After we had several times met without
coming to an agreement, they went to
Brussels for some days to know the
Prince's pleasure. And since our business
would admit it, I went to Antwerp. While I
was there, among many that visited me,
there was one that was more acceptable to
me than any other, Peter Giles, born at
Antwerp, who is a man of great honor, and
of a good rank in his town, though less than
he deserves; for I do not know if there be
anywhere to be found a more learned and a
better bred young man: for as he is both a
very worthy and a very knowing person, so
he is so civil to all men, so particularly kind
to his friends, and so full of candor and
affection, that there is not perhaps above
one or two anywhere to be found that are in
all respects so perfect a friend. He is
extraordinarily modest, there is no artifice in
him; and yet no man has more of a prudent
simplicity: his conversation was so pleasant
and so innocently cheerful, that his company
in a great measure lessened any longings to
go back to my country, and to my wife and
children, which an absence of four months
had quickened very much. One day as I was
returning home from mass at St. Mary's,
which is the chief church, and the most
frequented of any in Antwerp, I saw him by
accident talking with a stranger, who
seemed past the flower of his age; his face
was tanned, he had a long beard, and his
cloak was hanging carelessly about him, so
that by his looks and habit I concluded he

-1-

returning home to be buried in his own
country; for he used often to say that the way
to heaven was the same from all places;
and he that had no grave had the heaven still
over him. Yet this disposition of mind had
cost him dear, if God had not been very
gracious to him; for after he, with five
Castilians, had travelled over many
countries, at last, by strange good-fortune,
he got to Ceylon, and from thence to
Calicut, where he very happily found some
Portuguese ships, and, beyond all men's
expectations, returned to his native country."

When Peter had said this to me, I thanked
him for his kindness, in intending to give me
the acquaintance of a man whose
conversation he knew would be so
acceptable; and upon that Raphael and I
embraced each other. After those civilities
were passed which are usual with strangers
upon their first meeting, we all went to my
house, and entering into the garden, sat
down on a green bank, and entertained one
another in discourse. He told us that when
Vespucius had sailed away, he and his
companions that stayed behind in New
Castile, by degrees insinuated themselves
into the affections of the people of the
country, meeting often with them, and
treating them gently: and at last they not only
lived among them without danger, but
conversed familiarly with them; and got so
far into the heart of a prince, whose name
and country I have forgot, that he both
furnished them plentifully with all things
necessary, and also with the conveniences
of travelling; both boats when they went by
water, and wagons when they travelled over
land: he sent with them a very faithful guide,
who was to introduce and recommend them
to such other princes as they had a mind to
see: and after many days' journey, they
came to towns and cities, and to
commonwealths, that were both happily
governed and well-peopled. Under the

-2-

concerning those wise and prudent
institutions which he observed among
civilized nations, may perhaps be related by
us on a more proper occasion. We asked
him many questions concerning all these
things, to which he answered very willingly;
only we made no inquiries after monsters,
than which nothing is more common; for
everywhere one may hear of ravenous dogs
and wolves, and cruel man-eaters; but it is
not so easy to find States that are well and
wisely governed.

As he told us of many things that were
amiss in those new discovered countries,
so he reckoned up not a few things from
which patterns might be taken for correcting
the errors of these nations among whom we
live; of which an account may be given, as I
have already promised, at some other time;
for at present I intend only to relate those
particulars that he told us of the manners
and laws of the Utopians: but I will begin
with the occasion that led us to speak of that
commonwealth. After Raphael had
discoursed with great judgment on the
many errors that were both among us and
these nations; had treated of the wise
institutions both here and there, and had
spoken as distinctly of the customs and
government of every nation through which
he had passed, as if he had spent his whole
life in it, Peter, being struck with admiration,
said: "I wonder, Raphael, how it comes that
you enter into no king's service, for I am
sure there are none to whom you would not
be very acceptable: for your learning and
knowledge both of men and things, are
such that you would not only entertain them
very pleasantly, but be of great use to them,
by the examples you could set before them
and the advices you could give them; and by
this means you would both serve your own
interest and be of great use to all your
friends."

-3-

never do with so much advantage, as by
being taken into the counsel of some great
prince, and putting him on noble and worthy
actions, which I know you would do if you
were in such a post; for the springs both of
good and evil flow from the prince, over a
whole nation, as from a lasting fountain. So
much learning as you have, even without
practice in affairs, or so great a practice as
you have had, without any other learning,
would render you a very fit counsellor to any
king whatsoever."

"You are doubly mistaken," said he, "Mr.
More, both in your opinion of me, and in the
judgment you make of things: for as I have
not that capacity that you fancy I have, so, if I
had it, the public would not be one jot the
better, when I had sacrificed my quiet to it.
For most princes apply themselves more to
affairs of war than to the useful arts of
peace; and in these I neither have any
knowledge, nor do I much desire it: they are
generally more set on acquiring new
kingdoms, right or wrong, than on governing
well those they possess. And among the
ministers of princes, there are none that are
not so wise as to need no assistance, or at
least that do not think themselves so wise
that they imagine they need none; and if
they court any, it is only those for whom the
prince has much personal favor, whom by
their fawnings and flatteries they endeavor
to fix to their own interests: and indeed
Nature has so made us that we all love to be
flattered, and to please ourselves with our
own notions. The old crow loves his young,
and the ape her cubs. Now if in such a court,
made up of persons who envy all others,
and only admire themselves, a person
should but propose anything that he had
either read in history or observed in his
travels, the rest would think that the
reputation of their wisdom would sink, and
that their interest would be much
depressed, if they could not run it down: and

-4-

and a prodigious memory; and those
excellent talents with which nature had
furnished him were improved by study and
experience. When I was in England the King
depended much on his counsels, and the
government seemed to be chiefly
supported by him; for from his youth he had
been all along practised in affairs; and
having passed through many traverses of
fortune, he had with great cost acquired a
vast stock of wisdom, which is not soon lost
when it is purchased so dear.

"One day when I was dining with him there
happened to be at table one of the English
lawyers, who took occasion to run out in a
high commendation of the severe execution
of justice upon thieves, who, as he said,
were then hanged so fast that there were
sometimes twenty on one gibbet; and upon
that he said he could not wonder enough
how it came to pass, that since so few
escaped, there were yet so many thieves
left who were still robbing in all places.
Upon this, I who took the boldness to speak
freely before the cardinal, said there was no
reason to wonder at the matter, since this
way of punishing thieves was neither just in
itself nor good for the public; for as the
severity was too great, so the remedy was
not effectual; simple theft not being so great
a crime that it ought to cost a man his life, no
punishment how severe soever being able
to restrain those from robbing who can find
out no other way of livelihood. 'In this,' said
I, 'not only you in England, but a great part of
the world imitate some ill masters that are
readier to chastise their scholars than to
teach them. There are dreadful
punishments enacted against thieves, but it
were much better to make such good
provisions by which every man might be put
in a method how to live, and so be
preserved from the fatal necessity of
stealing and of dying for it.'

-5-

serve a poor man for so small a hire, and in
so low a diet as he can afford to give him.'

"To this he answered: 'This sort of men
ought to be particularly cherished, for in
them consists the force of the armies for
which we have occasion; since their birth
inspires them with a nobler sense of honor
than is to be found among tradesmen or
ploughmen.'

"'You may as well say,' replied I, 'that you
must cherish thieves on the account of
wars, for you will never want the one as long
as you have the other; and as robbers prove
sometimes gallant soldiers, so soldiers
often prove brave robbers; so near an
alliance there is between those two sorts of
life. But this bad custom, so common
among you, of keeping many servants, is
not peculiar to this nation. In France there is
yet a more pestiferous sort of people, for
the whole country is full of soldiers, still kept
up in time of peace, if such a state of a
nation can be called a peace: and these are
kept in pay upon the same account that you
plead for those idle retainers about
noblemen; this being a maxim of those
pretended statesmen that it is necessary for
the public safety to have a good body of
veteran soldiers ever in readiness. They
think raw men are not to be depended on,
and they sometimes seek occasions for
making war, that they may train up their
soldiers in the art of cutting throats; or as
Sallust observed, for keeping their hands in
use, that they may not grow dull by too long
an intermission. But France has learned to
its cost how dangerous it is to feed such
beasts.

