let a prince invade other people’s rights — that’s the main reason he made the law. He also thought it was a good provision for the free circulation of money, which is so necessary for a thriving economy. And when a king has to distribute all those extraordinary accessions that increase treasure beyond the appropriate level, it makes him less disposed to oppress his subjects. A king like this will be the feared by the bad people and beloved by the good.

[1.77] “If, I say, I should A wise saying talk about these things to people who had were inclined to believe differently, how deaf they’d be to everything I could say!”

[1.78] “Deaf, yes,” I answered. “And no wonder, because no one should offer advice that they know won’t be followed. Discussions so far from conventional wisdom won’t help anything, won’t have any effect on people whose minds were prepossessed with different ideas. This philosophical way of speculation may be pleasant among friends when they’re conversing freely, but there’s no room for it in the courts of princes, where great affairs are carried on by authority.”

[1.79] “That’s just what I was saying,” he replied, “that there’s no room for philosophy in the courts of princes.”

[1.80] “Yes, there is,” I said, “but not for this Speculative philosophy speculative philosophy, that makes everything seem appropriate all the time. But a different kind of philosophy is more flexible. It knows its place, adjusts itself to fit, and teaches someone properly and decently to behave according to their place in life. If one of Plautus’s comedies is being performed, and a company of servants are acting their parts, and you should come out dressed as a philosopher and repeat a speech of Seneca’s to Nero from Octavia, wouldn’t it be better just to say nothing than to mix such different things, giving us a tragic comedy? A part without words You ruin a play when you mix it things that don’t fit with it, even if they’re much better. Just go through with the play they’re acting as well as you can, and don’t mess everything up just because you’re thinking of something better. It’s exactly the same way in a commonwealth and in the councils of princes. If bad ideas can’t be rooted out entirely, and if you can’t cure some vice the way you want to, you can’t just abandon the commonwealth — for the same reasons you shouldn’t abandon the ship in a storm because you can’t command the winds. You don’t have to attack people with crazy discussions whenever you see their received notions must keep you from making an impression on them. Instead you should look around and try to manage things as proficiently as you can, so that, if you aren’t able to make them go well, at least they’ll be as good as they can be. We can’t have everything right until the whole world is good, and that’s a blessing I’m not expecting to see any time soon.”

[1.81] “According to your argument,” he answered, “all I could do would be to keep myself sane as I tried to cure the madness of others. To tell the truth, I have to repeat what I’ve said to you; and as for lying, I don’t know whether a philosopher can do it. I’m sure I can’t do it. But even though these discussions might be difficult and unpleasing to them, I don’t see why they should seem stupid or extravagant. If I either proposed the kinds of things as Plato created in his Republic, or the Utopians practice in theirs, Utopian institutions though they might seem better, as certainly they are, still they’re so different from our establishment, which is founded on property (there being no such thing among them), that I couldn’t expect that it would have any effect on them. But discussions like mine, which only call past evils to mind and give warning of what might follow, leave nothing in them that’s so absurd that they can’t be used at any time, since they can be unpleasant only to people who are determined 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, might seem uncouth — we must, even among Christians, give over pressing the greatest part of those things that Christ has taught us, though He has commanded us not to conceal them, but to proclaim on the housetops that which He taught in secret. The greatest parts of His precepts are more opposite to the lives of the people of this age than any part of my discussion has been, but the preachers seem to have learned that craft to which you advise me: for they, observing that the world wouldn’t 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 people become more secure in their wickedness by it.

[1.82] “This is all the success that I could have in a court, because I always have to differ from the rest, and then I won’t seem to mean anything; or, if I agree with them, then I’ll just help them in their madness. I don’t understand what you mean by your ‘casting about,’ or by ‘the bending and handling things so expertly that, if they don’t go well, they still go as well as possible.’ In the courts they won’t tolerate someone who holds his peace or connives at what others do. Someone has to approve of the worst advice and agree to the darkest schemes. Anyone who coldly approved of these wicked practices would pass for a spy, or maybe a traitor. When people are engaged in that kind of society, therefore, they’re so far from being able to mend matters by ‘casting about,’ as you call it, that they’ll find no opportunity to do any good — the bad company would rather corrupt him than benefit from him. Or if, despite all their bad company, he still remains steady and innocent, he’ll be blamed for their terrible ideas and bad behavior. By offering advice along with them, he has to bear his share of the blame that belongs wholly to others.

[1.83] “Plato described the unreasonableness of a philosopher meddling with government in a fine simile. ‘If a man,’ he says, ‘were to see a great company run out into the rain every day and take delight in being wet — if he knew that it would be pointless 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 didn’t have enough influence to correct other people’s stupidity, to take care to preserve himself.’

[1.84] “To be honest, I have to admit that, as long as there’s any property, and as long as we use money to value everything, it’s impossible to govern a country fairly or happily. Not fairly, because the worst people will end up with the best things, and not happily, because everything will be divided among a few (and even these aren’t really happy), with everyone else left miserable. When I think about the wise constitution of the Utopia, where everything is so well managed with so few laws, where virtue has its due reward, and yet there’s such equality that everyone lives in plenty — when I compare with them so many other nations that keep making new laws but still can’t regulate their government; where, even though everyone has private property, their laws can’t obtain it or preserve it, or even allow people to tell their own property from what belongs to someone else — that’s why they have so many lawsuits being filed every day — when I balance all these things in my mind, I get closer and closer to Plato, and understand why he decided not to make any laws for people who wouldn’t agree to communal property. Someone as smart as Plato couldn’t miss the fact that the setting everyone on the same level was the only way to make a nation happy, and it can’t happen as there’s property, because when everyone grabs everything they can hold, with one excuse or another, then however rich a nation may be, as long as just a few are dividing the wealth among themselves, the rest have to be poor. So you get be two kinds of people among them, and their fortunes should be reversed: one group useless but wicked and greedy; the other serving the public.

[1.85] “So I’m convinced that, until property goes away, there can be no equitable or fair distribution of things, and the world can’t be governed happily. As long as we have property, the best people will be loaded with cares and anxieties. I admit, without taking property away entirely, the pressures that oppress the majority of people might be made a little lighter, but they can’t ever be removed entirely. If we came up with laws to figure out the maximum amount of land and money everyone could have — to limit the prince, say, so he won’t become too powerful; to restrain the people, so they won’t become too insolent — and no one went after do-nothing public jobs, which shouldn’t be sold or made too expensive, because otherwise the people who do them will be tempted to cheat and steal, and we’d have to have just rich people in those jobs, when we should have just wise people. These laws, I say, might be like a good diet and care for a sick person who still might not recover. Maybe they can moderate the sickness a little, but it would never really be cured. In the same way, the nation can’t be healthy as long as there’s private property. As with complicated diseases, you treat one sickness and you just create another. You get rid of one symptom and produce others, and strengthening one part of the body weakens the rest.”

[1.86] “Not at all,” I answered. “It seems to me that people can’t live comfortably where all things are common. How can there be plenty where everyone excuses themselves from working? If someone isn’t excited by the hope of gain, his belief that other people will work hard would just make him lazy. If people come to be pinched with poverty, and yet cannot dispose of anything as their own, what can follow this but perpetual sedition and bloodshed, especially when the respect and authority due to magistrates falls to the ground? for I cannot imagine how that can be kept up among those that are in all things equal to one another.”

[1.87] “I don’t wonder,” he said, “that it appears so to you, since you have no idea, at least no right idea, about this sort of 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 hadn’t 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.”

[1.88] “You won’t easily persuade me,” said Peter, “that any nation in that new world is better governed than those among us; for as our understandings aren’t 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 one’s understanding could ever have invented.”

[1.89] “As for whether their government or ours is older,” he said, “you can’t judge until you read their histories. If they’re right, they had towns there before we even had people here. And as for discoveries made by chance or brilliant people, they could have happened there as well as here. I admit we’re more ingenious than they are, but they’re much better than we are in diligence and application. They knew just a little about us before we came among them. They call us all by a general name of ‘The nations that lie beyond the equator’; their histories mention a shipwreck on their coast twelve hundred years ago, and that some Romans and Egyptians that were in the ship, getting safe ashore, lived the rest of their lives with them. And they were so ingenious that from this single opportunity they took advantage of those unlooked-for guests, and learned all the useful Roman skills the shipwrecked people knew about. They even picked up on some hints and discovered things even the shipwrecked people couldn’t explain — that’s how well they handled the accident of having some of our people washed up on their shore.

[1.90] “But an accident like that ever brought anyone from there into Europe, we haven’t benefited from it — we don’t even remember it. Maybe someday our people will forget I was ever there. With just one accident they became masters of all our good inventions, but I’ll bet we’d take a long time to learn or implement anything we learn about their excellent customs. And this is why they’re better governed, and why they live more happily, than we do, even though we’re just as good as they are in understanding and outward advantages.”

[1.91] At this point I said to him, “I’d love to hear you describe every detail of that island to us. Don’t rush — spell it all out, their land, their rivers, their towns, their people, their manners, their constitution, their laws — everything you think we might want to know. I’m sure you know we’d love to hear everything about them that we don’t know about.”

[1.92] “Gladly,” he said. “I’ve analyzed the situation carefully, but it will take time.”

[1.93] “Let’s go, then,” I said, “first and have dinner. Then we’ll have enough time.”

[1.94] He agreed. We went in and had dinner, and afterwards came back and sat down in the same place. I ordered my servants not to let anyone disturb us, and both Peter and I asked Raphael to do what he promised. When he saw we were eager he paused a little to recollect himself, and began this way.

Book Two

[2.1.1] “The island of Utopia is two hundred miles across in the middle, and it’s almost the same width across most of the island, but it gets narrower towards both ends. The shape and location of the new island of Utopia Its figure is like a crescent. The ocean comes in between its horns, eleven miles across, and it spreads itself into a great bay, which is surrounded with land about five hundred miles across, so it’s well protected from the wind. There’s no strong current in this bay. The whole coast is one continued harbor, which is convenient for everyone who lives there, and lets them communicate with each other. But the entry into the bay, with rocks on the one hand and shallows on the other, is very dangerous. In the middle there’s a single rock that sticks above the water, so it can be avoided easily. A naturally defended place needs just one garrison On top of it there’s a tower, where they keep a garrison. The other rocks are underwater, and very dangerous. Only the natives really know the channel. Any stranger who enters into the bay without a Utopian pilot would run a great danger of shipwreck. Even the Utopians couldn’t pass it safely without some marks on the coast to lead the way. A scheme to move landmarks If someone shifted these, even a little, any fleet that might attack them, no matter how big, would be certainly destroyed.

[2.1.2] “On the other side of the island there are also many harbors. The coast is so fortified, both by nature and art, that a small number of people can block the descent even of a great army. But they say (and there’s good reason to think they’re right) that this was no island at first, but a part of the continent. Utopia named for Utopus Utopus, who conquered it (and whose name it still carries — it used to be Abraxa), brought the rude and uncivilized inhabitants into such a good government and so much civilization that they’re now far past the rest of the world. He conquered them easily, and then planned to separate them from the continent, and More impressive than the isthmus of Corinth to bring the sea all the way around them. To do this he ordered a deep channel to be dug, fifteen miles long, To keep the natives from thinking he treated them like slaves, he forced not only the inhabitants but even his own soldiers to work on it. When everyone works, it goes smoothly Since he set huge numbers of people to work, he finished it more quickly than anyone expected. And his neighbors, who at first laughed at the stupidity of the project, no sooner saw it brought to perfection than they were struck with wonder and terror.

[2.1.3] “There are fifty-four cities in the island, all large and well built, the manners, customs, The cities — similarity promotes harmony and laws of which are the same, and they’re all contrived as near in the same manner as the ground on which they stand will allow. The nearest are least twenty-four miles from one another, and the most remote are Moderate distance close enough that someone can go by foot from one to the other in just a day. Every city sends three of their wisest senators once a year to Amaurot,° to consult about their common concerns; for that’s the chief town of the island, being situated near the center of it, so that it’s the most convenient place for their assemblies. Distribution of land The jurisdiction of every city extends at least twenty miles, and, where the towns lie wider, they have much more ground. Desire for growth is a curse No town wants to expand its borders, because the people think of themselves as tenants rather than landlords. All over the country they’ve built farmhouses for husbandmen, and they’re well designed and furnished with everything you need for farmwork. Inhabitants are sent, by turns, from the cities to live in them. No country family has fewer than forty men and women in it, besides two slaves.

[2.1.4] “There’s a master and a mistress set over every family, and over thirty families there’s a magistrate. Every year twenty of this family come back to the town after they’ve stayed two years in the country, and in their room there are other twenty sent from the town, that they can 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. Everyone learns farming By this means those who live 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 even though every year there’s such a shifting of the farmers to prevent anyone being forced against their will to follow that hard course of life too long, yet many among them take such pleasure in it that they desire permission to continue in it many years.

[2.1.5] “These husbandmen till the ground, breed cattle, hew wood, Farmers’ duties 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 don’t sit and hatch them, Hatching eggs but a vast number of eggs are laid in a gentle and equal heat in order to be hatched, and they’re 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.

[2.1.6] “They breed very few horses, but those they have are full of mettle, Horses and are kept only for exercising their youth in the art of sitting and riding them; for they don’t put them to any work, either of ploughing or carriage, in which they employ oxen. Oxen Although their horses are stronger, oxen can hold out longer; and as they’re not subject to so many diseases, so they’re kept on a lesser charge and with less trouble. And even when they’re so worn out that they’re no more fit for labor, they’re good meat at last. Food and drink They don’t plant any grain except what they use for bread, because they drink either wine, cider or perry,° and often water, sometimes boiled with honey or licorice, which they have in abundance. And even though they know exactly how much grain each town needs and all that tract of country which belongs to it, Planting they sow much more, and breed more cattle, than necessary for their consumption, and they give the unused surplus to their neighbors. When they want anything in the country which it doesn’t 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, on a festival day. Cooperative labor 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’ll 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, Especially Amaurot

[2.2.1] “If you know one of their towns, you know them all — they’re all so alike, except where the location makes some difference. So I’ll describe one of them, and none is better for this than Amaurot. It’s the most admired, and the rest take second place to it because it’s the location of their supreme council. There’s no town I know better, after living in it a total of five years.

[2.2.2] “It lies on the side of a hill, or, rather, a rising ground. Description of Amaurot Its shape is almost square, since 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 Anyder;° but it’s a little broader the other way that runs along by the bank of that river. Description of Anyder The Anyder 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’s grown half a mile wide; but, it still grows larger and larger, till, after sixty miles, it’s lost in the ocean. Between the town and the sea, and for some miles above the town, Just like the Thames it ebbs and flows every six hours with a strong current. The tide comes up about thirty miles so full that there’s nothing but salt water in the river, and the fresh water is driven back with its force. Above that, for some miles, the water is brackish, but a little higher, as it runs by the town, it’s entirely fresh. And when the tide goes out, it remains fresh all along to the sea.

[2.2.3] “There’s a bridge over the river, made not of timber but of beautiful stone, consisting of many grand arches. Again, just like London It’s at the part of the town that’s farthest from the sea, so that the ships, without any hindrance, lie all along the side of the town. There’s another river that runs by it, and though it’s not bit, it’s still pleasant, since it rises out of the same hill the town stands on, and so it runs down through it and falls into the River Anyder. Drinking water The inhabitants have fortified the fountainhead of this river, which springs a little outside the towns. That way, if they should ever be besieged, the enemy wouldn’t be able to stop the water, rechannel it, or poison it. From there it’s carried in clay pipes to the streets below. And for those places of the town to which the water of that small river can’t be conveyed, they have big cisterns to collect the rainwater, which makes up for the lack of the other.

[2.2.4] “The town is surrounded by a high and thick wall, Fortifications that has many towers and forts in it. There’s also a broad and deep dry ditch, set thick with thorns, around the town on three sides, and the river takes the place of a ditch on the fourth side. Streets and buildings The streets are very convenient for all carriage, and are well sheltered from the winds. Their buildings are good, and look so similar that a whole side of a street looks like a single house. The streets are twenty feet wide; there are gardens behind all the houses. Virgil also praises gardens 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. They’re easy to open and they shut by themselves. Since the Utopians have no private property, everyone can freely enter any house. Every ten years they trade houses by lottery. They cultivate their gardens with great care, so they have vines, fruits, vegetables, and flowers in them. Everything is arranged and maintained so well that I never saw gardens anywhere that were as fruitful and beautiful as theirs. And this fondness for designing gardens is supported both by the pleasure they find in it and by a friendly rivalry between the inhabitants of the several streets, who compete with each other.

[2.2.5] “And no part of the town is more useful or more pleasant. The town’s founder seems to have cared about nothing more than their gardens. They say the whole plan 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 person to bring to perfection. Their records, that contain the history of their town and State, are preserved with an exact care, and run backwards seventeen hundred and sixty 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 either 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’s not apt to take fire, and yet resists the weather more than lead. Windows of glass or linen 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’s so oiled or gummed that it both keeps out the wind and gives free admission to the light.

Of Their Officials

[2.3.1] “Every year, thirty families choose an official, who used to be called the Syphogrant° but is now called the Philarch.° Tranibor, “chief official” Over every ten Syphogrants and the associated families there’s another magistrate, who used to be called the Tranibor° but recently the Archphilarch.° All the Syphogrants, all two hundred of them, elect the Prince out of a list of four prepared by the people of the four divisions of the city. An unusual way to elect officials But they take an oath, before they start an election, that they’ll choose the one they consider most fit for the office. They vote secretly, so no one knows who voted for whom.

[2.3.2] “The Prince serves for life, unless he’s removed for being a tyrant. Tyranny hateful to a well-run state The Tranibors are new chosen every year, but usually they’re continued from year to year. All the other magistrates have one-year terms. The Tranibors meet every third day, more often if necessary, and consult with the Prince about affairs of state in general, or any private differences that arise among the people (though that happens only rarely). They settle disputes quickly, we let them drag on There are always two Syphogrants called into the council chamber, and these are changed every day. It’s a fundamental rule of their government that no conclusion can be made in anything that relates to the public till it’s been debated in their council three days. No rushed decisions Anyone who meets to discuss matters of state is put to death, except for the ordinary governing council and the assembly of the whole population.

[2.3.3] “Their society has been constructed so that the Prince and the Tranibors can never conspire to change the government and enslave the people. When anything of great importance is in the works, therefore, it’s sent to the Syphogrants, who, after they’ve communicated it to the families in their divisions and considered it among themselves, make report to the senate. On important occasions they refer matter to the council of the whole island. If only we did that! One rule observed in their council is never to debate a thing on the day it’s proposed. That’s always put off to the next meeting, so people won’t take a side in the heat of argument, rashly and too soon. That might prejudice them so much that, instead of thinking of what’s good for they public, they might just try to stick by their first opinions, What they mean by “counsel at night” and by a perverse and preposterous sort of shame risk their country instead of their own reputation, afraid that people might think they lacked foresight in what they first suggested. To prevent this, they take care to be deliberate, not sudden in their motions.

Occupations

[2.4.1] “Agriculture is so widely practiced among them that no person, either man or woman, is ignorant of it. Everyone there knows farming; with us it’s just a few despised people They’re taught about it from their childhood, partly by what they learn at school, and partly by practice, often going out into the fields around the town, where they not only see others at work but do work themselves. Trades determined by needs, not luxury Besides agriculture, which is so common to them all, everyone has some particular job for themselves, such as the manufacture of wool or flax, masonry, smith’s work, or carpenter’s work; for there’s no sort of trade they admire more.

[2.4.2] “Across the whole island they wear one kind of clothes, with no distinction other than what’s necessary to distinguish the two sexes and the married from the unmarried. Clothes the same The fashion never changes, and since it’s both attractive and convenient, it’s suited to the climate, good for both summer and winter. Every family makes their own clothes.

[2.4.3] “All among them, both men and women, learn one of the trades I mentioned. No one without a job Women, for the most part, deal in wool and flax, which makes sense because of their physical weakness, and they leave the harder jobs to the men. Occupations usually pass down from father to son, since preferences often follow family trees. Learn any job you like But if anyone’s talents lie elsewhere, they’re adopted into a family that deals in the trade that interests him. When that happens, they take care — not only his father, but the magistrate too — that they’re placed with a discreet and good person. If, after someone has learned one job, they want to learn another, that’s also allowed, and it’s managed the same way. When someone has learned both, they follow whatever they want, unless there’s a public need for the other one.

[2.4.4] The most important — almost the only — business of the Syphogrants is taking care that no one lives without working, Lazy people should be driven out and that everyone follows their trade diligently. But they don’t wear themselves out, working nonstop from morning to night like beasts of burden — since that’s a heavy slavery, it’s the common course of life among all manual workers everywhere except the Utopians. Labor kept within limits But they divide the day and night into twenty-four hours and devote six of these to work (three before lunch and three after). Then they have dinner, and at eight o’clock (counting from noon) they go to bed and sleep eight hours. The rest of their time — besides the time taken up in work, eating, and sleeping — is left to every individual’s discretion. But they’re not supposed to abuse that time to luxury and idleness, but must employ it in some proper exercise, whatever best suits them, which is, for the most part, reading.

[2.4.5] “It’s typical to have public lectures every morning before daybreak, where no one is required to appear except 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 or other, according to their inclinations. Scholarly pursuits But if others, who aren’t cut out for a life of the mind, prefer to spend their time in their trades, as many of them do, no one stops them; instead they’re praised for taking care to serve their country. After-dinner entertainment After dinner they spend an hour in some entertainment — in summer in their gardens, and in winter in the halls where they eat, where they entertain each other either with music or conversation.

[2.4.6] “They don’t even know about dice or other stupid and wasteful games. Among us, even kings play dice They have, however, two sorts of games, something like our chess. One is between several numbers, in which one number ‘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 pleasantly represented; Even their games are beneficial together with the special opposition 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.

[2.4.7] “But we should discuss the time devoted to work, so you don’t think that, with just six hours for working, they can run out of supplies they need. It’s simply not the case that there’s not enough time to give them all sorts of things, both necessary and convenient. Instead they have too much time. You’ll easily understand this if you think about how many people in other nations are entirely idle. Different kinds of idle people First, women — half of humankind — usually do little. And if a few women are diligent, then their husbands are idle. Then consider the huge number of idle priests and those called religious men. Add to these all the rich men, especially those with large estates, called “noblemen” and “gentlemen,” Noblemen’s bodyguards together with their followers, made up of idle people, who are kept for show rather than use. Add to these all those strong and healthy beggars who go around pretending to be sick so they can beg for a living. Very wise When you add them up, you’ll see that humankind is supported by far fewer people than you imagined.

[2.4.8] “Then think of how few of those that work are employed in really useful labors — since we measure everything by money, we’ve given rise to many trades that are both pointless and unnecessary, and just support wild behavior and luxury. If people worked only on things that the conveniences of life actually require, there would be such an abundance of them that the prices of them would sink, and tradesmen couldn’t be supported by their profits. If all those who do useless labor were given more profitable jobs, and if everyone who languishes out their lives in laziness and idleness (every one of whom consumes as much as any two of the workers) were forced to work, you can easily imagine that a small proportion of time would be enough to do everything that’s necessary, profitable, or pleasant to humankind (especially if “pleasure” is kept within its appropriate limits).

[2.4.9] “This appears clearly in Utopia. There, in a great city and in all the territory around it, you’ll barely find five hundred people, either men or women, who are of the right age and have the strength to work, but who don’t do it. Even the officials work Even the Syphogrants, though they’re excused by the law, don’t excuse themselves — they work, and become examples to make the rest of the people industrious. The same exemption is allowed to those who are recommended to the people by the priests and the Syphogrants, and are excused from labor so they can devote themselves entirely to studying. If any of these fall short of expectations, they have to go back to work. Only scholars chosen for official jobs Sometimes a manual laborer who uses his leisure time to make a scholarly discovery is eased from being a tradesman and becomes a scholar. Out of these they choose their ambassadors, their priests, their Tranibors, and the Prince himself, who were once called their ‘Barzenes,’° and are now called their ‘Ademus.’°

[2.4.10] “And this way, from the huge numbers of people who aren’t allowed to be idle or to work in fruitless jobs, you can easily estimate how much can be done in the few hours in which they have to work. But, besides everything that’s already been said, consider that the necessary skills among them are managed with less labor than anywhere else.

[2.4.11] “Among us, building or repairing houses requires many hands, because often a wasteful heir allows a house his father built to fall into decay, so that his successor has to spend a lot of money for repairs when he could have maintained the place at a small charge. Keeping buildings affordable It often happens that a house one person built at a vast expense is neglected by another person, who thinks he has a more delicate sense of the beauties of architecture, and so he lets it to fall to ruin and builds another at no less charge. Among the Utopians, though, everything is regulated so that people very rarely build on a new plot of land, and they’re not only very quick to repair their houses, but they show their foresight in allowing them to decay. In this way their buildings are preserved for a long time with only a little labor, and the builders, who have to do the maintenance, are often unemployed, except when they’re hewing timber and squaring stones, so that the materials are ready for raising a building quickly when they’re needed.

[2.4.12] “As to their clothes, notice how little attention they devote to them. Keeping clothes affordable When they’re working they wear leather and skins, cut carelessly, which last seven years. When they appear in public they wear an upper garment which hides the inner one. They’re all the same color, and that’s the natural color of the wool. Because they need less woolen cloth than is used anywhere else, what they use is much cheaper; they use linen cloth more, but that requires less labor, and they care only about the whiteness of the linen or the cleanness of the wool, not the fineness of the thread. outside Utopia four or five upper garments of colored wool, and just as many silk vests, are barely enough for one person, some people think even ten aren’t enough. But everyone there is content with one, which very often lasts two years. And nothing can tempt them to want more. If they had them, after all, they wouldn’t be any warmer, and they wouldn’t look any better. Therefore, since they’re all employed in useful labor, and since they’re content with fewer things, there’s a great abundance of all things among them.

[2.4.13] “Often large numbers of people, because there’s no other work to do, are sent out to repair the highways. But when there’s no public project to work on, they just cut down the number hours they work. The magistrates never make people do unnecessary labor, since the whole point of the constitution is to regulate labor by the needs of the public, and to allow the people the time they need to improve their minds — this, they think, is what it means to be happy in life.

Of Their Social Relations

[2.5.1] “But now it’s time to explain how these people interact, their social relations, and the rules they use to distribute things among them.

[2.5.2] “Their cities are made up of families, and their families are made up of people who are closely related. When girls grow up they’re married and live with their husbands’ families, but the sons and grandchildren remain in the same house, subject to their oldest parent, unless he becomes senile. In that case, the next oldest takes his place.

[2.5.3] “But to keep any city from becoming either too crowded or too empty, they have are plans to prevent any city from having more than six thousand families. No family may have fewer than ten or more than sixteen people in it, though there’s no fixed number of underage children. They follow this rule simply by moving some of the children of a fertile couple to another family that doesn’t have as many. By the same rule they supply cities that don’t increase so fast from others that breed faster.

[2.5.4] “If there’s any population increase across the whole island, then they take some number of citizens out of the towns and send them over to the nearby continent, where, if they learn that the inhabitants have more land than they can cultivate, they plant a colony. They take the inhabitants into their society if they’re willing to live with them; and where they do that willingly, they quickly follow their mode of life and follow their rules, and this brings happiness to both nations. Because of the way they behave, they care for the soil so much that it becomes fruitful enough for both, though otherwise it might be too barren for either of them.

[2.5.5] “But if the natives refuse to obey their laws, they drive them out beyond the borders they draw for themselves, and if they resist they use force. For them it’s a just cause of war for a nation to stop others from cultivating land they don’t use, but just leave idle and uncultivated. The law of Nature gives everyone the right to as much unused land as they need to stay alive.

[2.5.6] “If an accident causes the population of a town to go down so much that they can’t make it up from the other towns of the island without diminishing them — they say this happened only twice since they first settled the area, when great numbers of people were killed by the plague — then they compensate by bringing back the appropriate number of people from their colonies. They’ll abandon the colonies rather than allow the towns in the island to sink too low.

[2.5.7] “But to return to how they live in society. The oldest man of every family, as I’ve said, is in charge. Saving the cost of servants Wives serve their husbands, and children their parents, and the younger always serves the elder. Every city is divided into four equal parts, and in the middle of each city there’s a marketplace. What’s brought there and manufactured by the families is carried from there to buildings set aside for that purpose, where all things of the same kind are laid by themselves; and every father goes there, and takes whatever he or his family need, without either paying for it or leaving anything in exchange. There’s no reason for denying any person, since there’s such plenty of everything among them. And there’s no danger that someone will ask for more than they need. They have no incentives to do this, because they know they’ll always have enough.

[2.5.8] “It’s fear of poverty that makes the whole race of animals greedy or ravenous; but, besides fear, human beings have a pride that makes them imagine it’s a kind of glory to excel others in pomp and excess. The source of greed There’s no room for this under the laws of the Utopians. Near these markets there are others for all sorts of supplies — vegetables, fruits, and bread, but also fish, poultry, and cattle. Filth leads to disease There are also, outside their towns, places set up near running water for killing their livestock and for washing away the filth, which is done by their slaves. Slaughtering animals teaches us to slaughter people They don’t let their citizens kill the cattle, because they think that pity and good nature, which are among the best affections we’re born with, are seriously harmed by butchering animals. Nor do they allow anything that’s disgusting or unclean to be brought inside their towns, in case the air should be infected by bad smells, which might harm their health.