"'The fate of the Romans, Carthaginians,
and Syrians, and many other nations and
cities, which were both overturned and
quite ruined by those standing armies,
should make others wiser: and the folly of

-6-

swallowed up too little of the land, those
worthy countrymen turn the best inhabited
places in solitudes, for when an insatiable
wretch, who is a plague to his country,
resolves to enclose many thousand acres of
ground, the owners as well as tenants are
turned out of their possessions, by tricks, or
by main force, or being wearied out with ill-
usage, they are forced to sell them. By
which means those miserable people, both
men and women, married and unmarried,
old and young, with their poor but numerous
families (since country business requires
many hands), are all forced to change their
seats, not knowing whither to go; and they
must sell almost for nothing their household
stuff, which could not bring them much
money, even though they might stay for a
buyer. When that little money is at an end, for
it will be soon spent, what is left for them to
do, but either to steal and so to be hanged
(God knows how justly), or to go about and
beg? And if they do this, they are put in
prison as idle vagabonds; while they would
willingly work, but can find none that will hire
them; for there is no more occasion for
country labor, to which they have been bred,
when there is no arable ground left. One
shepherd can look after a flock which will
stock an extent of ground that would require
many hands if it were to be ploughed and
reaped. This likewise in many places raises
the price of corn.

"'The price of wool is also so risen that the
poor people who were wont to make cloth
are no more able to buy it; and this likewise
makes many of them idle. For since the
increase of pasture, God has punished the
avarice of the owners by a rot among the
sheep, which has destroyed vast numbers
of them; to us it might have seemed more
just had it fell on the owners themselves.
But suppose the sheep should increase
ever so much, their price is not like to fall;
since though they cannot be called a

-7-

for a supply. Banish these plagues, and
give orders that those who have dispeopled
so much soil, may either rebuild the villages
they have pulled down, or let out their
grounds to such as will do it: restrain those
engrossings of the rich, that are as bad
almost as monopolies; leave fewer
occasions to idleness; let agriculture be set
up again, and the manufacture of the wool
be regulated, that so there may be work
found for those companies of idle people
whom want forces to be thieves, or who,
now being idle vagabonds or useless
servants, will certainly grow thieves at last. If
you do not find a remedy to these evils, it is
a vain thing to boast of your severity in
punishing theft, which though it may have
the appearance of justice, yet in itself is
neither just nor convenient. For if you suffer
your people to be ill-educated, and their
manners to be corrupted from their infancy,
and then punish them for those crimes to
which their first education disposed them,
what else is to be concluded from this, but
that you first make thieves and then punish
them ?'

"While I was talking thus, the counsellor who
was present had prepared an answer, and
had resolved to resume all I had said,
according to the formality of a debate, in
which things are generally repeated more
faithfully than they are answered; as if the
chief trial to be made were of men's
memories.

"'You have talked prettily for a stranger,'
said he, 'having heard of many things
among us which you have not been able to
consider well; but I will make the whole
matter plain to you, and will first repeat in
order all that you have said, then I will show
how much your ignorance of our affairs has
misled you, and will in the last place answer
all your arguments. And that I may begin
where I promised, there were four things--'

-8-

divine law, and so makes murder a lawful
action; what is this, but to give a preference
to human laws before the divine?

"'And if this is once admitted, by the same
rule men may in all other things put what
restrictions they please upon the laws of
God. If by the Mosaical law, though it was
rough and severe, as being a yoke laid on
an obstinate and servile nation, men were
only fined and not put to death for theft, we
cannot imagine that in this new law of
mercy, in which God treats us with the
tenderness of a father, he has given us a
greater license to cruelty than he did to the
Jews. Upon these reasons it is that I think
putting thieves to death is not lawful; and it
is plain and obvious that it is absurd, and of
ill-consequence to the commonwealth, that
a thief and a murderer should be equally
punished; for if a robber sees that his
danger is the same, if he is convicted of
theft as if he were guilty of murder, this will
naturally incite him to kill the person whom
otherwise he would only have robbed, since
if the punishment is the same, there is more
security, and less danger of discovery,
when he that can best make it is put out of
the way; so that terrifying thieves too much,
provokes them to cruelty.

"But as to the question, What more
convenient way of punishment can be
found? I think it is much more easier to find
out that than to invent anything that is worse;
why should we doubt but the way that was
so long in use among the old Romans, who
understood so well the arts of government,
was very proper for their punishment? They
condemned such as they found guilty of
great crimes, to work their whole lives in
quarries, or to dig in mines with chains
about them. But the method that I liked best,
was that which I observed in my travels in
Persia, among the Polylerits, who are a
considerable and well-governed people.

-9-

charitable contribution; and though this way
may seem uncertain, yet so merciful are the
inclinations of that people, that they are
plentifully supplied by it; but in other places,
public revenues are set aside for them; or
there is a constant tax of a poll-money
raised for their maintenance. In some
places they are set to no public work, but
every private man that has occasion to hire
workmen goes to the market-places and
hires them of the public, a little lower than he
would do a freeman: if they go lazily about
their task, he may quicken them with the
whip.

"'By this means there is always some piece
of work or other to be done by them; and
beside their livelihood, they earn somewhat
still to the public. They all wear a peculiar
habit, of one certain color, and their hair is
cropped a little above their ears, and a
piece of one of their ears is cut off. Their
friends are allowed to give them either
meat, drink, or clothes so they are of their
proper color, but it is death, both to the giver
and taker, if they give them money; nor is it
less penal for any freeman to take money
from them, upon any account whatsoever:
and it is also death for any of these slaves
(so they are called) to handle arms. Those
of every division of the country are
distinguished by a peculiar mark; which it is
capital for them to lay aside, to go out of
their bounds, or to talk with a slave of
another jurisdiction; and the very attempt of
an escape is no less penal than an escape
itself; it is death for any other slave to be
accessory to it; and if a freeman engages in
it he is condemned to slavery. Those that
discover it are rewarded--if freemen, in
money; and if slaves, with liberty, together
with a pardon for being accessory to it; that
so they might find their account, rather in
repenting of their engaging in such a
design, than in persisting in it.

-10-

ever be expected from that severe justice
which the counsellor magnified so much. To
this he answered that it could never take
place in England without endangering the
whole nation. As he said this he shook his
head, made some grimaces, and held his
peace, while all the company seemed of his
opinion, except the cardinal, who said that it
was not easy to form a judgment of its
success, since it was a method that never
yet had been tried.

"'But if,' said he, 'when the sentence of
death was passed upon a thief, the prince
would reprieve him for a while, and make
the experiment upon him, denying him the
privilege of a sanctuary; and then if it had a
good effect upon him, it might take place;
and if it did not succeed, the worst would
be, to execute the sentence on the
condemned persons at last. And I do not
see,' added he, 'why it would be either
unjust, inconvenient, or at all dangerous, to
admit of such a delay: in my opinion, the
vagabonds ought to be treated in the same
manner; against whom, though we have
made many laws, yet we have not been
able to gain our end.' When the cardinal had
done, they all commended the motion,
though they had despised it when it came
from me; but more particularly commended
what related to the vagabonds, because it
was his own observation.

"I do not know whether it be worth while to
tell what followed, for it was very ridiculous;
but I shall venture at it, for as it is not foreign
to this matter, so some good use may be
made of it. There was a jester standing by,
that counterfeited the fool so naturally that
he seemed to be really one. The jests which
he offered were so cold and dull that we
laughed more at him than at them; yet
sometimes he said, as it were by chance,
things that were not unpleasant; so as to
justify the old proverb, 'That he who throws

-11-

easily imagined, and fell into such a
passion that he could not forbear railing at
the fool, and calling him knave, slanderer,
backbiter, and son of perdition, and then
cited some dreadful threatenings out of the
Scriptures against him. Now the jester
thought he was in his element, and laid
about him freely.

"'Good friar,' said he, 'be not angry, for it is
written, "In patience possess your soul."'

"The friar answered (for I shall give you his
own words), 'I am not angry, you hangman;
at least I do not sin in it, for the Psalmist
says, "Be ye angry, and sin not."'

"Upon this the cardinal admonished him
gently, and wished him to govern his
passions.

"'No, my lord,' said he, 'I speak not but from
a good zeal, which I ought to have; for holy
men have had a good zeal, as it is said,
"The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up;"
and we sing in our church, that those, who
mocked Elisha as he went up to the house
of God, felt the effects of his zeal; which
that mocker, that rogue, that scoundrel, will
perhaps feel.'