[2.5.9] “In every street there are great halls, all equally spaced from each other, distinguished by particular names. The Syphogrants live in the ones that are set over thirty families, fifteen lying on one side of it, and the same number on the other. In these halls they all meet and eat their meals. The stewards of every one of them come to the marketplace at an appointed hour, and they take back the right amount of provisions for the number of people who live in their hall.

[2.5.10] “But they take more care of their sick than of any others; these are lodged and provided for in public hospitals. Care of the sick Every town has four hospitals, built outside their walls, and they’re so large that they could almost pass for little towns. This way, even if they had a large number of sick people, they could still lodge them conveniently, and far enough away that those with infectious diseases are kept away to prevent contagion. The hospitals are stocked and stored with all everything that promotes the ease and recovery of the sick, and the people who are put in them are looked after with such tender and watchful care, and are so constantly attended by their skillful physicians, that (since no one is sent to them against their will), virtually everyone in the whole town would rather go there than lie sick at home.

[2.5.11] “After the steward of the hospitals has gathered all the supplies the physician calls for, then the best things left in the market are distributed equally among the halls, in proportion to their numbers — only they first serve the Prince, the Chief Priest, the Tranibors, the Ambassadors, and strangers, if there are any (which happens rarely), and who have well-supplied houses prepared for their reception when they come among them. Meals together in mixed company At lunch and dinner, when the whole Syphogranty is called together by sound of trumpet, they meet and eat together, except only the ones who are in the hospital or sick at home. But after the halls are served, no one is stopped from taking supplies home from the marketplace, Respecting freedom because they know anyone who does that must have a good reason. Although anyone who wants to can eat at home, no one does it willingly — it’s ridiculous and stupid for anyone to go to the trouble of preparing a bad dinner at home when there’s a much more plentiful one made ready for them so near hand.

[2.5.12] “All the difficult and unpleasant jobs around these halls are performed by their slaves. Preparing and cooking the food, though, and ordering their tables, Women serve at the banquets are the responsibility only of 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 towards the wall, and the women sit on the other side, so that if anyone should suddenly get sick (which sometimes happens to pregnant women), she can get up without disturbing the rest, and go to the nurses’ room (who are there with the nursing children), where there’s always clean water at hand and cradles, where they can lay the young children if necessary, and a fire, so they can change and dress them in front of it. Praise and honor encourage good deeds Every child is nursed by its own mother (if death or sickness doesn’t intervene); if it does, the Syphogrants’ wives quickly find a nurse, which isn’t difficult, since anyone who can do it offers herself cheerfully. They’re willing to do that kindness, and the children they nurse think of the nurses as their mothers.

[2.5.13] Educating offspring “All children under five sit with the nurses; the rest of the young people, both sexes, till they’re fit for marriage, either serve the people who sit at the table, or, if they’re not strong enough for that, they stand by them in silence and eat what they’re given. And they have no other formality of dining. In the middle of the head table, The priest sits above the ruler, but with us bishops act as royal servants which stands across the upper end of the hall, sit the Syphogrant and his wife, for that’s the best and most conspicuous place. Next to him sit two of the elders, because people always go to meals in groups of four. If there’s a temple within the Syphogranty, the priest and his wife sit with the Syphogrant above all the rest. Young and old mixed Next to them there’s a mixture of old and young, who are placed so that, as the young are set near others, so they’re mixed with the more ancient; which, they say, was decided for this reason: that the seriousness of the elders, and the respect that’s due to them, might restrain the younger ones from indecent words and gestures. Respect for the old Dishes aren’t 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 interesting food that happens to be set before them, if there’s not such an abundance of them that the whole company can be treated alike.

[2.5.14] “Old men are especially respected, but everyone else is treated well. Even our monks don’t do this Both lunch and dinner start with someone reading a lecture about morality, but it’s short, not boring or hard to listen to. From here the old men take the opportunity to entertain the people near them with useful and pleasant stories, but they don’t dominate the discussion so much that the younger people can’t engage. No, they get them to talk so they can, in open conversation, see the force of everyone’s spirit and observe his character. Our doctors criticize this They finish their lunches quickly, but sit long at dinner, because they go to work after the one, and go to sleep after the other, during which they think the stomach digests more vigorously. Music at meals They never have lunch without music, and there’s always fruit served after the meal. While they’re at the table, some burn perfumes and sprinkle fragrant ointments and sweet waters — they have everything they need to boost their spirits. Harmless pleasure is praiseworthy They give themselves a lot of leeway, and indulge themselves in all harmless pleasures. That’s how people in the towns live together. In the country, where they live far apart, every one eats at home, and no family lacks any necessary supplies, because they’re the ones who bring the supplies into the towns.

Of Utopian Travel

[2.6.1] If anyone wants to visit friends who live in some other town, or to travel and see the rest of the country, he easily gets permission from the Syphogrant and Tranibors, as long as there’s no good reason for him to be at home. People who travel carry with them a passport from the prince, which both certifies that they’re allowed to travel and limits the time of their return. They’re given 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 unnecessary burden. While they’re on the road they carry no supplies, but they have all they need, and everywhere they’re treated the same as if they were at home. If they stay anywhere longer than one night, everyone keeps doing their usual job, and they’re treated very well by people of their own trade.

[2.6.2] “But if anyone goes out of their city without permission, and is found wandering without a passport, they’re treated harshly — punished as a fugitive and sent home in disgrace. If they commit the same crime a second time, they’re condemned to slavery. If anyone wants to travel within his own city, he’s free do it, with their father’s permission and his wife’s consent; but when they come into any of the country houses, if they expect to be entertained there, they have to work with them and follow their rules; and if they do this, they can go freely around the whole precinct, being then as useful to their city as if they were still in it. So you see no idle people among them, no excuses for not working. How holy! — Christians should imitate it! There are no taverns, no ale-houses, no brothels in Utopia, no other opportunities for corruption, nowhere to lurk, nowhere to form themselves into parties. Everyone lives in full view, so they’re all required to perform their usual tasks and to use their free time well. Even distribution means enough for all Any people organized this way must have a great abundance of everything, and since they’re equally distributed among the people, no one can be poor or forced to beg.

[2.6.3] “In their great council at Amaurot — every town sends three people there once a year — they look into which towns have too much and which ones have less, so the one is furnished by the other. The commonwealth is a big family They do this freely and without any sort of exchange; they just supply each other and are supplied by each other depending on whether they have plenty or scarcity — this way the whole island is one family.

[2.6.4] “When they’ve taken care of their whole country this way, and laid up stores for two years (to guard against a bad season), Utopian trade they order an exportation of the surplus — grain, honey, wool, flax, wood, wax, tallow, leather, and cattle — and they send it out in great quantities to other nations. They order one-seventh of all these goods to be freely given to the poor of the countries to which they send them, and they sell the rest at moderate price.

[2.6.5] “By this exchange they not only bring back those few things that they need at home (since they hardly need anything but iron), but also a lot of gold and silver; and by their driving this trade so long, you can hardly imagine how vast a treasure they’ve got. They care about the community Now they don’t much care whether they sell off their merchandise for cash in hand or on credit. A big part of their treasure is now in bonds, but in their contracts no private person is responsible; contracts are written in the name of the town; and the towns that owe them money raise it from those private hands that owe it to them, stash it away in their public chamber, or enjoy the profit of it until the Utopians call for it. How to degrade money They’d rather leave most of it in the hands of people who benefit from it than call for it themselves. But if they see that any of their neighbors need it more, then they call it in and lend it to them.

[2.6.6] “When they’re at war, the only time when their treasure can be usefully put to work, they use it themselves. In great emergencies or sudden accidents they use it to hire foreign troops, because they’re more willing to expose them to danger than their own people. Avoiding war with money or diplomacy is better than bloodshed They pay them extremely well, knowing that this will work even on their enemies; that it will make them betray or desert their own side; and that it’s the best way to make their enemies jealous of one another. This is why they have an incredible treasure. But they don’t keep it as a treasure, but in a way I’m almost afraid to describe, for fear you’ll think it so outrageous that it must be a lie. How clever! I have a good reason to believe this — if I hadn’t seen it myself, it would be hard to persuade me to believe anyone else who said it.

[2.6.7] “We find it harder to believe things the more they’re different from our own way of doing things. But any reasonable person should realize that, because they’re so different from us, they value gold and silver by a very different standard. Since they have no use for money among themselves, but keep it only in case of rare events, which are usually far apart in time, they value gold and silver only as much as it deserves — in other words, they value it for its usefulness. Iron more useful than gold or silver So they clearly must prefer iron either to gold or silver, for people can’t live without iron just as they can’t live without fire or water. Nature, though, has shown us no use for other metals. People’s stupidity has made gold and silver valuable because they’re rare, but the Utopians believe that Nature, like an indulgent parent, has given them all the good things in abundance, like water and earth, and has hidden the things that are pointless and useless.

[2.6.8] “If these metals were stored in any tower in the kingdom it would create jealousy among the Prince and the Senate, and create the foolish mistrust so many people give in to — a jealousy that comes from wanting to put their private advantage ahead of the public interest. If they should turn the metal into cups or any sorts of dishes, they worry that people might grow too fond of it, and then they wouldn’t want the dishes to be melted down if war made it necessary, so they could pay their soldiers. So, to prevent all these problems, they’ve settled on a plan that — since it fits so well with their policies, and is so different from ours — it’s hard for us to believe, since we value gold so much and store it so carefully.

[2.6.9] “They eat and drink out of dishes made of clay or glass, which are attractive, though they’re made of brittle materials, What an insult to gold! and they make their chamber pots and toilet bowls out of gold and silver — not only in their public buildings but in their private houses too. Gold a mark of disgrace They use the same metals to make chains and fetters for their slaves — on some of them they hang a golden earring as an added badge of shame, and they make others wear a chain or a crown of the same metal. This way they work to ensure no one prizes gold or silver. Other countries hate giving up their gold and silver, as if someone were tearing out their intestines, but Utopians think of giving away gold and silver — if there’s any use for them — as giving away something of no value, just as we’d feel about losing a penny. They find pearls on their beaches, and diamonds and garnets on their rocks — they don’t look for them, but if they happen to find them, Gems are children’s playthings then they polish them use them to dress their children, who are delighted and love them in their childhood. But when the children grow up, and they see that only children wear trinkets like that, they set them aside of their own free will, without being urged by their parents. They’d be as ashamed to wear them in adulthood as our own children are of puppets and toys once they grow up.

[2.6.10] “I never saw a clearer case of how different customs make for different impressions than what I saw in the ambassadors of the Anemolians,° who visited Amaurot when I was there. A wonderful story Because they came to handle affairs of great importance, the deputies from several towns met to await their arrival. The ambassadors of the nations close to Utopia, knowing their customs and knowing that they don’t admire fine clothes, that they despise silk, and that gold is a badge of shame, showed up dressed very modestly. But the Anemolians, who were from farther away and had less experience with them, knowing the Utopians were all dressed the same way in cheap clothes, assumed that they didn’t have the fine things that they didn’t use. Since they were proud instead of wise, they decided to dress so grandly that they’d look like gods, and impress the Utopians with their splendor.

[2.6.11] “So three ambassadors entered with a hundred attendants, all dressed in clothes of various colors, and most of them in silk. The ambassadors, the country’s nobility, wore cloth made of gold along with heavy chains, earrings, and gold rings. Their caps were covered with wristlets full of pearls and other gems. They showed up wearing all the things the Utopians considered either marks of slavery, signs of shame, or the playthings of children. It was amusing to see, on the one hand, how they looked grand in their fancy clothes compared to the plainly dressed Utopians, who came out in big crowds to watch them make their entry; and, on the other, how badly they were mistaken in hoping this grandeur would impress the Utopians. The show was so ridiculous to those who always lived in Utopia, and hadn’t seen foreign customs, that they showed respect to the ones who were poorly dressed. When they saw the ambassadors wearing their gold and chains, they assumed they were slaves, and treated them badly.

[2.6.12] “You should have seen the children who were now grown up — they disliked their old toys, and they threw away their jewels — now called their mothers, nudged them, and said,

[2.6.13] “‘Look at that idiot, who wears pearls and gems like a kid!’

[2.6.14] “Their mothers innocently replied, Clever! ‘Quiet! I think this is one of the ambassadors’ court jesters.’

[2.6.15] “Others criticized the fashion of their chains, and noted, ‘They’re of no use, for they’re too slight to bind their slaves, who could easily break them — besides, they hang on them so loosely that they’d find it easy to get away and escape.’

[2.6.16] “But after the ambassadors had stayed with them for a day, and saw so much gold in their houses (which the Utopians hated as much as other nations adored), 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 formed valued themselves, and accordingly laid it aside — a resolution that they immediately took when, on talking freely with the Utopians, they discovered how they thought about things like this and their customs.

[2.6.17] “The Utopians can’t understand how anyone should be so impressed with the uncertain luster of a jewel or stone, The luster is “uncertain” because it’s tiny and faint that can look up to a star or the sun; or how anyone should be proud that his cloth is made of finer thread that others’; However fine the thread may be, it was once just the fleece of a sheep, and the sheep was still just a sheep.

[2.6.18] “They’re amazed to hear that gold — which is so useless in its own right — is valued so highly everywhere that even humans, who are the ones who give it value, are considered less valuable than this metal; that a person of lead, with no more sense than a log and who’s as wicked as they’re stupid, should have many wise and good people to serve them, just because they have a big pile of that metal; How true! and that, if by some accident or legal trick (which can be as bad as chance itself) the master should lose all his wealth to the lowest servant in the family, he’d quickly become one of those servants! — as if he belonged to his money, and therefore had to follow its fortune! The Utopians wiser than Christians But they’re even more amazed, and they marvel at the stupidity of people who see a rich man, and — even though they don’t owe him anything, even though they don’t depend on his generosity — still, just because he’s rich, they treat him almost like a god, even though they know he’s so greedy and base-minded that, in spite of all his money, he wouldn’t give them a penny as long as he lives.

[2.6.19] “The people have drunk ideas like these, partly from their education, living in a country whose customs and laws are opposite to all such stupid maxims, and partly from their studies. Only a few people in each town are completely excused from work so they can study — just the people who show they’re well suited to education from their childhood. Pursuits and studies Still, their children and others, men and women, are taught to spend their free time in reading. They do this their whole lives.

[2.6.20] “All their learning is in their own language, a pleasant language with a rich vocabulary, in which anyone can express their thoughts. It’s spoken in many countries, but it’s not equally pure everywhere.

[2.6.21] “They’d never even heard the names of the philosophers who are so famous in our part of the world until we traveled among them, but they still managed to make the same discoveries as the Music, logic, arithmetic Greeks in music, logic, arithmetic, and geometry. But as they’re equal to the ancient philosophers in almost everything, they’re far better than our modern logicians, Apparently this is satire because they’ve never been concerned with the trivia that our children have to learn in our schools. They’re so far from minding imagined monsters and fantastic images made in the mind that none of them could understand what we meant when we told them of ‘a 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 every one,’ as if he were some monstrous Colossus or giant.

[2.6.22] “Still, for all this ignorance of these empty ideas, they knew astronomy, and perfectly understood the motions of the planets. Astronomy They have many well-designed instruments they use to calculate the course and positions of the sun, moon, and stars. Astrologers might as well be kings among Christians But as for the cheat of telling the future by the stars, by their oppositions or conjunctions — it hasn’t even entered their minds. They’re especially knowledgeable about forecasting the weather, which they’ve learned through a lot of observation.

[2.6.23] “They know when to expect rain, wind, or atmospheric events. Natural science is uncertain But as to the philosophy of these things — why the sea is salty, why it ebbs and flows, the origins and nature of the heavens and the earth — they argue about them partly as our ancient philosophers have done, and partly on some new hypothesis, in which, as they disagree with the ancients, so they don’t agree among themselves about everything.

[2.6.24] “As to moral philosophy, they have the same arguments that we have here. Ethics They consider what’s good for both body and mind; they ask whether any outward thing can be called truly good, or if that term is only for spiritual endowments of the soul. They also ask about the nature of virtue and pleasure. The ultimate in goods But their most important subject of discussion is what makes a person happy — whether it’s one thing or many. They’re inclined to say that — not all, Honorable pleasure a measure of happiness but the most important part of a person’s happiness consists of pleasure.

[2.6.25] “Even more strangely, they even make religious arguments, despite its severity and roughness, to support the opinion that favors pleasure. Philosophical principles come from religion They never argue about happiness without bringing in some arguments from religion and from natural reason, since without religion they believe all our questions about happiness have to be speculative and therefore defective.

[2.6.26] Utopian theology “Here are their religious principles: — That a person’s soul is immortal, and that God of His goodness has created the soul so that it should be happy. These days even Christians aren’t sure about immortal souls He has, therefore, created rewards for good and virtuous behavior and punishments for sins, which will happen after this life.

[2.6.27] “Though these principles of religion are transmitted by tradition, they think that reason alone would make someone believe and acknowledge them. They willingly admit that if these were taken away, no one would be so stupid as to stop seeking pleasure by all possible means, lawful or unlawful, using only this caution — that a lesser pleasure shouldn’t get in the way of a greater one, and that we shouldn’t follow any pleasure that will create a lot of pain after it. They think it would be the craziest thing in the world to ‘pursue virtue,’ a sour and difficult thing, and not only to renounce all of life’s pleasures, but also to take on pain and trouble willingly if there’s no chance of a reward. And what reward can there be for someone who passed his whole life, not only without pleasure but in pain, if we can’t expect anything after death?

[2.6.28] “But they don’t place happiness in all sorts of pleasures, only in those that are good and honest by nature. One group of them says happiness is in virtue alone; others think virtue leads our natures to happiness, the chief good of humankind. The Stoics’ definition Here’s how they define virtue: it means living according to Nature. They think God made us for that purpose.

[2.6.29] “They believe people follow Nature’s rules when they follow reason and pursue or avoid things. They say that the first rule of reason is to kindle in us a love and reverence for the Divine Majesty, to whom we owe everything we have and all we can ever hope for. Next, reason tells us to free our minds from emotion and to be as cheerful as we can, and that we should think of ourselves as bound by good nature and humanity to do everything we can to help others to be happy. After all, there’s never been anyone so morose, so severe in his pursuit of virtue, such an enemy to pleasure, that — even though he says everyone has to endure pain and other rigors — didn’t also tell people to do everything they can to relieve and ease the miserable, and who didn’t consider gentleness and good-nature as amiable dispositions. From that they conclude that, if we should promote the well-being and comfort of the rest of mankind (since there’s no better human virtue than to ease other people’s suffering, to free them from trouble and anxiety by giving them the comforts of life, in which pleasure consists), then Nature much more vigorously leads them to do all this for themselves.

[2.6.30] “A life of pleasure is either a real evil — in that case, we shouldn’t help others find pleasure, and instead keep them from pleasure because it’s so harmful — or, if it’s a good thing, and we not only can but should help others find pleasure, then why shouldn’t we start with ourselves? Some today think religion is the same as suffering, when really we just have to tolerate suffering No one can be required to be more concerned with another person’s wellbeing than with their own. Nature can’t tell us to be good and kind to others, and at the same time unmerciful and cruel to ourselves. So, as they define virtue as living according to Nature, they also believe Nature leads everyone to seek pleasure as the goal of everything they do. They also observe that, to help us support life’s pleasures, Nature makes us want to be part of a society; for no one is raised so high above the rest of humanity that they’re the only favorite of Nature, who, on the contrary, seems to have placed everyone of the same species on the same level. They conclude, then, that no one should seek his own convenience so much that they harm anyone else. Contracts and laws And therefore they think all contracts between people should be enforced, and they should also enforce all the laws the prince has properly published, or that people consented to (when they’re not oppressed by tyranny tricked by fraud), to give out those conveniences of life which make all our pleasures.

[2.6.31] “They think it’s a sign of true wisdom for someone to pursue their own advantage, as long as it’s legal. They consider putting the public good ahead of private concerns is piety, but they think it’s wrong to seek pleasure by taking someone else’s pleasures from them. On the contrary, they think it’s a sign of a gentle and good soul for someone to set aside their own advantage for the good of others, and that by this means a good person gains as much pleasure one way as they give up another. Mutual benefits People can expect the same treatment from others when they happen to need it, so, if that fails, still the sense of a good action, and how he thinks about the love and gratitude of people he’s helped, gives the mind more pleasure than the body could have found in that from which it had restrained itself. They also believe that God will make up for losing small pleasures with a tremendous and endless joy, and religion easily convinces a good soul of this.

[2.6.32] “So, after considering all of this, they think that all our actions, even all our virtues, lead to pleasure, since it’s our most important goal and greatest happiness. Definition of pleasure And so they use the term ‘pleasure’ for every motion or state, either of body or mind, in which Nature teaches us to take delight. False pleasure They carefully limit pleasure to just those desires Nature leads us toward; they say that Nature leads us toward just the pleasures that reason and sense carry us to, by which we don’t injure anyone else or forfeit even greater pleasures, and pleasures that don’t cause troubles. But they look on the delights that people stupidly (but commonly) call pleasure, as if changing the name changes the thing itself, as obstructions to real happiness, not helps, because they take over people’s minds completely, giving them a false idea of pleasure that leaves no room for true and pure pleasures.

[2.6.33] “Many things in themselves aren’t at all truly delightful; they have a lot of bitterness in them. And yet, because we desire what we’re not allowed to have, we not only consider them pleasures, but we turn them into the greatest goals in life. The people who chase corrupted pleasures this way are the ones I mentioned before, Being proud of clothes who think they’re really better because they have fancy clothes. They’re mistaken twice over, first in their opinion of the clothes, second in their opinion of themselves. Think about how we use clothes: why do we think fine thread is better than coarse thread? But still these people, as if they were actually better than others instead of just mistaken, look big, think they’re more valuable, and imagine they’re owed respect because of fine clothes (they wouldn’t think that way if they had simpler clothes), and they’re insulted if you don’t give them respect.

[2.6.34] “It’s also stupid to be impressed by other people showing you respect, which doesn’t really mean anything. False honors What real or true pleasure can one person take from someone else standing bare-headed or bending the knees to him? Will this cure the pain in your own knees? Will someone else’s bare head make your head less crazy? But it’s amazing to see how this fake idea of pleasure enchants many who proudly imagine themselves noble, and are pleased with the thought — that their were rich for a long time, that they have a lot of wealth. False nobility This is all that “nobility” means these days. But they don’t think themselves any the less noble, even though their own parents left them none of this wealth, or though they themselves have wasted it all.

[2.6.35] “The Utopians don’t think any better of people who are impressed by gems and precious stones, Pleasure in gems is stupid and who achieve an almost religious ecstasy if they can buy a remarkable one, especially if it’s the kind of stone that’s most fashionable — because different gems are worth more or less at different times, and people won’t buy them unless they’re dismounted and taken out of the gold. The value of gems comes from our imagination The jeweler then has to give good security, and has to swear solemnly that the stone is true — so that, by being extremely cautious, they don’t buy a fake one instead of a real one — though, if you were to examine it, you couldn’t see any difference between the real one and the counterfeit. They’re all the same to you, just as if you were blind.

[2.6.362.6.37] “Does anyone think people who pile up wealth not for any practical purpose, but just to think about how rich they are, actually get any true pleasure from it? It’s just a false shadow of joy. And just as bad are those who, unlike the ones I just mentioned, hide all their wealth because they’re afraid of losing it. What else can you say about hiding gems underground — putting them back underground, really — when it’s impossible for it to be useful to the owner or anyone else? Still the owner, after hiding it carefully, is glad, because he thinks it’s secure. A remarkable and appropriate thought If someone should steal it, the owner could live maybe ten years after the theft and know nothing about it, and there’d be no difference between having it or losing it — they’re equally useless to him.

[2.6.37] “They also think people who love to hunt and gamble are also foolishly chasing pleasures. They’ve only heard about these crazy people, because Utopians don’t behave that way. Gambling and hunting But they’ve asked us, ‘What kind pleasure do people find in throwing dice?’ (If there were any pleasure in it, they think doing it so often would produce an excess of it.) ‘And what pleasure can you find in hearing barking and howling dogs, which are awful sounds, not pleasant ones?’ Nor can they understand the pleasure of seeing dogs run after a rabbit, any more than they understand seeing one dog run after another. If watching them run is what gives you pleasure, you have the same entertainment to the eye in both of these cases, since it’s the same in both. But if you take pleasure in seeing the rabbit killed, torn to pieces by dogs — this should stir pity instead, that a weak, harmless, and fearful rabbit should be devoured by strong, fierce, and cruel dogs. So the Utopians turn all this hunting business over to their butchers (and their butchers, remember, are all slaves), and they think of hunting as one of the worst parts of a butcher’s job. But today that’s how noblemen act They consider it profitable and more decent to kill animals that are necessary and useful to humanity, whereas killing and tearing a small, miserable animal just gives the hunter a false show of pleasure, from which he gets only a small advantage. They consider the desire for bloodshed, even of animals, a sign of a mind already corrupted with cruelty, or one that will degenerate into cruelty because of the constant practice of such a beastly pleasure.

[2.6.38] “So, even though most people look on these and similar things as pleasures, the Utopians — seeing there’s nothing in actually pleasant in them — conclude they shouldn’t be considered pleasures. Yes, these things might create some tickling in the senses (which seems to be a true notion of pleasure) — but they believe that, if this doesn’t come from the activity itself but from some corrupt custom, something that can damage someone’s taste so much that Pregnant women’s taste bitter things taste sweet (the way pregnant women sometimes think tar or tallow taste sweeter than honey), a person’s sense, when it’s corrupted by disease or bad habits, doesn’t change the nature of other things, so it can’t change the nature of pleasure either.

[2.6.39] “They have a list of kinds of pleasures they consider true. Some of them have to do with the body, others with the mind. The pleasures of the mind consist in knowledge, and in the joy of contemplating the truth, and they add the happy thoughts about a life well spent and the promise of future happiness.

[2.6.40] Bodily pleasures “They divide bodily pleasures into two sorts — one gives our senses real delight, and happens when Nature feeds the internal heat of life by eating and drinking, or when Nature is eased of some oppressive burden, such as reliving sudden pain or relieving the desire Nature gave us to encourage the propagation of the species. A second kind of pleasure comes neither from receiving what the body requires, nor from its being relieved when overcharged, but by some invisible power that affects the senses, raises the emotions, and strikes the mind with noble impressions — this is, the pleasure we get from music.

[2.6.41] “A second kind of bodily pleasure results from undisturbed and vigorous health, when life and active spirits seem to bring every part to life. This lively health, when it’s entirely unmixed with pain, gives an inward pleasure by itself, unconnected to anything outside ourselves; and even though this pleasure doesn’t affect us quite as powerfully, or act as strongly on the senses as some of the others, still we consider it the greatest of all pleasures. Almost all the Utopians consider it the basis of all of life’s other joys, since it’s the only thing that can make life easy and desirable. Without this, people can feel no other pleasure. They consider freedom from pain, if it doesn’t rise from perfect health, to be a state of stupidity rather than pleasure. This subject has been very thoroughly discussed among them, and it’s been debated whether complete health can be called a pleasure or not. You have to be in good health Some have thought there’s no pleasure except what’s ‘excited’ by some sensible motion in the body.

[2.6.42] “But they rejected this opinion long ago, and now they almost universally agree that health is the greatest of all bodily pleasures; and that, just as there’s a pain in sickness that’s as opposite in its nature to pleasure as sickness is to health, so they hold that health is accompanied with pleasure. And if anyone should say sickness isn’t really pain, but that it only carries pain along with it, they look on that as sophistry that doesn’t really change things. It’s all the same, in their opinion, whether someone says health is in itself a pleasure, or that it begets a pleasure, as fire gives heat, as long as we agree that everyone who’s entirely healthy takes a true pleasure in enjoying it.

[2.6.43] “They argue this way: ‘What pleasure is there in eating, if not that someone’s health, which had been weakened, drives away hunger with the assistance of food, and so returns to vigor? And once it’s refreshed, it finds pleasure in that conflict; and if the conflict is pleasure, the victory leads to even more pleasure, except we imagine it becomes stupid as soon as it gets what it wants, and doesn’t know or enjoy in its own wellbeing.’ If someone says health can’t be felt, they absolutely deny it, because is anyone healthy who doesn’t notice it whenever they’re awake? Is anyone so dull, so stupid, as not to realize they feel delight in health? And what’s delight but another name for pleasure?

[2.6.44] “But they consider the pleasures of the mind the most valuable of all pleasures. The most important ones come from true virtue and the testimony of a good conscience. They think health is the greatest bodily pleasure, and the pleasures of eating and drinking, and other sensual pleasures, are good only when they contribute to health. But, on their own, they’re pleasant only when they resist the impressions our natural infirmities make on us. Any intelligent person would rather avoid disease than take medicine, and to be freed from pain than have pain relieved by treatment. In the same way it’s better never to need this kind of pleasure than to have to indulge it. If anyone imagines there’s real happiness in these enjoyments, they have to admit they’d be happiest if they were always hungry, thirsty, and itchy, and therefore always eating, drinking, and scratching. You can see that would be not just a disgraceful but also a miserable way to live.