"'You do this perhaps with a good intention,'
said the cardinal; 'but in my opinion it were
wiser in you, and perhaps better for you, not
to engage in so ridiculous a contest with a
fool.'

"'No, my lord,' answered he, 'that were not
wisely done; for Solomon, the wisest of
men, said, "Answer a fool according to his
folly;" which I now do, and show him the
ditch into which he will fall, if he is not aware
of it; for if the many mockers of Elisha, who
was but one bald man, felt the effect of his
zeal, what will become of one mocker of so
many friars, among whom there are so

-12-

Plato thinks that nations will be happy, when
either philosophers become kings or kings
become philosophers, it is no wonder if we
are so far from that happiness, while
philosophers will not think it their duty to
assist kings with their councils.

"'They are not so base-minded,' said he,
'but that they would willingly do it: many of
them have already done it by their books, if
those that are in power would but hearken to
their good advice.' But Plato judged right,
that except kings themselves became
philosophers, they who from their childhood
are corrupted with false notions would
never fall in entirely with the councils of
philosophers, and this he himself found to
be true in the person of Dionysius.

"Do not you think that if I were about any
king, proposing good laws to him, and
endeavoring to root out all the cursed seeds
of evil that I found in him, I should either be
turned out of his court or at least be laughed
at for my pains? For instance, what could it
signify if I were about the King of France,
and were called into his Cabinet Council,
where several wise men, in his hearing,
were proposing many expedients, as by
what arts and practices Milan may be kept,
and Naples, that had so oft slipped out of
their hands, recovered; how the Venetians,
and after them the rest of Italy, may be
subdued; and then how Flanders, Brabant,
and all Burgundy, and some other kingdoms
which he has swallowed already in his
designs, may be added to his empire. One
proposes a league with the Venetians, to
be kept as long as he finds his account in it,
and that he ought to communicate councils
with them, and give them some share of the
spoil, till his success makes him need or
fear them less, and then it will be easily
taken out of their hands. Another proposes
the hiring the Germans, and the securing the
Switzers by pensions. Another proposes

-13-

disband their army; that in the meantime
they were oppressed with taxes, their
money went out of the kingdom, their blood
was spilt for the glory of their King, without
procuring the least advantage to the people,
who received not the smallest benefit from it
even in time of peace; and that their
manners being corrupted by a long war,
robbery and murders everywhere
abounded, and their laws fell into contempt;
while their King, distracted with the care of
two kingdoms, was the less able to apply
his mind to the interests of either.

"When they saw this, and that there would be
no end to these evils, they by joint councils
made an humble address to their King,
desiring him to choose which of the two
kingdoms he had the greatest mind to keep,
since he could not hold both; for they were
too great a people to be governed by a
divided king, since no man would willingly
have a groom that should be in common
between him and another. Upon which the
good prince was forced to quit his new
kingdom to one of his friends (who was not
long after dethroned), and to be contented
with his old one. To this I would add that
after all those warlike attempts, the vast
confusions, and the consumption both of
treasure and of people that must follow
them; perhaps upon some misfortune, they
might be forced to throw up all at last;
therefore it seemed much more eligible that
the King should improve his ancient
kingdom all he could, and make it flourish
as much as possible; that he should love his
people, and be beloved of them; that he
should live among them, govern them
gently, and let other kingdoms alone, since
that which had fallen to his share was big
enough, if not too big for him. Pray how do
you think would such a speech as this be
heard?"

"I confess," said I, "I think not very well."

-14-

hear them argue those points in which he is
concerned; since how unjust soever any of
his pretensions may be, yet still some one
or other of them, either out of contradiction
to others or the pride of singularity or to
make their court, would find out some
pretence or other to give the King a fair
color to carry the point: for if the judges but
differ in opinion, the clearest thing in the
world is made by that means disputable,
and truth being once brought in question,
the King may then take advantage to
expound the law for his own profit; while the
judges that stand out will be brought over,
either out of fear or modesty; and they being
thus gained, all of them may be sent to the
bench to give sentence boldly, as the King
would have it; for fair pretences will never
be wanting when sentence is to be given in
the prince's favor. It will either be said that
equity lies on his side, or some words in the
law will be found sounding that way, or
some forced sense will be put on them; and
when all other things fail, the King's
undoubted prerogative will be pretended,
as that which is above all law; and to which
a religious judge ought to have a special
regard.

"Thus all consent to that maxim of Crassus,
that a prince cannot have treasure enough,
since he must maintain his armies out of it:
that a king, even though he would, can do
nothing unjustly; that all property is in him,
not excepting the very persons of his
subjects: and that no man has any other
property, but that which the King out of his
goodness thinks fit to leave him. And they
think it is the prince's interest, that there be
as little of this left as may be, as if it were his
advantage that his people should have
neither riches nor liberty; since these things
make them less easy and less willing to
submit to a cruel and unjust government;
whereas necessity and poverty blunt them,
make them patient, beat them down, and

-15-

shows that he knows not what it is to govern
a free nation. He himself ought rather to
shake off his sloth, or to lay down his pride;
for the contempt or hatred that his people
have for him, takes its rise from the vices in
himself. Let him live upon what belongs to
him, without wronging others, and
accommodate his expense to his revenue.
Let him punish crimes, and by his wise
conduct let him endeavor to prevent them,
rather than be severe when he has suffered
them to be too common: let him not rashly
revive laws that are abrogated by disuse,
especially if they have been long forgotten,
and never wanted; and let him never take
any penalty for the breach of them, to which
a judge would not give way in a private
man, but would look on him as a crafty and
unjust person for pretending to it.

"To these things I would add that law among
the Macarians, a people that live not far
from Utopia, by which their King, on the day
on which he begins to reign, is tied by an
oath confirmed by solemn sacrifices, never
to have at once above 1,000 pounds of gold in
his treasures, or so much silver as is equal
to that in value. This law, they tell us, was
made by an excellent king, who had more
regard to the riches of his country than to his
own wealth, and therefore provided against
the heaping up of so much treasure as
might impoverish the people. He thought
that a moderate sum might be sufficient for
any accident, if either the King had
occasion for it against rebels, or the
kingdom against the invasion of an enemy;
but that it was not enough to encourage a
prince to invade other men's rights, a
circumstance that was the chief cause of
his making that law. He also thought that it
was a good provision for that free
circulation of money, so necessary for the
course of commerce and exchange: and
when a king must distribute all those
extraordinary accessions that increase

-16-

much better. Therefore go through with the
play that is acting, the best you can, and do
not confound it because another that is
pleasanter comes into your thoughts. It is
even so in a commonwealth and in the
councils of princes; if ill opinions cannot be
quite rooted out, and you cannot cure some
received vice according to your wishes, you
must not therefore abandon the
commonwealth; for the same reasons you
should not forsake the ship in a storm
because you cannot command the winds.
You are not obliged to assault people with
discourses that are out of their road, when
you see that their received notions must
prevent your making an impression upon
them. You ought rather to cast about and to
manage things with all the dexterity in your
power, so that if you are not able to make
them go well they may be as little ill as
possible; for except all men were good
everything cannot be right, and that is a
blessing that I do not at present hope to
see."

"According to your arguments," answered
he, "all that I could be able to do would be to
preserve myself from being mad while I
endeavored to cure the madness of others;
for if I speak truth, I must repeat what I have
said to you; and as for lying, whether a
philosopher can do it or not, I cannot tell; I
am sure I cannot do it. But though these
discourses may be uneasy and ungrateful to
them, I do not see why they should seem
foolish or extravagant: indeed if I should
either propose such things as Plato has
contrived in his commonwealth, or as the
Utopians practise in theirs, though they
might seem better, as certainly they are, yet
they are so different from our
establishment, which is founded on
property, there being no such thing among
them, that I could not expect that it would
have any effect on them; but such
discourses as mine, which only call past

-17-

casting about, as you call it, that he will find
no occasions of doing any good: the ill
company will sooner corrupt him than be the
better for him: or if notwithstanding all their
ill company, he still remains steady and
innocent, yet their follies and knavery will be
imputed to him; and by mixing counsels with
them, he must bear his share of all the
blame that belongs wholly to others.

"It was no ill simile by which Plato set forth
the unreasonableness of a philosopher's
meddling with government. If a man, says
he, was to see a great company run out
every day into the rain, and take delight in
being wet; if he knew that it would be to no
purpose for him to go and persuade them to
return to their houses, in order to avoid the
storm, and that all that could be expected by
his going to speak to them would be that he
himself should be as wet as they, it would
be best for him to keep within doors; and
since he had not influence enough to correct
other people's folly, to take care to preserve
himself.

"Though to speak plainly my real
sentiments, I must freely own that as long as
there is any property, and while money is
the standard of all other things, I cannot think
that a nation can be governed either justly or
happily: not justly, because the best things
will fall to the share of the worst men; nor
happily, because all things will be divided
among a few (and even these are not in all
respects happy), the rest being left to be
absolutely miserable. Therefore when I
reflect on the wise and good constitution of
the Utopians--among whom all things are
so well governed, and with so few laws;
where virtue hath its due reward, and yet
there is such an equality, that every man
lives in plenty when I compare with them so
many other nations that are still making new
laws, and yet can never bring their
constitution to a right regulation, where

-18-

become too insolent, and that none might
factiously aspire to public employments;
which ought neither to be sold, nor made
burdensome by a great expense; since
otherwise those that serve in them would be
tempted to reimburse themselves by cheats
and violence, and it would become
necessary to find out rich men for
undergoing those employments which
ought rather to be trusted to the wise--
these laws, I say, might have such effects,
as good diet and care might have on a sick
man, whose recovery is desperate: they
might allay and mitigate the disease, but it
could never be quite healed, nor the body
politic be brought again to a good habit, as
long as property remains; and it will fall out
as in a complication of diseases, that by
applying a remedy to one sore, you will
provoke another; and that which removes
the one ill symptom produces others, while
the strengthening one part of the body
weakens the rest."

"On the contrary," answered I, "it seems to
me that men cannot live conveniently where
all things are common: how can there be
any plenty, where every man will excuse
himself from labor? For as the hope of gain
doth not excite him, so the confidence that
he has in other men's industry may make
him slothful: if people come to be pinched
with want, and yet cannot dispose of
anything as their own; what can follow upon
this but perpetual sedition and bloodshed,
especially when the reverence and authority
due to magistrates fall to the ground? For I
cannot imagine how that can be kept up
among those that are in all things equal to
one another."

"I do not wonder," said he, "that it appears
so to you, since you have no notion, or at
least no right one, of such a constitution: but
if you had been in Utopia with me, and had
seen their laws and rules, as I did, for the

-19-

then among the Romans, and which were
known to these shipwrecked men: and by
the hints that they gave them, they
themselves found out even some of those
arts which they could not fully explain; so
happily did they improve that accident, of
having some of our people cast upon their
shore.

"But if such an accident has at any time
brought any from thence into Europe, we
have been so far from improving it, that we
do not so much as remember it; as in after-
times perhaps it will be forgot by our people
that I was ever there. For though they from
one such accident made themselves
masters of all the good inventions that were
among us; yet I believe it would be long
before we should learn or put in practice any
of the good institutions that are among
them. And this is the true cause of their
being better governed, and living happier
than we, though we come not short of them
in point of understanding or outward
advantages."

Upon this I said to him: "I earnestly beg you
would describe that island very particularly
to us. Be not too short, but set out in order all
things relating to their soil, their rivers, their
towns, their people, their manners,
constitution, laws, and, in a word, all that
you imagine we desire to know. And you
may well imagine that we desire to know
everything concerning them, of which we
are hitherto ignorant."

"I will do it very willingly," said he, "for I have
digested the whole matter carefully; but it
will take up some time."

"Let us go then," said I, "first and dine, and
then we shall have leisure enough."

He consented. We went in and dined, and
after dinner came back and sat down in the

-20-

remain good marks of it to make it credible)
that this was no island at first, but a part of
the continent. Utopus that conquered it
(whose name it still carries, for Abraxa was
its first name) brought the rude and
uncivilized inhabitants into such a good
government, and to that measure of
politeness, that they now far excel all the
rest of mankind; having soon subdued
them, he designed to separate them from
the continent, and to bring the sea quite
round them. To accomplish this, he ordered
a deep channel to be dug fifteen miles long;
and that the natives might not think he
treated them like slaves, he not only forced
the inhabitants, but also his own soldiers, to
labor in carrying it on. As he set a vast
number of men to work, he beyond all
men's expectations brought it to a speedy
conclusion. And his neighbors who at first
laughed at the folly of the undertaking, no
sooner saw it brought to perfection than
they were struck with admiration and terror.

There are fifty-four cities in the island, all
large and well built: the manners, customs,
and laws of which are the same, and they
are all contrived as near in the same manner
as the ground on which they stand will allow.
The nearest lie at least twenty-four miles
distance from one another, and the most
remote are not so far distant but that a man
can go on foot in one day from it to that
which lies next it. Every city sends three of
its wisest Senators once a year to Amaurot,
to consult about their common concerns; for
that is the chief town of the island, being
situated near the centre of it, so that it is the
most convenient place for their assemblies.
The jurisdiction of every city extends at
least twenty miles: and where the towns lie
wider, they have much more ground: no
town desires to enlarge its bounds, for the
people consider themselves rather as
tenants than landlords. They have built over
all the country, farmhouses for

-21-

which they employ oxen; for though their
horses are stronger, yet they find oxen can
hold out longer; and as they are not subject
to so many diseases, so they are kept upon
a less charge, and with less trouble; and
even when they are so worn out, that they
are no more fit for labor, they are good meat
at last. They sow no corn, but that which is to
be their bread; for they drink either wine,
cider, or perry, and often water, sometimes
boiled with honey or licorice, with which
they abound; and though they know exactly
how much corn will serve every town, and all
that tract of country which belongs to it, yet
they sow much more, and breed more cattle
than are necessary for their consumption;
and they give that overplus of which they
make no use to their neighbors. When they
want anything in the country which it does
not produce, they fetch that from the town,
without carrying anything in exchange for it.
And the magistrates of the town take care to
see it given them; for they meet generally in
the town once a month, upon a festival day.
When the time of harvest comes, the
magistrates in the country send to those in
the towns, and let them know how many
hands they will need for reaping the harvest;
and the number they call for being sent to
them, they commonly despatch it all in one
day.

BOOK II: OF THEIR TOWNS,
PARTICULARLY OF AMAUROT

HE that knows one of their towns knows
them all, they are so like one another,
except w here the situation makes some
difference. I shall therefore describe one of
them; and none is so proper as Amaurot;
for as none is more eminent, all the rest
yielding in precedence to this, because it is
the seat of their Supreme Council, so there
was none of them better known to me, I
having lived five years altogether in it.

-22-

which supplies the want of the other. The
town is compassed with a high and thick
wall, in which there are many towers and
forts; there is also a broad and deep dry
ditch, set thick with thorns, cast round three
sides of the town, and the river is instead of
a ditch on the fourth side. The streets are
very convenient for all carriage, and are well
sheltered from the winds. Their buildings
are good, and are so uniform that a whole
side of a street looks like one house. The
streets are twenty feet broad; there lie
gardens behind all their houses; these are
large but enclosed with buildings that on all
hands face the streets; so that every house
has both a door to the street, and a back
door to the garden. Their doors have all two
leaves, which, as they are easily opened,
so they shut of their own accord; and there
being no property among them, every man
may freely enter into any house whatsoever.
At every ten years' end they shift their
houses by lots.

They cultivate their gardens with great care,
so that they have vines, fruits, herbs, and
flowers in them; and all is so well ordered,
and so finely kept, that I never saw gardens
anywhere that were both so fruitful and so
beautiful as theirs. And this humor of
ordering their gardens so well is not only
kept up by the pleasure they find in it, but
also by an emulation between the
inhabitants of the several streets, who vie
with each other; and there is indeed nothing
belonging to the whole town that is both
more useful and more pleasant. So that he
who founded the town seems to have taken
care of nothing more than of their gardens;
for they say, the whole scheme of the town
was designed at first by Utopus, but he left
all that belonged to the ornament and
improvement of it to be added by those that
should come after him, that being too much
for one man to bring to perfection. Their
records, that contain the history of their town

-23-

either concerning the affairs of the State in
general or such private differences as may
arise sometimes among the people; though
that falls out but seldom. There are always
two syphogrants called into the council-
chamber, and these are changed every day.
It is a fundamental rule of their government
that no conclusion can be made in anything
that relates to the public till it has been first
debated three several days in their Council.
It is death for any to meet and consult
concerning the State, unless it be either in
their ordinary Council, or in the assembly of
the whole body of the people.