[2.6.45] “These are the lowest pleasures, the least pure, because we can enjoy them only when they’re mixed with pain. The pain of hunger gives us the pleasure of eating, and the pain outweighs the pleasure. And just as the pain is more intense, so it also lasts longer; as it begins before the pleasure, so it ends only with the pleasure that extinguishes it, and both end at the same time. So they think none of those pleasures should be valued any more than strictly necessary. But still they rejoice in them, and gratefully acknowledge the mercy of the great Author of Nature, who gave us desires that turn anything necessary for our survival into pleasure. How miserable life would be if the only treatment for our daily diseases of hunger and thirst were the kinds of bitter drugs we use for less common diseases! And so these pleasant and proper gifts of Nature keep up the strength and vigor of our bodies.

[2.6.46] “They also entertain themselves with the other delights let in at their eyes, their ears, and their noses as the pleasant scents and seasoning of life, which Nature seems to have set aside especially for humanity — no other animals think about the form and beauty of the universe, or take pleasure in smells any further than they can distinguish different kinds of food, or understand how sounds can be harmonious or discordant. But they’re always certain that lesser pleasures don’t interfere with a greater one, and that pleasure never breeds pain — they think pain always follows dishonest pleasures. But they think it would be crazy for someone to wear out the attractiveness of their face or their natural strength, to corrupt the vigor of their body by sloth and laziness, or to waste it by fasting. They think it’s madness to weaken the strength of their constitution and reject life’s other delights, unless giving up their own satisfaction is a way of serving the public or promoting others’ happiness — and then they expect a greater reward from God. The Utopians look on that sort of life as a sign of a mind that’s both cruel to itself and ungrateful to the Author of Nature, as if we wouldn’t be beholden to Him for His favors, and therefore rejects all His blessings; as one who takes on pain just for the shadow of virtue, or for no better reason than to be able to bear misfortunes that may never happen.

[2.6.47] “This is their notion of virtue and of pleasure. Pay attention to this point They think that no one’s reason can bring a truer idea of them unless some discovery from heaven inspires them with sublimer ideas. I don’t have the time to explore whether they’re right wrong in this matter, and I don’t think it’s necessary, because I’m only trying to give you an account of their constitution, not defend everything they believe. Utopian happiness I’m sure that, whatever people say about their ideas, there’s no better people and no happier government in the whole world. Their bodies are healthy and vigorous; and though they’re only medium height, and don’t have the most fruitful soil or the purest air, by being moderate they protect themselves against unhealthy air, and by working hard they cultivate the soil so well, that nowhere in the world has seen bigger increases of grain and cattle, and nowhere has healthier people with fewer diseases. You can see in practice every technique the farmer uses in cultivating the soil, but also whole forests torn up by the roots and other ones planted anew where there were none before. Their main reason for this is ease of shipping, so they can have timber near their towns or on the banks of the sea or rivers, and they can float the timber to them. It’s much harder to carry lumber over long distances than grain.

[2.6.48] “The people are hard-working, ready to learn, cheerful, and pleasant. No one can work harder when they have to, but when it’s not, they love relaxation. They never quit in their pursuit of knowledge. The usefulness of Greek When we gave them some hints about the learning and discipline of the ancient Greeks — we told them only about the Greeks, because we knew that, of the Romans, they’d like only the historians and poets — it was amazing how eagerly they were set on learning Greek.

[2.6.49] “So we began to read a little Greek to them, mostly because they begged us, not because we thought they’d gain a lot from it. How quickly they learn But, after just a little time, they came so far that that we realized our labor was likely to be more successful than we could have predicted. They learned to write the Greek alphabet and to pronounce their language so precisely, they learned so quickly, they remembered it so accurately, and were so ready to use it, that it would have looked like a miracle if most of those we taught had been the right age and temperament for learning. Among us, blockheads become scholars and wise people are ruined by pleasure They were, for the most part, picked from among their scholars by their chief council, though some studied it on their own. In three years they mastered the whole language and were able to read the best Greek authors perfectly. I believe they learned the language so easily because it’s related to their own. I think they were a colony of the Greeks — though their language is closer to Persian, they have a lot of names of towns and magistrates that come from Greek. I happened to carry a lot of books with me, rather than merchandise, on my fourth voyage. I thought I wouldn’t come back soon, if ever, so I gave them all my books, including many of Plato’s and some of Aristotle’s works. I had also Theophrastus’s On Plants,° which, I’m sorry to say, was incomplete — while we were at sea I had set it aside and a monkey grabbed it and tore out many of the pages.

[2.6.50] “They have no grammar books but Lascares,° for I did not carry Theodorus° with me. They have no dictionaries but Hesichius and Dioscorides. They admire Plutarch, and they were impressed by Lucian’s wit and his pleasant style. As for the poets, they have Aristophanes, Homer, Euripides, and Sophocles in the Aldine editions; and for historians they have Thucydides, Herodotus, and Herodian. One of my companions, Thricius Apinatus, happened to have some of Hippocrates’s works and Galen’s Microtechne, which they really admire — though no nation needs medicine less than they do, still no one respects it as much as they do. Medicine the most useful subject They consider medical knowledge one of the most pleasant and useful parts of philosophy. Searching into Nature’s secrets for them not only is pleasant, but, they think, is acceptable to Nature’s creator. They believe He, like human inventors, has exposed the great machine of the universe to the only creatures who are capable of thinking about it. Contemplating nature A careful observer who admires His workmanship is much more acceptable to Him than one of the herd, who, like an irrational animal, looks on this glorious scene with the eyes of a dull and uninterested spectator.

[2.6.51] “The minds of the Utopians, when trained up with a love for learning, are very ingenious in discovering all the techniques needed to make life better. They learned two things from us: how to make paper and how to print books. But even with these things, a lot of the invention was their own. We showed them some books printed by Aldus Manutius, and explained how paper was made and the mysteries of how books were printed. But we’d never done these things ourselves, so we explained them crudely and superficially. They picked up on our hints and, while they weren’t perfect right away, after some trials they discovered all their errors and overcame every difficulty. Before this they only wrote on parchment, on reeds, or on the barks of trees. Now they have paper-making operations and printing presses, and if only they had a decent number of Greek authors, they’d soon have many copies. For now, though they have only the ones I’ve mentioned, they’ve made many thousands of copies.

[2.6.52] “If anyone with remarkable talent visits them, or anyone who’s traveled the world and seen many customs, they’d welcome them, because they want to know about the whole world. Few people travel among them because of what they buy and sell — what can you bring them but iron, gold, or silver? And merchants would rather bring those in than sell them out of their country. And they prefer to manage their exports themselves, rather than leaving it to foreign visitors, because they understand the nearby countries better, and so they keep up their knowledge of navigation, since the only way to be good at it is by a lot of practice.

Of Slavery

[2.7.1] “They don’t enslave prisoners of war unless they’re captured in battle. Their amazing fairness Nor do they enslave the children of their slaves, or those of other countries. Their slaves are only people who’ve been condemned to that status because they committed a crime, or (more often) people who were sentenced to death in other countries, and were bought by Utopian merchants at a low price or even free. They’re always made to work, and are always chained up, but the Utopians treat their own natives much more harshly than those from other places. The natives are considered worse because they had all the advantages of a Utopian education, and still they couldn’t follow the law, so they should be treated more harshly.

[2.7.2] “Another sort of slaves are the poor from nearby countries. They offer themselves willingly to come and serve the Utopians. The Utopians treat them better, as well as their own countrymen, except for making them work more — which isn’t difficult for those who’ve been used to it. And if any of these choose to go back to their own country — which happens only rarely — they’re not forced to stay, and they don’t go away empty-handed.

[2.7.3] “I’ve already told you how carefully they tend to the sick, and how they do everything they can to keep them comfortable and healthy. The sick When someone comes down with an incurable disease, they do everything they can to cherish them and to make their lives as comfortable as possible. They visit them often, and work hard to make their time pass easily. Voluntary death But if anyone comes down with intense and lingering pain, the kind where there’s no hope of recovery or even of comfort, the priests and magistrates come to them and say, since they’re now unable to go on with the business of life, they’ve become a burden to themselves and to everyone around them, and they’ve lived too long. They shouldn’t nourish such a rooted disease any longer, but instead they should choose to die, because they can’t live anymore without misery. They’re promised that, if they release themselves from torture, or let others do it for them, then they’ll be happy after death — this way they lose none of life’s pleasures, but only the troubles, and they think this is not only reasonable but in keeping with their religion and their faith. They follow the advice of their priests, who explain God’s will.

[2.7.4] “People who are persuaded by this argument either starve themselves of their own free will, or they take drugs and die painlessly. But no one is ever forced to take their own life. If they can’t be persuaded, this doesn’t mean people take care of them any less. But while they believe a voluntary death is honorable, at least when it’s recommended by the priesthood and government, if anyone takes their own life without their permission, they don’t get a decent funeral, and the people just toss their body in a ditch.

[2.7.5] “Their women don’t get married until they’re eighteen, and their men until they’re twenty-two. Marriage If any of them have sex before marriage they’re punished severely, and they’re not allowed to marry unless the prince gives them a special warrant. Things like this make the master and mistress of a family look bad, because they seem to have failed in their duty. The punishments are severe because they think that, if people aren’t strictly forbidden to satisfy immoral desires, almost no one would choose to settle into lifelong contentment by being limited to one person, with all the trouble that brings.

[2.7.6] “They choose their wives in a way that seems ridiculous to us, but they do it seriously, and they consider it wise. Before marriage some respectable older woman presents the bride, naked — whether she’s a virgin or a widow — to the groom, and then that some respectable man presents the groom, naked, to the bride. Of course we both laughed at this, and condemned it as indecent. Not very modest, but pretty cautious But they were amazed at the stupidity of foreigners — if they’re going to buy a cheap horse they’re careful to see every part of him, take off the saddle and the tackle to be sure nothing is hidden — but in picking a wife, the decision that will make him happy or miserable for the rest of his life, he should go on trust? — and see just a few inches of the face? — everything else is covered, and what’s underneath might be contagious or horrible.

[2.7.7] “Not every man is wise enough to pick a woman just for her good qualities, and even wise men know the body adds a good deal to the mind. There certainly can be some deformity covered with clothes that can make a man dislike his wife when it’s too late to do anything about it. If he discovers it after marriage there’s nothing to do but wait it out. The Utopians therefore think it’s reasonable to prevent that sort of mischievous fraud.

[2.7.8] “They had even more reason to make rules about this, because they’re the only nation in this part of the world that doesn’t allow polygamy or divorce, except in cases of adultery or intolerable cruelty. Divorce In those cases the Senate dissolves the marriage and lets the innocent party marry again, but the guilty are disgraced, and never allowed the privilege of a second marriage. No one is allowed divorce his wife against her will, just because something terrible has happened to her body. They consider it the worst kind of cruelty and treachery to abandon a spouse when they need most comfort, especially in the case of old age, which brings disease along with it and is a kind of disease itself.

[2.7.9] “But often, when a married couple can’t agree, they separate by mutual consent and find other people they hope to live with more happily. But they do this only with the Senate’s permission, which permits divorce only after a strict inquiry, both by the senators and their wives, into the grounds on which it’s requested. And even when they’re satisfied about the reasons for it they still proceed slowly, for they imagine that granting permission for new marriages too easily would badly disturb the kindness of married people. They severely punish those who defile the marriage bed. If both adulterers are married, then they’re divorced, and the injured people can marry one another (or whoever they please), but the adulterer and the adulteress are condemned to slavery. If either of the injured people still can’t shake off the love of the married person, they can still live with them in that state, but they must follow them to the work slaves are condemned to. Sometimes it happens that the condemned person repents, and the innocent and injured person remains kind, and manages to convince the Prince that he should revoke the sentence. Anyone who relapses after they’re once pardoned is punished with death.

[2.7.10] “Their law doesn’t specify punishments for other crimes. Punishments are up to the magistrates That’s left to the Senate, to adjust the penalty as the facts warrant. Husbands have the power to correct their wives, and parents can chastise their children — unless the violation is so severe that they need a public punishment to strike terror into others. The punishment for most crimes, even the worst ones, is slavery, because to the criminals it’s just as bad as death. And so the Utopians think keeping them in a state of servitude promotes the public interest better than killing them: their labor is better for the public than their death could be, and seeing their misery creates more lasting terror in other people than their death would.

[2.7.11] “If their slaves rebel, refusing to bear the yoke or do the work that’s ordered, they’re treated as wild animals that can’t be tamed, neither by prison nor by chains, and at last they’re put to death. But people who bear their punishment patiently, and bear up against their punishment so well that it seems they’re really more troubled for the crimes they’ve committed than for the miseries they suffer, still have hope — that, in the end, they’ll regain their liberty, either from the Prince by his authority or from the people by their petitioning. At least they can hope their slavery will become more bearable.

[2.7.12] “Anyone who tempts a married woman to adultery is punished just as severely as the one who commits it, Encouraging vice for they believe that a deliberate plan to commit a crime is just as bad as committing it. The mere fact that it didn’t happen doesn’t make the one who attempted it any less guilty.

[2.7.13] “They’re very fond of simpletons. It’s a disgrace to treat them badly, but they don’t think there’s anything wrong with be amused by their behavior. Pleasure in fools As they see it, this helps the simpletons themselves. If anyone is so serious and severe that they can’t laugh at ridiculous behavior and stupid sayings, then they’re not permitted to take care of them, because they probably won’t treat them kindly. The one thing these simpletons can do is give amusement.

[2.7.14] “If anyone criticizes someone else for being deformed or disabled in their body, that’s no reflection on the person who’s criticized — it would be disgraceful to make fun of someone for something they can’t help. Painted beauty They think it’s a sign of a lazy and feeble mind not to preserve your natural beauty, but they think it’s disgraceful to use makeup. They all see that no beauty makes a wife appealing to her husband as much as her virtue and obedience; for as a few are caught and held only by beauty, all are attracted by the other excellences which charm all the world.

[2.7.15] “They use punishments to frighten people off from committing crimes, Honors promote virtue and they use public honors to encourage them to love virtue. They erect statues to the memories of worthy people who deserved well of their country, and they put these in their marketplaces, both to keep their memory alive and to encourage future ages to follow their example.

[2.7.16] “If anyone campaigns for a public position they’re certain not to get it. Running for office condemned The people all live together easily, because their magistrates aren’t cruel or overbearing. They like to call them ‘fathers,’ and they really deserve the name. Honoring officials — the Prince’s dignity The people respect them because they’re not forced to do so. The Prince doesn’t wear distinctive clothes or a crown; he’s distinguished only by a sheaf of grain carried before him, just as the High Priest is known by the person who carries a candle before him.

[2.7.17] “They have only a few laws, and they’re brought up so that they don’t need many. Few laws They criticize other countries, whose laws and commentaries fill volume after volume. They think it unjust to make people follow laws that are so extensive and so obscure that they can’t be read and understood by everyone.