These things have been so provided among
them, that the prince and the tranibors may
not conspire together to change the
government and enslave the people; and
therefore when anything of great
importance is set on foot, it is sent to the
syphogrants; who after they have
communicated it to the families that belong
to their divisions, and have considered it
among themselves, make report to the
Senate; and upon great occasions, the
matter is referred to the Council of the
whole island. One rule observed in their
Council, is, never to debate a thing on the
same day in which it is first proposed; for
that is always referred to the next meeting,
that so men may not rashly, and in the heat
of discourse, engage themselves too soon,
which might bias them so much, that
instead of consulting the good of the public,
they might rather study to support their first
opinions, and by a perverse and
preposterous sort of shame, hazard their
country rather than endanger their own
reputation, or venture the being suspected
to have wanted foresight in the expedients
that they at first proposed. And therefore to
prevent this, they take care that they may
rather be deliberate than sudden in their
motions.

-24-

unless the public has more occasion for the
other.

The chief, and almost the only business of
the syphogrants, is to take care that no man
may live idle, but that every one may follow
his trade diligently: yet they do not wear
themselves out with perpetual toil, from
morning to night, as if they were beasts of
burden, which, as it is indeed a heavy
slavery, so it is everywhere the common
course of life among all mechanics except
the Utopians; but they dividing the day and
night into twenty-four hours, appoint six of
these for work; three of which are before
dinner, and three after. They then sup, and
at eight o'clock, counting from noon, go to
bed and sleep eight hours. The rest of their
time besides that taken up in work, eating
and sleeping, is left to every man's
discretion; yet they are not to abuse that
interval to luxury and idleness, but must
employ it in some proper exercise
according to their various inclinations,
which is for the most part reading. It is
ordinary to have public lectures every
morning before daybreak; at which none
are obliged to appear but those who are
marked out for literature; yet a great many,
both men and women of all ranks, go to
hear lectures of one sort of other, according
to their inclinations. But if others, that are not
made for contemplation, choose rather to
employ themselves at that time in their
trades, as many of them do, they are not
hindered, but are rather commended, as
men that take care to serve their country.
After supper, they spend an hour in some
diversion, in summer in their gardens, and
in winter in the halls where they eat; where
they entertain each other, either with music
or discourse. They do not so much as know
dice, or any such foolish and mischievous
games: they have, however, two sorts of
games not unlike our chess; the one is
between several numbers, in which one

-25-

the conveniences of life require, there
would be such an abundance of them that
the prices of them would so sink that
tradesmen could not be maintained by their
gains; if all those who labor about useless
things were set to more profitable
employments, and if all they that languish
out their lives in sloth and idleness, every
one of whom consumes as much as any two
of the men that are at work, were forced to
labor, you may easily imagine that a small
proportion of time would serve for doing all
that is either necessary, profitable, or
pleasant to mankind, especially while
pleasure is kept within its due bounds.

This appears very plainly in Utopia, for
there, in a great city, and in all the territory
that lies round it, you can scarce find 500,
either men or women, by their age and
strength, are capable of labor, that are not
engaged in it; even the syphogrants, though
excused by the law, yet do not excuse
themselves, but work, that by their
examples they may excite the industry of the
rest of the people. The like exemption is
allowed to those who, being recommended
to the people by the priests, are by the
secret suffrages of the syphogrants
privileged from labor, that they may apply
themselves wholly to study; and if any of
these fall short of those hopes that they
seemed at first to give, they are obliged to
return to work. And sometimes a mechanic,
that so employs his leisure hours, as to
make a considerable advancement in
learning, is eased from being a tradesman,
and ranked among their learned men. Out of
these they choose their ambassadors, their
priests, their tranibors, and the prince
himself, anciently called their Barzenes, but
is called of late their Ademus.

And thus from the great numbers among
them that are neither suffered to be idle, nor
to be employed in any fruitless labor, you

-26-

without much regard to the fineness of the
thread: while in other places, four or five
upper garments of woollen cloth, of
different colors, and as many vests of silk,
will scarce serve one man; and while those
that are nicer think ten are too few, every
man there is content with one, which very
often serves him two years. Nor is there
anything that can tempt a man to desire
more; for if he had them, he would neither
be the warmer nor would he make one jot
the better appearance for it. And thus, since
they are all employed in some useful labor,
and since they content themselves with
fewer things, it falls out that there is a great
abundance of all things among them: so that
it frequently happens that, for want of other
work, vast numbers are sent out to mend the
highways. But when no public undertaking
is to be performed, the hours of working are
lessened. The magistrates never engage
the people in unnecessary labor, since the
chief end of the constitution is to regulate
labor by the necessities of the public, and to
allow all the people as much time as is
necessary for the improvement of their
minds, in which they think the happiness of
life consists.

BOOK II: OF THEIR TRAFFIC

BUT it is now time to explain to you the
mutual intercourse of this people, their
commerce, and the rules by which all things
are distributed among them.

As their cities are composed of families, so
their families are made up of those that are
nearly related to one another. Their women,
when they grow up, are married out; but all
the males, both children and grandchildren,
live still in the same house, in great
obedience to their common parent, unless
age has weakened his understanding: and
in that case, he that is next to him in age
comes in his room. But lest any city should

-27-

have fallen out but twice since they were
first a people, when great numbers were
carried off by the plague, the loss is then
supplied by recalling as many as are
wanted from their colonies; for they will
abandon these, rather than suffer the towns
in the island to sink too low.

But to return to their manner of living in
society, the oldest man of every family, as
has been already said, is its governor.
Wives serve their husbands, and children
their parents, and always the younger
serves the elder. Every city is divided into
four equal parts, and in the middle of each
there is a marketplace: what is brought
thither, and manufactured by the several
families, is carried from thence to houses
appointed for that purpose, in which all
things of a sort are laid by themselves; and
thither every father goes and takes
whatsoever he or his family stand in need
of, without either paying for it or leaving
anything in exchange. There is no reason for
giving a denial to any person, since there is
such plenty of everything among them; and
there is no danger of a man's asking for
more than he needs; they have no
inducements to do this, since they are sure
that they shall always be supplied. It is the
fear of want that makes any of the whole
race of animals either greedy or ravenous;
but besides fear, there is in man a pride that
makes him fancy it a particular glory to excel
others in pomp and excess. But by the laws
of the Utopians, there is no room for this.
Near these markets there are others for all
sorts of provisions, where there are not only
herbs, fruits, and bread, but also fish, fowl,
and cattle.

There are also, without their towns, places
appointed near some running water, for
killing their beasts, and for washing away
their filth, which is done by their slaves: for
they suffer none of their citizens to kill their

-28-

the halls, in proportion to their numbers,
only, in the first place, they serve the Prince,
the chief priest, the tranibors, the
ambassadors, and strangers, if there are
any, which indeed falls out but seldom, and
for whom there are houses well furnished,
particularly appointed for their reception
when they come among them. At the hours
of dinner and supper, the whole
syphogranty being called together by sound
of trumpet, they meet and eat together,
except only such as are in the hospitals or lie
sick at home. Yet after the halls are served,
no man is hindered to carry provisions
home from the market-place; for they know
that none does that but for some good
reason; for though any that will may eat at
home, yet none does it willingly, since it is
both ridiculous and foolish for any to give
themselves the trouble to make ready an ill
dinner at home, when there is a much more
plentiful one made ready for him so near at
hand. All the uneasy and sordid services
about these halls are performed by their
slaves; but the dressing and cooking their
meat, and the ordering their tables, belong
only to the women, all those of every family
taking it by turns. They sit at three or more
tables, according to their number; the men
sit toward the wall, and the women sit on the
other side, that if any of them should be
taken suddenly ill, which is no uncommon
case among women with child, she may,
without disturbing the rest, rise and go to the
nurses' room, who are there with the
sucking children, where there is always
clean water at hand, and cradles in which
they may lay the young children, if there is
occasion for it, and a fire that they may shift
and dress them before it.

Every child is nursed by its own mother, if
death or sickness does not intervene; and in
that case the syphogrants' wives find out a
nurse quickly, which is no hard matter; for
anyone that can do it offers herself

-29-

their meals, that the younger may not put in
for a share: on the contrary, they engage
them to talk, that so they may in that free
way of conversation find out the force of
everyone's spirit and observe his temper.
They despatch their dinners quickly, but sit
long at supper; because they go to work
after the one, and are to sleep after the
other, during which they think the stomach
carries on the concoction more vigorously.
They never sup without music; and there is
always fruit served up after meat; while they
are at table, some burn perfumes and
sprinkle about fragrant ointments and sweet
waters: in short, they want nothing that may
cheer up their spirits: they give themselves a
large allowance that way, and indulge
themselves in all such pleasures as are
attended with no inconvenience. Thus do
those that are in the towns live together; but
in the country, where they live at great
distance, everyone eats at home, and no
family wants any necessary sort of
provision, for it is from them that provisions
are sent unto those that live in the towns.

BOOK II: OF THE TRAVELLING OF THE
UTOPIANS

IF any man has a mind to visit his friends
that live in some other town, or desires to
travel and see the rest of the country, he
obtains leave very easily from the
syphogrant and tranibors when there is no
particular occasion for him at home: such as
travel, carry with them a passport from the
Prince, which both certifies the license that
is granted for travelling, and limits the time
of their return. They are furnished with a
wagon, and a slave who drives the oxen
and looks after them; but unless there are
women in the company, the wagon is sent
back at the end of the journey as a needless
encumbrance. While they are on the road,
they carry no provisions with them; yet they
want nothing, but are everywhere treated as

-30-

and laid up stores for two years, which they
do to prevent the ill-consequences of an
unfavorable season, they order an
exportation of the overplus, of corn, honey,
wool, flax, wood, wax, tallow, leather, and
cattle; which they send out commonly in
great quantities to other nations. They order
a seventh part of all these goods to be freely
given to the poor of the countries to which
they send them, and sell the rest at
moderate rates. And by this exchange, they
not only bring back those few things that
they need at home (for indeed they scarce
need anything but iron), but likewise a great
deal of gold and silver; and by their driving
this trade so long, it is not to be imagined
how vast a treasure they have got among
them: so that now they do not much care
whether they sell off their merchandise for
money in hand, or upon trust.

A great part of their treasure is now in
bonds; but in all their contracts no private
man stands bound, but the writing runs in
the name of the town; and the towns that
owe them money raise it from those private
hands that owe it to them, lay it Up in their
public chamber, or enjoy the profit of it till
the Utopians call for it; and they choose
rather to let the greatest part of it lie in their
hands who make advantage by it, than to
call for it themselves: but if they see that any
of their other neighbors stand more in need
of it, then they call it in and lend it to them:
whenever they are engaged in war, which is
the only occasion in which their treasure can
be usefully employed, they make use of it
themselves. In great extremities or sudden
accidents they employ it in hiring foreign
troops, whom they more willingly expose to
danger than their own people: they give
them great pay, knowing well that this will
work even on their enemies, that it will
engage them either to betray their own side,
or at least to desert it, and that it is the best
means of raising mutual jealousies among

-31-

and so be unwilling to let the plate be run
down if a war made it necessary to employ
it in paying their soldiers. To prevent all
these inconveniences, they have fallen upon
an expedient, which, as it agrees with their
other policy, so is it very different from ours,
and will scarce gain belief among us, who
value gold so much and lay it up so carefully.
They eat and drink out of vessels of earth, or
glass, which make an agreeable
appearance though formed of brittle
materials: while they make their chamber-
pots and close-stools of gold and silver;
and that not only in their public halls, but in
their private houses: of the same metals
they likewise make chains and fetters for
their slaves; to some of which, as a badge
of infamy, they hang an ear ring of gold, and
make others wear a chain or coronet of the
same metal; and thus they take care, by all
possible means, to render gold and silver of
no esteem. And from hence it is that while
other nations part with their gold and silver
as unwillingly as if one tore out their bowels,
those of Utopia would look on their giving in
all they possess of those (metals, when
there was any use for them) but as the
parting with a trifle, or as we would esteem
the loss of a penny. They find pearls on their
coast, and diamonds and carbuncles on
their rocks; they do not look after them, but,
if they find them by chance, they polish
them, and with them they adorn their
children, who are delighted with them, and
glory in them during their childhood; but
when they grow to years, and see that none
but children use such baubles, they of their
own accord, without being bid by their
parents, lay them aside; and would be as
much ashamed to use them afterward as
children among us, when they come to
years, are of their puppets and other toys.

I never saw a clearer instance of the
opposite impressions that different
customs make on people, than I observed in

-32-

other nations, that though they paid some
reverence to those that were the most
meanly clad, as if they had been the
ambassadors, yet when they saw the
ambassadors themselves, so full of gold
and chains, they looked upon them as
slaves, and forbore to treat them with
reverence. You might have seen the
children, who were grown big enough to
despise their playthings, and who had
thrown away their jewels, call to their
mothers, push them gently, and cry out,
"See that great fool that wears pearls and
gems, as if he were yet a child." While their
mothers very innocently replied, "Hold your
peace; this, I believe, is one of the
ambassador's fools." Others censured the
fashion of their chains, and observed that
they were of no use; for they were too slight
to bind their slaves, who could easily break
them; and besides hung so loose about
them that they thought it easy to throw them
away, and so get from them.

But after the ambassadors had stayed a
day among them, and saw so vast a
quantity of gold in their houses, which was
as much despised by them as it was
esteemed in other nations, and beheld
more gold and silver in the chains and
fetters of one slave than all their ornaments
amounted to, their plumes fell, and they
were ashamed of all that glory for which
they had formerly valued themselves, and
accordingly laid it aside; a resolution that
they immediately took, when on their
engaging in some free discourse with the
Utopians, they discovered their sense of
such things and their other customs. The
Utopians wonder how any man should be
so much taken with the glaring doubtful
lustre of a jewel or a stone, that can look up
to a star or to the sun himself; or how any
should value himself because his cloth is
made of a finer thread: for how fine soever
that thread may be, it was once no better

-33-

whole progress of life. They have all their
learning in their own tongue, which is both a
copious and pleasant language, and in
which a man can fully express his mind. It
runs over a great tract of many countries,
but it is not equally pure in all places. They
had never so much as heard of the names
of any of those philosophers that are so
famous in these parts of the world, before
we went among them; and yet they had
made the same discoveries as the Greeks,
in music, logic, arithmetic, and geometry.
But as they are almost in everything equal to
the ancient philosophers, so they far
exceed our modern logicians; for they have
never yet fallen upon the barbarous niceties
that our youth are forced to learn in those
trifling logical schools that are among us;
they are so far from minding chimeras, and
fantastical images made in the mind, that
none of them could comprehend what we
meant when we talked to them of man in the
abstract, as common to all men in particular
(so that though we spoke of him as a thing
that we could point at with our fingers, yet
none of them could perceive him), and yet
distinct from everyone, as if he were some
monstrous Colossus or giant.

Yet for all this ignorance of these empty
notions, they knew astronomy, and were
perfectly acquainted with the motions of the
heavenly bodies, and have many
instruments, well contrived and divided, by
which they very accurately compute the
course and positions of the sun, moon, and
stars. But for the cheat, of divining by the
stars by their oppositions or conjunctions, it
has not so much as entered into their
thoughts. They have a particular sagacity,
founded upon much observation, in judging
of the weather, by which they know when
they may look for rain, wind, or other
alterations in the air; but as to the
philosophy of these things, the causes of
the saltness of the sea, of its ebbing and

-34-

so insensible as not to seek after pleasure
by all possible means, lawful or unlawful;
using only this caution, that a lesser
pleasure might not stand in the way of a
greater, and that no pleasure ought to be
pursued that should draw a great deal of
pain after it; for they think it the maddest
thing in the world to pursue virtue, that is a
sour and difficult thing; and not only to
renounce the pleasures of life, but willingly
to undergo much pain and trouble, if a man
has no prospect of a reward. And what
reward can there be for one that has
passed his whole life, not only without
pleasure, but in pain, if there is nothing to be
expected after death? Yet they do not place
happiness in all sorts of pleasures, but only
in those that in themselves are good and
honest.