[2.7.18] “They have absolutely no lawyers — they think lawyers’ job is to hide the meaning of the laws and try to get around them. The worthless crowd of lawyers They think it’s better for each person to plead their own case and trust the judge, the way in other countries a client trusts their lawyer. This way they speed things up and find it easier to discover the truth. After both parties explain their case, with none of those tricks that lawyers love to use, the judge considers the whole matter and backs the simple and well-meaning people, who would otherwise be cheated by lawyers. This way they avoid the problems that the vast load of laws causes in almost every other nation. Everyone in Utopia is knowledgeable in the law — it doesn’t take time to learn, and the simplest possible meaning of the words is always the meaning of their laws.

[2.7.19] “This is how they think about it: laws are created to teach people their duty; therefore, we should give words their simplest most obvious meanings. It’s hard to understand more complicated interpretations, and that just makes the laws useless to most people, especially to the ones who need them most. You might as well have no law at all if you’re going to write it so that it can be understood only by profound intelligence and extensive study. Most people, after all, are fairly simple, and are so busy with their own jobs that they don’t have the time or the ability to study law that way.

[2.7.20] “Some of their neighbors, who are masters of their own liberties (because long ago, with the help of the Utopians, they shook off the yoke of tyranny, and are very impressed by those virtues they observe among them), have hoped they’d send magistrates to govern them, some changing them every year, and others every five years. At the end of their government they bring them back to Utopia, with expressions of honor and respect, and take others away to govern in their place. This seems to be a very good plan for their own happiness and safety. Since the good or bad condition of a nation depends on their magistrates, they couldn’t have made a better choice than by choosing people who can’t be biased by favors. Wealth is of no use to them, since they have to go back to their own country soon, and (because they’re strangers among them) they aren’t involved in any of their quarrels or hatreds. And it’s certain that, when public judicatories are influenced, whether by greed or bias, justice must break down — justice, the great sinew of society.

[2.7.21] “The Utopians call the nations that come and ask them for magistrates ‘allies,’ but they call those they’ve particularly helped ‘friends.’ Treaties Since all other nations are constantly either making treaties or breaking them, they never make alliances with any states. They think alliances are useless, and they believe that, if the common ties of humanity don’t knit people together, promises won’t make any difference.

[2.7.22] “They’re even more convinced about this by what they see in the nations around them, who don’t follow alliances and treaties faithfully. We know how strictly they’re observed in Europe, especially in Christian countries, where they’re sacred and inviolable! — which is partly because of the justice and goodness of the princes themselves, and partly to the respect they pay to the popes, who, since they’re the most religious observers of their own promises, call on all other princes to perform theirs — and, when gentler methods don’t work, they compel them to it by the severity of the religious censure. They think it would be disgraceful if people called ‘The Faithful’ didn’t religiously keep the faith of their treaties.

[2.7.23] “But in that newfound world — where their manners and characters are as far from ours as the equator is from England — there’s no trust in treaties, even though they were made with all the pomp of the most sacred ceremonies. On the contrary, for this reason they’re broken even sooner, and they find some slight excuse in the words of the treaties, which are purposely written in such ambiguous terms that they can never be strictly bound, and they’ll always find some loophole to escape at. And so they break both their alliances and their faith. And they do this with so much impudence that those who take pride in having suggested these plans to their princes would, with a haughty scorn, speak out against so much ‘craft’ — to speak plainly, so much fraud and deceit — if they found private people use it in their bargains, and would readily say that they deserved to be hanged.

[2.7.24] “In this way every kind of justice is considered a low-spirited and vulgar virtue, beneath the dignity of kings — or at least there are two kinds of justice: one is mean and creeps on the ground, and is suitable only for the lower classes, and has to be enforced severely by many restraints, so it doesn’t break out of bounds. The other kind of justice the distinctive virtue of princes, which, since it’s more majestic than what’s fitting for the rabble, it has more freedom, and so ‘lawful’ and ‘unlawful’ are only measured by pleasure and interest.

[2.7.25] “The behavior of other princes, who are so unfaithful with their treaties, seem to be why the Utopians don’t make any alliances. Maybe they’d change their mind if they lived among us. But, even if treaties were more religiously observed, they’d still dislike the custom of making them, since the world has taken up a false maxim about it, as if there were no natural bond uniting nations to each other, separated only by, say, a mountain or a river, and that all were born in a state of hostility, and so might lawfully do all that mischief to their neighbors that isn’t covered in the treaties. And that when treaties are made they don’t cut off the hostility or restrict the freedom to prey on each other, if, by the unskillfulness of wording them, there aren’t effectual provisos made against them. On the other hand, they think we should consider no one our enemy if they haven’t injured us, and that the partnership of human nature is instead of an alliance; and that kindness and good nature do a better job of bringing people together than any agreements, since the agreements of people’s hearts become stronger than the bond and obligation of words.

Of Military Matters

[2.8.1] “They hate war. They think it’s beastly, and that, to humanity’s disgrace, humans do it more than animals. Unlike almost every other nation, they think that there’s nothing less ‘glorious’ than that the ‘glory’ of war. Therefore, though they’re used to daily military exercises and the discipline of war — in which not only their men but their women are trained, so that, if necessary, they can be at least a little useful — still they don’t engage in war rashly, except to defend themselves or their friends from unjust aggressors, or, out of good nature or in compassion, to help an oppressed nation shake off the yoke of tyranny.

[2.8.2] “They help their friends in both defensive and offensive wars, but they never do that unless they’ve been consulted before the war broke out, and they’re satisfied with the grounds the war was started on, and they found that all demands for reparation were rejected, so that war was unavoidable. They think this is just not only when one neighbor makes an incursion into another by public order and carries away treasure, but also when one country’s merchants are oppressed in another, either under pretense of unjust laws or by the perverse application of good laws. They consider this a juster cause of war than the other, because those injuries are done under in the name of the law.

[2.8.3] “This was the only reason for the war in which fought alongside the Nephelogetes° against the Alaopolitans,° a little before our time. Because the Nephelogetean merchants had, as they thought, been treated unjustly by the Alaopolitans, which (whether it was right or wrong) led to a terrible war in which many of their neighbors fought; and their eagerness in carrying it on being supported by their strength in maintaining it — it not only shook some very flourishing countries and very much afflicted others but, after a lot of mischief ended in the entire conquest and slavery of the Alaopolitans (who, though before the war they were in all respects superior to the Nephelogetes, still they were subdued); but, even though the Utopians had assisted them in the war, yet they claimed no share of the treasure.

[2.8.4] “But, even though they assist their friends vigorously to get reparation for injuries they’ve suffered in affairs of this nature, still, if any frauds like that were committed against themselves — as long as no violence was done to their people, they’d only, on their being refused satisfaction, stop trading with those people. This isn’t because they value their neighbors more than their own citizens. Since all of their neighbors trade their own private property, they feel the injury of fraud more acutely than the Utopians do — in a case like that, only the Utopian public suffers, since they expect nothing in return for the merchandise they export but what they already have in plenty, and since it’s of little use to them, the loss doesn’t affect them much. They think, therefore, it would be too severe to revenge a loss that caused so little injury, either to their lives or their subsistence, with the death of many people.

[2.8.5] “But if any of their citizens are killed or wounded wrongfully, whether by a government or by private citizens, as soon as they hear of it they send ambassadors and demand that the guilty people be handed over to them. If that’s denied, they declare war. But if they comply, the offenders are condemned either to death or slavery.

[2.8.6] “They’d be both troubled and ashamed of a bloody victory over their enemies, and they think it would be just as stupid as buying valuable goods at too high a price. Costly victories They never take delight in glory more than when they win things by dexterity and good conduct, with no bloodshed. In these cases they arrange public triumphal ceremonies and build monuments to honor the victors. In these cases they believe people act in accordance with their nature, when they conquer enemies in a way no non-human creature possibly could, and that’s by the strength of their understanding. Bears, lions, boars, wolves, dogs, and all other animals use bodily strength against each other, but while they may be superior to humans in both strength and fierceness, still they’re all defeated by their reason and understanding.

[2.8.7] “The only plan the Utopians have in war is to take by force what would have prevented the war if it had been granted in time. If that can’t be done, they want to take revenge on their enemies so severely that they’ll be terrified to do anything like it again for a long time. This is how they evaluate all their plans, and they manage them so that they can see that the desire for fame or glory doesn’t work as well as a reasonable concern with their own security.

[2.8.8] “As soon as they declare war, they make a point of having many lists, sealed with their common seal, posted in the most conspicuous places of their enemies’ country. They do this secretly in many places at once. In these they promise rewards to anyone who’ll kill the prince, and smaller amounts to anyone who’ll kill any other people who are, next to the prince, most responsible for the war. And they double the amount to anyone who takes the person alive, instead of killing him, and puts him in their hands. They offer not only indemnity but rewards to any of these marked people for acting against their countrymen.

[2.8.9] “By this means the people with bounties on their heads start to distrust their fellow citizens, become jealous of one another, and are always distracted by fear and danger. Many of them, even the prince himself, have been betrayed by the people they trust the most. The rewards the Utopians offer are so enormous that there’s no crime people can’t be tempted to commit by them. They know the risk these people take, and offer a reward proportional to the danger — not only a vast deal of gold, but a lot of money from real estate in land among other friendly nations, where they can go and enjoy them safely. And they keep their promises religiously.

[2.8.10] “Others might think it’s cruel and degenerate, but they’re very proud of this way of corrupting their enemies. They consider it wise to end what would otherwise be a long war without even risking a single battle. They also consider it an act of mercy and love of humankind to prevent the massacre of people who’d otherwise be killed in the war, both on their own side and their enemies’, by the death of a few who are most guilty. When they do this they’re kind even to their enemies, and pity them no less than they pity own people, aware that most of them don’t engage in the war of their own accord, but are pushed into it by the passions of their prince.

[2.8.11] “If this doesn’t work, then they sow the seeds of strife among their enemies, and try to get the prince’s brother, or some other noble, to try to seize the crown. If they can’t divide them by domestic quarrels, then they engage their neighbors against them, and make them set on foot some old pretensions, which are never lacking to princes when they have occasion for them. These they plentifully supply with money, though but very sparingly with any auxiliary troops; for they’re so tender of their own people that they wouldn’t willingly exchange one of them, even with the prince of their enemies’ country.

[2.8.12] “But since they keep their gold and silver only for things like this, when the opportunity arises they easily give it up. It wouldn’t bother them even if they kept nothing for themselves. Besides the wealth they have at home, they have a vast treasure abroad. Many nations around about them are deep in their debt, so A bit like the Swiss Utopia hires mercenaries from all over to carry on their wars, but especially from the Zapolets, who live five hundred miles east of Utopia. They’re a rude, wild, and fierce nation, who love the woods and rocks where they were born and bred. They’re hardened both against heat, cold, and hard work, and they know nothing about the delicacies of life. They don’t apply themselves to farming or care about their houses or their clothes. Cattle is all they look after, and for the most part they live either by hunting or by stealing. They’re made, as it were, only for war. They seek out every opportunity to engage in it, and very readily seize any that are offered them. Many of them often go out and offer themselves for very low pay to serve anyone who’ll hire them. They know none of the arts of life except how to take life away.

[2.8.13] “They serve the people who hire them bravely and faithfully, but won’t agree to serve for any determined time, and they settle on terms so that the next day they can switch sides if the enemies offer them a bigger payout. Maybe they’ll return to them the day after that on an even higher advance of their pay.

[2.8.14] “In almost every war they’re a big part of the armies on both sides. Often people who are related, who were hired together and who’ve lived together, forget about their family ties and their friendship and they kill each other for no reason other than being hired for a little money by princes who care about other things. They have so much regard for money that even a penny a day can persuaded them to switch sides. Their greed controls them entirely. But this money, which they value so highly, is of little use to them — whatever money they pay for with their blood they waste right away on luxuries, and low-quality luxuries at that.

[2.8.15] “The people of this nation serve the Utopians more than any other nation, because they pay more than anyone else. The Utopians consider this a basic truth: just as they seek out the best people for their own use at home, so they use this worst sort of people for the consumption of war. They hire them with offers of vast rewards to expose themselves to all sorts of risks, and most of them never return to claim what was promised to them. Still the Utopians keep their promises most religiously to the ones who do escape. This encourages them to risk it again, any time there’s occasion for it. The Utopians don’t care about how many Zapoletans die, and they consider it a service to humankind if they could help free the world from such lewd and vicious people, who seem to have run together in the drain of human nature.

[2.8.16] “Next to these, the Utopians are served in their wars with those they fight them for, and with the auxiliary troops of their other friends, combined with a few of their own people, and they send someone of eminent and approved virtue to be commander-in-chief. They send two people with him, who are just private citizens during his command, but the first will succeed him if he should happen to be killed or captured. And if the same misfortune happens to him, then the third comes in his place. And so they prepare for all events, so that when happen to their generals it doesn’t endanger their armies.

[2.8.17] “When they select troops from their own people, they take out of each city those who willingly volunteer, and no one is forced to go against their will. They think that, if anyone who lacks courage is pressured, then he won’t only act like a coward, but his cowardice will dishearten others. But if an invasion is made on their country, then they use men with good bodies, even if they’re not brave, and they either put them on board ships or place them on the walls of their towns, so that they never have the chance to run away. And so shame, the heat of action, or the impossibility of escaping represses their cowardice. They often make a virtue of necessity, and behave themselves well, because nothing else is left for them.

[2.8.18] “But because they force no one to go into any foreign war against his will, they don’t interfere with the women who want to go along with their husbands. On the contrary, they encourage them and praise them, and often they stand next to their husbands in front of the army. They also put related people — parents, children, kindred — and those who have alliances close to one another, so that those inspired by nature with the most passion to help each other will be the nearest and readiest to do it. And it’s matter of great shame if a husband or a wife outlives the other, or if a child survives his parent — and therefore, when they happen to be engaged in action, they fight to the last person, if their enemies stand before them.

[2.8.19] “They go to great lengths to avoid putting their own troops at risk, and they prefer to let the mercenaries face all the danger. But if they have to fight, they charge in with as much courage as they had caution before. They don’t start with a fierce charge at first, but it increases by degrees. Over time they become more obstinate, and they press the enemy harder and harder — they’d much rather die than give ground. The certainty that their children will be well looked after when they’re dead frees them from the anxiety that often overcomes brave men. And so they’re animated by a noble and invincible resolution.

[2.8.20] “Their military training increases their courage, and the wise feelings that come from their education make their minds even more vigorous. Since they don’t undervalue life and throw it away carelessly, they’re not so indecently fond of it as to preserve it by base and unbecoming methods.

[2.8.21] “In the greatest heat of action the bravest young men, the ones who’ve devoted themselves to that service, single out the enemy general, go after him, whether openly or by ambush. Attacking the general to end the war quickly They chase him everywhere, and when they grow weary, they’re relieved by others, who never give over the pursuit, either attacking him with close weapons when they can get near him, or with those which wound at a distance, when others get in between them. Unless the general saves himself by running away, they almost always manage to kill him or take him prisoner.