There is a party among them who place
happiness in bare virtue; others think that
our natures are conducted by virtue to
happiness, as that which is the chief good
of man. They define virtue thus, that it is a
living according to nature, and think that we
are made by God for that end; they believe
that a man then follows the dictates of
nature when he pursues or avoids things
according to the direction of reason; they
say that the first dictate of reason is the
kindling in us of a love and reverence for the
Divine Majesty, to whom we owe both all
that we have and all that we can ever hope
for. In the next place, reason directs us to
keep our minds as free from passion and
as cheerful as we can, and that we should
consider ourselves as bound by the ties of
good-nature and humanity to use our
utmost endeavors to help forward the
happiness of all other persons; for there
never was any man such a morose and
severe pursuer of virtue, such an enemy to
pleasure, that though he set hard rules for
men to undergo much pain, many
watchings, and other rigors, yet did not at

-35-

which a people that is neither oppressed
with tyranny nor circumvented by fraud, has
consented, for distributing those
conveniences of life which afford us all our
pleasures.

They think it is an evidence of true wisdom
for a man to pursue his own advantages as
far as the laws allow it. They account it piety
to prefer the public good to one's private
concerns; but they think it unjust for a man to
seek for pleasure by snatching another
man's pleasures from him. And on the
contrary, they think it a sign of a gentle and
good soul, for a man to dispense with his
own advantage for the good of others; and
that by this means a good man finds as
much pleasure one way as he parts with
another; for as he may expect the like from
others when he may come to need it, so if
that should fail him, yet the sense of a good
action, and the reflections that he makes on
the love and gratitude of those whom he has
so obliged, gives the mind more pleasure
than the body could have found in that from
which it had restrained itself. They are also
persuaded that God will make up the loss of
those small pleasures, with a vast and
endless joy, of which religion easily
convinces a good soul.

Thus, upon an inquiry into the whole matter,
they reckon that all our actions, and even all
our virtues, terminate in pleasure, as in our
chief end and greatest happiness; and they
call every motion or state, either of body or
mind, in which nature teaches us to delight,
a pleasure. Thus they cautiously limit
pleasure only to those appetites to which
nature leads us; for they say that nature
leads us only to those delights to which
reason as well as sense carries us, and by
which we neither injure any other person
nor lose the possession of greater
pleasures, and of such as draw no troubles
after them; but they look upon those delights

-36-

many who delight themselves with the fancy
of their nobility, and are pleased with this
conceit, that they are descended from
ancestors who have been held for some
successions rich, and who have had great
possessions; for this is all that makes
nobility at present; yet they do not think
themselves a whit the less noble, though
their immediate parents have left none of
this wealth to them, or though they
themselves have squandered it away.

The Utopians have no better opinion of
those who are much taken with gems and
precious stones, and who account it a
degree of happiness, next to a divine one, if
they can purchase one that is very
extraordinary; especially if it be of that sort
of stones that is then in greatest request; for
the same sort is not at all times universally of
the same value; nor will men buy it unless it
be dismounted and taken out of the gold;
the jeweller is then made to give good
security, and required solemnly to swear
that the stone is true, that by such an exact
caution a false one might not be bought
instead of a true: though if you were to
examine it, your eye could find no
difference between the counterfeit and that
which is true; so that they are all one to you
as much as if you were blind. Or can it be
thought that they who heap up a useless
mass of wealth, not for any use that it is to
bring them, but merely to please themselves
with the contemplation of it, enjoy any true
pleasure in it? The delight they find is only a
false shadow of joy. Those are no better
whose error is somewhat different from the
former, and who hide it, out of their fear of
losing it; for what other name can fit the
hiding it in the earth, or rather the restoring it
to it again, it being thus cut off from being
useful, either to its owner or to the rest of
mankind? And yet the owner having hid it
carefully, is glad, because he thinks he is
now sure of it. If it should be stolen, the

-37-

degenerate into it.

Thus, though the rabble of mankind look
upon these, and on innumerable other
things of the same nature, as pleasures, the
Utopians, on the contrary, observing that
there is nothing in them truly pleasant,
conclude that they are not to be reckoned
among pleasures: for though these things
may create some tickling in the senses
(which seems to be a true notion of
pleasure), yet they imagine that this does
not arise from the thing itself, but from a
depraved custom, which may so vitiate a
man's taste, that bitter things may pass for
sweet; as women with child think pitch or
tallow tastes sweeter than honey; but as a
man's sense when corrupted, either by a
disease or some ill habit, does not change
the nature of other things, so neither can it
change the nature of pleasure.

They reckon up several sorts of pleasures,
which they call true ones: some belong to
the body and others to the mind. The
pleasures of the mind lie in knowledge, and
in that delight which the contemplation of
truth carries with it; to which they add the
joyful reflections on a well-spent life, and
the assured hopes of a future happiness.
They divide the pleasures of the body into
two sorts; the one is that which gives our
senses some real delight, and is
performed, either by recruiting nature, and
supplying those parts which feed the
internal heat of life by eating and drinking;
or when nature is eased of any surcharge
that oppresses it; when we are relieved
from sudden pain, or that which arises from
satisfying the appetite which nature has
wisely given to lead us to the propagation of
the species. There is another kind of
pleasure that arises neither from our
receiving what the body requires nor its
being relieved when overcharged, and yet
by a secret, unseen virtue affects the

-38-

those whose health is entire have a true
pleasure in the enjoyment of it: and they
reason thus--what is the pleasure of
eating, but that a man's health which had
been weakened, does, with the assistance
of food, drive away hunger, and so
recruiting itself recovers its former vigor?
And being thus refreshed, it finds a
pleasure in that conflict; and if the conflict is
pleasure, the victory must yet breed a
greater pleasure, except we fancy that it
becomes stupid as soon as it has obtained
that which it pursued, and so neither knows
nor rejoices in its own welfare. If it is said
that health cannot be felt, they absolutely
deny it; for what man is in health that does
not perceive it when he is awake? Is there
any man that is so dull and stupid as not to
acknowledge that he feels a delight in
health? And what is delight but another
name for pleasure?

But of all pleasures, they esteem those to
be most valuable that lie in the mind, the
chief of which arises out of true virtue, and
the witnesses of a good conscience. They
account health the chief pleasure that
belongs to the body; for they think that the
pleasure of eating and drinking, and all the
other delights of sense, are only so far
desirable as they give or maintain health.
But they are not pleasant in themselves,
otherwise than as they resist those
impressions that our natural infirmities are
still making upon us: for as a wise man
desires rather to avoid diseases than to
take physic, and to be freed from pain,
rather than to find ease by remedies; so it is
more desirable not to need this sort of
pleasure, than to be obliged to indulge it. If
any man imagines that there is a real
happiness in these enjoyments, he must
then confess that he would be the happiest
of all men if he were to lead his life in
perpetual hunger, thirst, and itching, and by
consequence in perpetual eating, drinking,

-39-

madness for a man to wear out the beauty
of his face, or the force of his natural
strength; to corrupt the sprightliness of his
body by sloth and laziness, or to waste it by
fasting; that it is madness to weaken the
strength of his constitution, and reject the
other delights of life; unless by renouncing
his own satisfaction, he can either serve the
public or promote the happiness of others,
for which he expects a greater recompense
from God. So that they look on such a
course of life as the mark of a mind that is
both cruel to itself, and ungrateful to the
Author of nature, as if we would not be
beholden to Him for His favors, and
therefore reject all His blessings; as one
who should afflict himself for the empty
shadow of virtue; or for no better end than to
render himself capable of bearing those
misfortunes which possibly will never
happen.

This is their notion of virtue and of pleasure;
they think that no man's reason can carry
him to a truer idea of them, unless some
discovery from heaven should inspire him
with sublimer notions. I have not now the
leisure to examine whether they think right
or wrong in this matter: nor do I judge it
necessary, for I have only undertaken to
give you an account of their constitution, but
not to defend all their principles. I am sure,
that whatsoever may be said of their
notions, there is not in the whole world
either a better people or a happier
government: their bodies are vigorous and
lively; and though they are but of a middle
stature, and have neither the fruitfullest soil
nor the purest air in the world, yet they fortify
themselves so well by their temperate
course of life, against the unhealthiness of
their air, and by their industry they so
cultivate their soil, that there is nowhere to
be seen a greater increase both of corn and
cattle, nor are there anywhere healthier men
and freer from diseases: for one may there

-40-

masters of the whole language, so that they
read the best of the Greek authors very
exactly. I am indeed apt to think that they
learned that language the more easily, from
its having some relation to their own. I
believe that they were a colony of the
Greeks; for though their language comes
nearer the Persian, yet they retain many
names, both for their towns and
magistrates, that are of Greek derivation.