[2.8.22] “Whenever they win a battle, they kill as few as possible. They’re more interested in taking prisoners than in killing the ones who run away. And they never let their troops go after someone without keeping one division in place and ready to fight. This way, if they’ve been forced to use the last of their battalions, they’d still rather let their enemies escape than chase them, leaving a disordered army behind. They remember all too well what has happened to them: the main body of their army has been utterly defeated, and their enemies, thinking they’ve won the battle, have been chasing runaways in every direction, then a few of the Utopians who stayed behind as a reserve attack them while they’re chasing fugitives. While the enemy was caught in chaos, fearing nothing and convinced they’d won, the Utopians turned everything around. They’ve snatched a victory out of their hands, and the conquered suddenly became the conquerors.

[2.8.23] “It’s hard to tell whether they’re more dexterous in setting or avoiding ambushes. They sometimes seem to fly when it’s far from their thoughts; and when they intend to give ground, they do it so that it’s very hard to figure out their plan. If they see they’re in a bad position, or are likely to be overpowered by numbers, they then either march off in the night in great silence, or use some scheme to deceive their enemies. If they withdraw in the daytime, they do it so that it’s no less dangerous to attack them in a retreat than in a march. They fortify their camps with a deep and large trench, and they throw up the dirt that’s dug out of it for a wall. They don’t just use their slaves to do this, but the whole army works at it, except the ones then on guard, so that when so many hands are at work, a great line and a strong fortification can be finished so quickly you wouldn’t believe it.

[2.8.24] Kinds of weapons “Their armor is very strong for defense, but it isn’t so heavy as to make them uneasy in their marches — they can even swim with it. Everyone who’s trained to fight in war also practices swimming. Both horse troops and foot troops make great use of arrows, and they’re very expert. They fight not with swords but with a pole-axe that’s both sharp and heavy, which they use to thrust or strike down an enemy. They’re very good at inventing military machines, and disguising them so well that the enemy doesn’t see them till they feel the use of them. The enemy can’t prepare any defense to render them useless. The most important consideration in making them is that they have to be easy to carry and manage.

[2.8.25] “If they agree to a truce, they observe it so strictly that nothing will make them break it. Truces They never lay waste their enemies’ country or burn their farms, and even in their marches they take all possible care that neither horse nor foot will trample it down, because they might decide to use it themselves. They won’t hurt any disarmed person, unless he’s a spy. When a town is surrendered to them they take it into their protection, and when they occupy a place by storm they never plunder it, but kill only the ones who resist giving it up. They make the rest of the garrison slaves — they don’t hurt any of the other inhabitants. And if any of them had advised a surrender, they give them good rewards out of the estates of those that they condemn, and hand out the rest among their auxiliary troops, but they themselves take none of the spoils.

[2.8.26] “When a war ends, they don’t require their allies to reimburse them for their expenses. But today victors are stuck with the bill Instead they get them from the conquered, either in money (which they keep for the next occasion) or in land, out of which a steady stream of rents is to be paid them. Thanks to many increases, the revenue they now collect from several countries on such occasions has reached more than 700,000 ducats a year. They send some of their own people to receive these revenues, who have orders to live magnificently and like princes. They spend much of the money in that place, and either bring the rest back to Utopia or lend it to the nation where it lies. This is what they usually do, unless some great occasion (which happens only very rarely) makes them call for it all. Out of these lands they assign rewards to everyone they encourage to undergo risky adventures. If any prince who goes to war with them is planning to invade their country, they stop him, and make his country the location of the war. They don’t willingly allow any war to break in on their island, and if that should happen, they’d only defend themselves by their own people. But they wouldn’t call for help from foreign auxiliary troops.

Of the Religions of the Utopians

[2.9.1] “There are several sorts of religions, not only in different parts of the island, but even in every town. Some worship the sun, others the moon or one of the planets. Some worship people who were famous in ancient days for virtue or glory, not only as ordinary deities, but as the supreme God. But most people, and the wiser people, worship none of these, and instead adore one eternal, invisible, infinite, and incomprehensible Deity. This Being is far above our understanding and is spread across the whole universe, not by His bulk, but by His power and virtue. They call Him the Father of All, and acknowledge that the beginnings, the increase, the progress, the changes, and the end of all things come only from Him. They don’t offer divine honors to anyone but Him alone.

[2.9.2] “And though they disagree about other things, they all agree in this: they think there’s one Supreme Being who made the world and governs it, and they call Him, in the language of their country, Mithras.° They disagree in this: one thinks the god he worships is this Supreme Being, but someone else thinks that his idol is that god. But they all agree in one principle, that whoever this Supreme Being is, He’s also that great essence to whose glory and majesty all honors are ascribed by the agreement of all nations.

[2.9.3] “By degrees they lose their various superstitions, and grow up to that one religion that’s the best and most desired. And there’s no doubt that all the others would have vanished long ago, if some of those who advised them to lay aside their superstitions hadn’t met with some unfortunate accidents — because some thought they were inflicted by heaven, they were afraid that the god they were about to stop worshiping had interposed and taken revenge on the people who despised their authority.

[2.9.4] “After they heard our account of the teaching, the life, and the miracles of Christ, and of the wonderful constancy of so many martyrs — who willingly gave their blood and spread their religion over many nations — you can’t imagine how eager they were to receive it. Like communal monks I can’t say whether this came from some secret inspiration of God, or because it seemed so favorable to their sharing property in common, their unusual belief that they love so much. They saw that Christ and His followers lived by that rule, and that it was still kept up in some communities by the sincerest sort of Christians. Whatever the motives it might be, many of them came over to our religion, and were initiated into it by baptism. But because two of our group were dead, and none of the four that survived were priests, we could only baptize them — and, to our great regret, they couldn’t take the other sacraments, which can be administered only by priests. Still they were taught about them, and they long for them. They’ve had great disagreements among themselves, whether someone they chose to be a priest would be qualified to do everything a priest can do, even though he had no authority derived from the Pope. They seemed determined to choose some for that job, but they hadn’t done it when I left them.

[2.9.5] “Even the Utopians who don’t believe in Christianity don’t frighten anyone away from it, and they don’t treat converts badly, so that all the whole time I was there, just one person was only punished on this occasion. He was newly baptized and, despite what we said to the contrary, he argued publicly about the Christian religion,with more zeal than discretion, and with so much heat that he not only preferred our worship to theirs, but condemned all their rites as profane, and cried out against everyone who believed in their religion as unholy and sacrilegious people, who should be damned to everlasting fire. Praise promotes religion more than fear After he preached this way often he was arrested, and after the trial he was condemned to banishment — not for having put their religion down, but for inflaming the people to sedition. This is one of their most ancient laws: no one should be punished for his religion.

[2.9.6] “When their government was first established, Utopus understood that, before he came among them, the old inhabitants had been caught up in great quarrels about religion, and the people were so divided among themselves that it was easy for him to conquer them, since, instead of uniting their forces against him, every separate religious faction fought by themselves. After he subdued them, he made a law that everyone could be of any religion they wanted, and could try to draw others to it by the force of argument and by peaceful and modest ways, but with no bitterness directed against people who had other opinions. But he could use no force other than persuasion, and couldn’t mix with it reproach or violence. Anyone who did otherwise would be condemned to banishment or slavery.

[2.9.7] “This law was made by Utopus not only to preserve the public peace — he saw it suffered from daily disagreements and irreconcilable disputes — but also because he thought religion itself required it. He thought it was inappropriate to decide anything rashly, and seemed to wonder whether different forms of religion might all come from God, who could inspire someone in a different manner, and be pleased with the variety. Utopus therefore thought it was indecent and stupid for anyone to threaten or terrify anyone to make them believe something that didn’t appear to be true. And supposing that only one religion was really true, and the rest false, he imagined that the native force of truth would at last break forth and shine bright, if supported only by the strength of argument, and attended to with a gentle and unprejudiced mind. On the other hand, if these debates were carried on with violence and chaos, since the wickedest are always the most stubborn, the best and most holy religion might be choked with superstition, as grain is choked with briars and thorns.

[2.9.8] “Therefore he left people entirely to their own choices, so that they’d be free to believe whatever they thought appropriate. But he made a solemn and severe law against anyone who fell so far from the dignity of human nature as to think that our souls died with our bodies, or that the world was governed by chance, without a wise overruling Providence. Once they all believed there was a state of rewards and punishments to the good and bad after this life. Now they consider people who disagree hardly worthy of being called human, since they degrade the noble being, the soul, and consider it no better than an animal’s.

[2.9.9] “They think people like this are unfit for human society, unfit to be citizens of a well-ordered government, since someone with principles like these must despise all their laws and customs. There’s no doubt that a person who’s afraid of nothing but the law, and fears nothing after death, won’t hesitate to break all his country’s laws, either by fraud or force, just to satisfy their urges. People with ideas like these are never promoted to public honors or positions, and they don’t employ them in any public trust. Instead they despise them as people of base and sordid minds. Still, they don’t punish them, because they consider this as a universal truth: people can’t make themselves believe whatever they want. And they don’t use threats to pressure anyone to hide their opinions, so that people aren’t tempted to lie or disguise their opinions. This is a sort of fraud, and Utopians detest it. They don’t let them argue to defend these opinions, especially before the common people, but they do allow, and even encourage, people to discuss them in private with their priests and other serious people, confident that they’ll be cured of those crazy opinions by having reason laid before them.

[2.9.10] “Many Utopians go to the opposite extreme, though it’s not considered a disgraceful or unreasonable opinion, and therefore it’s not discouraged at all. An unusual opinion on animals’ souls They think that the souls of beasts are immortal, though inferior to the dignity of the human soul, and not capable of so much happiness. Almost all of them are firmly convinced that good people will be infinitely happy in another state. Though they’re compassionate to everyone who’s sick, still they don’t lament anyone’s death, unless they see he’s unwilling to part with life. They consider this a very bad sign, as if the soul, aware of its own guilt and completely hopeless, is afraid to leave the body because it has secret hints of the misery to come. They think God can’t accept the appearance of someone who, when he’s called before Him, doesn’t go cheerfully, but stays back and has to be dragged out. They’re horrified when they see people die this way, and they carry them out in silence and sorrow, praying that God would be merciful to the errors of the departed soul, they lay the body in the ground.

[2.9.11] “But when people die cheerfully and full of hope, they don’t mourn for them — they sing hymns as they carry out the bodies, and they earnestly commend their souls to God. Their behavior is serious, not sad. They burn the body and set up a pillar where the fire was made, with an inscription to honor the deceased. When they come from the funeral, they talk about his good life and worthy actions, but they speak of nothing more often and with more pleasure than his serenity at the hour of death.

[2.9.12] “They think such respect paid to the memory of good people is both the greatest encouragement to get others to follow their example, and the most acceptable worship they can offer. They believe that, although human sight can’t see them, still they’re present among us, and hear us when we talk about them. They believe the happiness of departed souls means they must be free to be wherever they want to be. They don’t think these spirits are capable of ingratitude by not wanting to see the friends they lived with on earth in the strictest bonds of love and kindness. Besides, they’re persuaded that, after death, good people have these affections. And all other good dispositions increased rather than diminished. Therefore they conclude that they’re still among the living, and observe all they say or do. From here they get involved in all their business with great confidence of success, because they’re trusting to their protection. This opinion of the presence of their ancestors restrains them from making evil plans.

[2.9.13] “They hate fortunetellers and they laugh at them, and other pointless and superstitious ways of prophecy that we see so often in other nations. But they have great respect for the miracles that can’t possibly come from natural forces, and they look on them as effects and evidence of the presence of the Supreme Being. They say they’ve had many instances of this, and that sometimes their public prayers, which they offer to God on great and dangerous occasions, have been miraculously answered.

[2.9.14] “They think contemplating God in His works, and adoring Him for them, is a good way to worship Him.

[2.9.15] “There are many among them who, because of their religion, neglect education, and don’t do any kind of studying. The active life And they don’t give themselves any leisure time, but are always busy, thinking good deeds guarantee happiness after death. Some people visit the sick; others repair highways, clean ditches, repair bridges, or dig turf, gravel, or stone. Others chop down trees and bring wood, corn, and other necessaries on carts into their towns. And these serve not only the public, but also private citizens, more than even the slaves do.

[2.9.16] “If there’s a rough, hard, and ugly job to do anywhere, which might frighten people away by the difficulty of the work or the despair of being able to finish it, still they do it cheerfully and of their own free will. By that means, as they help others very much, they burden themselves, and spend their whole lives doing hard labor. Still they don’t value themselves on this, nor do they reduce other people’s credit to raise their own. By stooping to lowly jobs like that they’re not despised, but actually admired by the whole nation.

[2.9.17] “These people come in two kinds. Some of them are unmarried and remain chaste; they don’t eat any meat. They deny themselves all physical pleasures (they consider them hurtful), and they use hardest and most painful methods possible to achieve the blessedness they hope to experience in the afterlife. The nearer they get to it, the more cheerful and earnest they are in trying to get it. The other kind of people are less willing to suffer as much, and they prefer to be married rather than single. Since they don’t deny themselves physical pleasure, they think having children is a debt they owe to human nature and to their country. And they don’t avoid any pleasure, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of their work. They eat meat happily, since it makes them more able to work. The Utopians look on these as the wiser sect, but they consider the others as the most holy. They’d certainly laugh at anyone who, from the principles of reason, would prefer an unmarried life to a married one, or a life of labor to an easy life. But they respect and admire those who do it because of their religion. There’s nothing they’re more cautious about than in giving their opinion on any sort of religion. The people who lead those severe lives are called in the language of their country Brutheskas, which corresponds to what we call religious orders.

[2.9.18] “Their priests are men who are admired for their piety, and therefore there are only a few of them, because there are only thirteen in every town, one for each temple. When they go to war, though, seven of them go out with their forces, and seven others are chosen to take their place while they’re away. But these go back to their jobs again when they return; and those who served in their absence, attend on the high priest, till vacancies fall by death; for there’s one set over the rest. They’re chosen by the people as the other magistrates are, by suffrages given in secret, for preventing of factions: and when they’re chosen, they’re consecrated by the college of priests.

[2.9.19] “They’re responsible for all sacred things: the worship of God and monitoring morality. It’s a disgrace for a person to be sent for by any of them, or for them to speak to him in secret, for that always gives some suspicion: all that’s incumbent on them is only to exhort and admonish the people; for the power of correcting and punishing bad men belongs entirely to the Prince and to the other magistrates: the severest thing that the priest does is the excluding those that are desperately wicked from joining in their worship: no kind of punishment is more dreaded than this, for as it loads them with shame, it fills them with secret horrors — that’s how much they respect their religion. And their bodies won’t be excluded from trouble for too long; for if they don’t very quickly convince the priests of the truth of their repentance, they’re seized on by the Senate and punished for impiety.

[2.9.20] “The priests are responsible for educating the children. But they don’t put as much effort into teaching them about reading and writing as they do in forming their minds and manners. They use all possible methods to infuse, very early, into the tender and flexible minds of children, opinions that are both good in themselves and useful to their country. When deep impressions of these things are made at that age, they follow people through their whole lives, and tend to preserve the peace of the government, which suffers by nothing more than by vices that rise out of bad opinions. The priests’ wives are the most extraordinary women in the whole country. Women priests Sometimes even the women themselves are made priests, though that happens only rarely, and only very old widows are chosen into that order.

[2.9.21] “None of the magistrates are more honored than the priests. If they should happen to commit a crime, they wouldn’t be questioned for it. Their punishment is left to God and to their own consciences. They consider it illegal to lay hands on anyone, no matter how wicked, who has been dedicated to God. And they don’t consider this inconvenient, both because they have so few priests and because they choose them with so much caution that Excommunication it would be very rare to find someone who, purely out of concern for his virtue and for being considered especially good, was raised up to so great a dignity, and then degenerated into corruption and vice. If that did happen — people do change — But we have mobs of them! still, because there are only a few priests, and they have no authority but what comes from the respect that’s paid them, no great consequence to the public can come from the priests’ freedom from prosecution.

[2.9.22] “They have very few priests in order to avoid harming the dignity and reputation of that position which they admire so much. They also think it’s hard to find many people who are good enough to deserve that honor, which requires extraordinary virtue. And their priests are respected by neighboring nations as much as they are at home, as you can imagine by what I think causes it.

[2.9.23] “When the Utopians are at war, the priests who accompany them to the battle, dressed in their sacred garments, kneel down during the action (in a place close to the field) and, lifting their hands to heaven, pray — first for peace, and then for victory for their own side, and particularly that it can be won without much bloodshed on either side. Their priests are holier than ours When their side wins, they run in among their own men to restrain their fury. If any of their enemies see them or call out to them, they’re kept alive. Anyone who can get close enough to them to touch their garments save not only their lives but their fortunes too. This is why all the nations around them admire them so much, and treat them with so much respect, that they’ve been often just as able to preserve their own people from the fury of their enemies than to save their enemies from their rage. Sometimes, when their armies have forced to retreat in chaos, so that their enemies were running upon the slaughter and spoil, the priests have stepped in and separated them from one another, stopping the bloodshed. By their mediation, peace has been negotiated on very reasonable terms. And no nation around them is so fierce, cruel, or barbarous that they don’t consider their people sacred and inviolable.

[2.9.24] “The first and the last day of the month, and of the year, is a festival. Holidays They measure their months by the course of the moon, and their years by the course of the sun. The first days are called in their language the cynemernes,° and the last the trapemernes,° which in our language corresponds to ‘the festival that begins or ends the season.’

[2.9.25] “They have magnificent temples, not only nobly built but extremely spacious, which is especially important because they have so few of them. Temple architecture Inside they’re a little dark, not from any mistake in the architecture, but as part of a plan. Their priests think that too much light distracts the thoughts, and that a moderate degree of light both calms the mind and increases devotion.

[2.9.26] “Though there are many forms of religion among them, they all agree on the main point, which is worshipping the Divine Essence. Therefore there’s nothing to be seen or heard in their temples that people of different opinions would disagree with. Every sect performs their own rites in their private houses, and nothing in the public worship contradicts the particular ways of those different sects. They have no images for God in their temples, so that everyone can imagine Him according to their own religion; nor do they call this one God by any name other than Mithras, the common name they all use for the Divine Essence, whatever else they might think it is. All their prayers can be used by all of them with no prejudice to his own opinion.

[2.9.27] “They meet in their temples on the evening of the end-of-season festival, before they’ve broken their fast. They thank God for their success during the year or month that’s ending. The next day, the beginning of a new season, they meet early in their temples to pray that all goes well during that coming period. In the festival which at the end of the season, before they go to the temple, Confession both wives and children fall on their knees before their husbands or parents and confess all their mistakes and their failures to do their duty, and they beg for pardon. This way they remove all the little quarrels in families, so they can offer up their devotions with a pure and serene mind. They consider it great impiety to barge in on them with disturbed thoughts, or with hatred or anger in their hearts for anyone at all. With us, the worst people want to be closest to the altar They think they should be subject to severe punishments if they offered sacrifices without first cleansing their hearts and reconciling their differences.

[2.9.28] “In the temples the two sexes are separated — the men go to the right, and the women to the left — and the men and women all place themselves before the head and master or mistress of their families, so that those in charge of them at home can see how they behave in public. And they intermingle them, so that the young and old are set next to one another. If the young ones were all set together, they might waste the time when they should cultivate in themselves the religious dread of the Supreme Being, greatest and almost the only encouragement to be good.

[2.9.29] “They never offer any living creatures in sacrifice, because they don’t think it appropriate for the Divine Being, who gave all these creatures their lives, to take pleasure in their deaths or bloodshed. They burn incense and other sweet odors, and light many wax candles during their worship, not because they imagine such offerings add anything to the divine nature (which even prayers cannot do), but because it’s a harmless and pure way of worshipping God. They think those sweet smells and lights, together with some other ceremonies, by a secret and unaccountable virtue, raise up people’s souls, and inspire them with more energy and cheerfulness during the divine worship.

[2.9.30] “All the people in the temples wear white garments, but the priest’s vestments are multi-colored, and both the stitching and the colors are wonderful. They’re not made of rich materials — they’re not embroidered, or set with precious stones — but they’re composed of birds’ feathers, laid together with so much skill, and so neatly, that their true value is far beyond the richest materials. They say that in the ordering and placing those plumes some dark mysteries are represented, which pass down among their priests in a secret tradition. They say they’re like hieroglyphics, reminding them of the blessing they’ve received from God, and of their duties, both to Him and to their neighbors.

[2.9.31] “As soon as the priest appears in these clothes, they all fall to the ground, with so much respect and such a deep silence that those who look can’t help being struck with it, as if it were the effect of the appearance of a deity.

[2.9.32] “After they’ve been for some time in this position they stand up, when the priest gives a sign, and sing hymns to honor God, while musical instruments are playing. Utopian music These are very different from ours, but, as many of them are much sweeter than ours, so others are made use of by us. In one thing, though, they’re much better than us: all their music, both vocal and instrumental, is designed to imitate and express the passions, and is so well suited to every occasion that — whether the hymn is cheerful or meant to soothe or trouble the mind, or to express grief or remorse — the music takes the impression of whatever is represented, affects and kindles the passions, and works the feelings deep into the hearers’ hearts.

[2.9.33] “When this is done, both priests and people pray solemnly to God in a set form of words. And these are composed so that whatever is said by the whole assembly can also be applied by everyone to their own condition. In these they acknowledge God to be the author and governor of the world, and the fountain of all the good they receive. Therefore they offer up to him their thanksgiving. In particular they bless Him for His goodness in making the world so that they’re born under the world’s best government, and are of a religion which they hope is the truest of all others. But if they’re mistaken, and if there’s either a better government or a religion more acceptable to God, they implore His goodness to let them know it, vowing they’ll follow wherever He leads them. But if their government really is the best and their religion the truest, then they pray that He may strengthen it, and bring all the world both to the same rules of life, and to the same opinions concerning Himself — unless, according to the unsearchableness of His mind, He’s prefers a variety of religions.

[2.9.34] “Then they pray that God may give them an easy death, but without presuming to set limits to Him about however early or late death will come. But if they’re able to wish for it without taking anything from His supreme authority, they’d prefer a quick death, and to be taken to God even in a hard death, rather than to be kept away from God by the most prosperous long life.

[2.9.35] “When this prayer is ended, they all fall down on the ground again. After a little while they get up, go home to lunch, and spend the rest of the day in entertainment or military exercises.

[2.9.36] “So I’ve described to you, as precisely as I could, the way that commonwealth works. I think it’s not only the best in the world, but the only one that really deserves that name ‘commonwealth.’ Everywhere else it’s clear that, while people talk of a commonwealth, they only care about their own wealth. There, on the other hand, where no one owns any private property, everyone energetically pursues the public good. It’s no wonder to see people act so differently — in other commonwealths everyone knows that, no matter how much the commonwealth may be flourishing, if they don’t provide for themselves they’ll starve. So they realize they have to put their own concerns before those of the public.

[2.9.37] “In Utopia, though, where everyone has a right to everything, they know that, as long as they’re careful to keep the public stores full, no private citizen can lack anything. Among them there’s no unequal distribution. No one is poor, no one in need, and though no one owns anything, they’re still all rich.

[2.9.38] “What does ‘rich’ mean other than being able to lead a serene and cheerful life, free from anxieties, not afraid of poverty or worried by a wife’s endless complaints? A Utopian isn’t worried about his children’s misery, nor is he figuring out how to save for a dowry for his daughters. He’s confident that both he and his wife, his children and grandchildren out to as many generations as he can imagine, will all live plentifully and happily. Among them, they take just as much care of those who were once engaged in labor, but later grow unable to do it, as they do people who are still working.

[2.9.39] “I’d gladly hear anyone compare their justice with that of all other nations. I swear on my life you’ll never see anything that looks like justice or equity. How can there be justice when a nobleman, a goldsmith, a banker, or anyone else does nothing at all (or, at best, is employed in things that are of no use to the public) can live in luxury and splendor on such poorly earned wages, while a lowly man, a carter, a smith, or a plowman, someone who works harder even than beasts, and does work so necessary that no country could last a year without them, earns just a poor a livelihood, leading such a miserable life that it would be better to be a beast? The beasts don’t work constantly, and they feed almost as well, and with more pleasure, and have no anxiety about what’s to come. These poor people, on the other hand, are depressed by a barren and fruitless employment, and tormented with fears about poverty in their old age. What they earn from their jobs just supports them in the present, and it’s spent as quickly as it comes in, leaving no surplus for old age.

[2.9.40] “Isn’t it unjust and ungrateful for a government to dole out favors to ‘gentlemen,’ or goldsmiths, or others who do no work, who live by flattery or by designing the arts of vain pleasure, and, on the other hand, take no care of those worse off, like plowmen, colliers, and smiths, who do the work the nation needs to exist? And after the public has taken advantage of their service, and they’re oppressed with old age, sickness, and poverty, all their labors and the good they’ve done are forgotten, and their only payment is to be left to die in misery. The richer people often try reduce laborers’ wages, not only by fraud but by laws they make to that effect. Even though it’s unjust to mistreat people who serve the public, they’ve made it just by passing laws to enforce it.

[2.9.41] “Therefore I have say that, I swear, other governments appear to me only as a conspiracy of the rich, Reader, pay attention! who pretend to manage the public, but only pursue their private ends, and come up with all the ways they can find out — first, they try to safely keep everything they’ve gotten so improperly, and then, they get the poor to work for them for the lowest wages, and oppress them as much as they like. And if they can manage to get these schemes established by the show of public authority, which is considered as the representative of the whole people, then they’re considered laws.

[2.9.42] “But these wicked people, after they’ve taken what should have gone to everyone and greedily divided it among themselves, are much less happy than the Utopians. In Utopia the use and the desire for money have been extinguished, and so much anxiety and opportunities for mischief are also cut out. Who can’t see that the frauds, thefts, robberies, quarrels, tumults, contentions, seditions, murders, treacheries, and witchcrafts — things that are punished rather than restrained by the law — would disappear if no one valued money anymore? People’s fears, anxieties, cares, and labors would all die at the same time with the value of money. Even poverty itself, for the relief of which money seems most necessary, would fall. To understand this clearly, consider one instance: —

[2.9.43] “Think about any famine year when many thousands have died of hunger. But if, at the end of that year, we surveyed the supplies of all the rich people who have hoarded up the grain, we’d see there was enough to save all the people who died in misery. If it had been distributed among them, no one would have felt the terrible effects of that scarcity. It would be so easy to provide all the necessities of life if that blessed thing called money, supposedly invented to provide them, wasn’t actually the thing that prevented them!

[2.9.44] “I’m sure even rich people know this, and they know how much better it is not to lack anything necessary, than it is to have huge surpluses, and how much better it is to be rescued out misery, than to be loaded with wealth. I can’t help thinking that everyone’s interest, combined with the authority of Christ’s commands — who, as He was infinitely wise, knew what was best, and was just as good in revealing it to us — would have drawn all the world over to the laws of the Utopians, if it weren’t for pride, that plague of human nature, that source of so much misery.

[2.9.45] “Pride measures happiness not by its own benefits, but by others’ miseries. A remarkable observation Pride wouldn’t be satisfied with being considered a goddess as long as there were no miserable people left that she might insult. Pride thinks its own happiness shines brighter compared to other people’s misfortunes. It thinks that, by showing off its own wealth, the poor can feel their poverty even more intensely. This is that infernal serpent that creeps into the breasts of mortals, and possesses them too much to be easily drawn out. I’m glad, therefore, that the Utopians have settled on this form of government, and I wish the whole world would be smart enough to imitate them. They’ve established a set of policies that makes people happy, and is therefore likely to last a long time. Once they’ve rooted out of the people’s minds all the seeds of ambition and faction, there’s no danger of any conflict at home — that alone has destroyed many countries that seemed otherwise to be safe. But as long as they live peacefully at home, and are governed by good laws, the envy of all their neighboring princes, who’ve often, though in vain, attempted their ruin, no one will ever be able to put their state into any commotion or disorder.”

[2.9.46] When Raphael finished speaking I thought of many things, both about their manners and their laws, that seemed absurd — they way they wage war, their ideas about religion and divine matters — together with other things. But what seemed the foundation of all the rest was their living in common, without using money, by which all nobility, magnificence, splendor, and majesty — the common opinion says these are the true ornaments of a nation — would be entirely taken away.

[2.9.47] “But, because I saw Raphael was exhausted, unsure whether he was up to being argued with, remembering that he had spoken about people who thought they were honor-bound to support the credit of their own wisdom, by finding out something to criticize in everyone else’s inventions, besides their own — I only complimented their constitution, and the general account he gave of. And so, taking him by the hand, I led him to dinner, and told him I’d find some other time to explore the subject more carefully, and for talking about it at greater length. And I’ll be glad for the chance to do it.

[2.9.48] “Meanwhile, though I have to admit he’s very learned and knows about the world, I just can’t agree with everything he said. Still, there are many things in Utopia that I wish our government would follow, but I don’t have much hope they will.

The End of Book Two

The End of Raphael Hythloday’s Afternoon Discussion of the Laws and Customs of Utopia, Previously Known Only to a Few, as Reported by the Distinguished and Learned Thomas More, Citizen and Sheriff of London