I happened to carry a great many books with
me, instead of merchandise, when I sailed
my fourth voyage; for I was so far from
thinking of soon coming back, that I rather
thought never to have returned at all, and I
gave them all my books, among which were
many of Plato's and some of Aristotle's
works. I had also Theophrastus "On Plants,"
which, to my great regret, was imperfect;
for having laid it carelessly by, while we
were at sea, a monkey had seized upon it,
and in many places torn out the leaves. They
have no books of grammar but Lascares,
for I did not carry Theodorus with me; nor
have they any dictionaries but Hesichius
and Dioscorides. They esteem Plutarch
highly, and were much taken with Lucian's
wit and with his pleasant way of writing. As
for the poets, they have Aristophanes,
Homer, Euripides, and Sophocles of
Aldus's edition; and for historians
Thucydides, Herodotus, and Herodian. One
of my companions, Thricius Apinatus,
happened to carry with him some of
Hippocrates's works, and Galen's
"Microtechne," which they hold in great
estimation; for though there is no nation in
the world that needs physic so little as they
do, yet there is not any that honors it so
much: they reckon the knowledge of it one
of the pleasantest and most profitable parts
of philosophy, by which, as they search into
the secrets of nature, so they not only find
this study highly agreeable, but think that
such inquiries are very acceptable to the

-41-

received), he would receive a hearty
welcome; for they are very desirous to know
the state of the whole world. Very few go
among them on the account of traffic, for
what can a man carry to them but iron or
gold or silver, which merchants desire
rather to export than import to a strange
country: and as for their exportation, they
think it better to manage that themselves
than to leave it to foreigners, for by this
means, as they understand the state of the
neighboring countries better, so they keep
up the art of navigation, which cannot be
maintained but by much practice.

BOOK II: OF THEIR SLAVES, AND OF
THEIR MARRIAGES

THEY do not make slaves of prisoners of
war, except those that are taken in battle;
nor of the sons of their slaves, nor of those
of other nations: the slaves among them are
only such as are condemned to that state of
life for the commission of some crime, or,
which is more common, such as their
merchants find condemned to die in those
parts to which they trade, whom they
sometimes redeem at low rates; and in
other places have them for nothing. They
are kept at perpetual labor, and are always
chained, but with this difference, that their
own natives are treated much worse than
others; they are considered as more
profligate than the rest, and since they could
not be restrained by the advantages of so
excellent an education, are judged worthy
of harder usage. Another sort of slaves are
the poor of the neighboring countries, who
offer of their own accord to come and serve
them; they treat these better, and use them
in all other respects as well as their own
countrymen, except their imposing more
labor upon them, which is no hard task to
those that have been accustomed to it; and
if any of these have a mind to go back to
their own country, which indeed falls out but

-42-

funeral, but throw his body into a ditch.

Their women are not married before
eighteen, nor their men before two-and-
twenty, and if any of them run into forbidden
embraces before marriage they are
severely punished, and the privilege of
marriage is denied them, unless they can
obtain a special warrant from the Prince.
Such disorders cast a great reproach upon
the master and mistress of the family in
which they happen, for it is supposed that
they have failed in their duty. The reason of
punishing this so severely is, because they
think that if they were not strictly restrained
from all vagrant appetites, very few would
engage in a state in which they venture the
quiet of their whole lives, by being confined
to one person, and are obliged to endure all
the inconveniences with which it is
accompanied.

In choosing their wives they use a method
that would appear to us very absurd and
ridiculous, but it is constantly observed
among them, and is accounted perfectly
consistent with wisdom. Before marriage
some grave matron presents the bride
naked, whether she is a virgin or a widow,
to the bridegroom; and after that some
grave man presents the bridegroom naked
to the bride. We indeed both laughed at this,
and condemned it as very indecent. But
they, on the other hand, wondered at the
folly of the men of all other nations, who, if
they are but to buy a horse of a small value,
are so cautious that they will see every part
of him, and take off both his saddle and all
his other tackle, that there may be no secret
ulcer hid under any of them; and that yet in
the choice of a wife, on which depends the
happiness or unhappiness of the rest of his
life, a man should venture upon trust, and
only see about a hand's-breadth of the
face, all the rest of the body being covered,
under which there may lie hid what may be

-43-

new marriages would very much shake the
kindness of married people. They punish
severely those that defile the marriage-bed.
If both parties are married they are
divorced, and the injured persons may
marry one another, or whom they please;
but the adulterer and the adulteress are
condemned to slavery. Yet if either of the
injured persons cannot shake off the love of
the married person, they may live with them
still in that state, but they must follow them to
that labor to which the slaves are
condemned; and sometimes the
repentance of the condemned, together
with the unshaken kindness of the innocent
and injured person, has prevailed so far
with the Prince that he has taken off the
sentence; but those that relapse after they
are once pardoned are punished with
death.

Their law does not determine the
punishment for other crimes; but that is left
to the Senate, to temper it according to the
circumstances of the fact. Husbands have
power to correct their wives, and parents to
chastise their children, unless the fault is so
great that a public punishment is thought
necessary for striking terror into others. For
the most part, slavery is the punishment
even of the greatest crimes; for as that is no
less terrible to the criminals themselves than
death, so they think the preserving them in a
state of servitude is more for the interest of
the commonwealth than killing them; since
as their labor is a greater benefit to the
public than their death could be, so the sight
of their misery is a more lasting terror to
other men than that which would be given by
their death. If their slaves rebel, and will not
bear their yoke and submit to the labor that
is enjoined them, they are treated as wild
beasts that cannot be kept in order, neither
by a prison nor by their chains, and are at
last put to death. But those who bear their
punishment patiently, and are so much

-44-

As they fright men from committing crimes
by punishments, so they invite them to the
love of virtue by public honors: therefore
they erect statues to the memories of such
worthy men as have deserved well of their
country, and set these in their market-
places, both to perpetuate the
remembrance of their actions, and to be an
incitement to their posterity to follow their
example.

If any man aspires to any office, he is sure
never to compass it: they all live easily
together, for none of the magistrates are
either insolent or cruel to the people: they
affect rather to be called fathers, and by
being really so, they well deserve the name;
and the people pay them all the marks of
honor the more freely, because none are
exacted from them. The Prince himself has
no distinction, either of garments or of a
crown; but is only distinguished by a sheaf
of corn carried before him; as the high
priest is also known by his being preceded
by a person carrying a wax light.

They have but few laws, and such is their
constitution that they need not many. They
very much condemn other nations, whose
laws, together with the commentaries on
them, swell up to so many volumes; for they
think it an unreasonable thing to oblige men
to obey a body of laws that are both of such
a bulk and so dark as not to be read and
understood by every one of the subjects.

They have no lawyers among them, for they
consider them as a sort of people whose
profession it is to disguise matters and to
wrest the laws; and therefore they think it is
much better that every man should plead his
own cause, and trust it to the judge, as in
other places the client trusts it to a
counsellor. By this means they both cut off
many delays, and find out truth more
certainly: for after the parties have laid open

-45-

happiness and safety; for since the good or
ill condition of a nation depends so much
upon their magistrates, they could not have
made a better choice than by pitching on
men whom no advantages can bias; for
wealth is of no use to them, since they must
so soon go back to their own country; and
they being strangers among them, are not
engaged in any of their heats or
animosities; and it is certain that when
public judicatories are swayed, either by
avarice or partial affections, there must
follow a dissolution of justice, the chief
sinew of society.

The Utopians call those nations that come
and ask magistrates from them, neighbors;
but those to whom they have been of more
particular service, friends. And as all other
nations are perpetually either making
leagues or breaking them, they never enter
into an alliance with any State. They think
leagues are useless things, and believe that
if the common ties of humanity do not knit
men together, the faith of promises will
have no great effect; and they are the more
confirmed in this by what they see among
the nations round about them, who are no
strict observers of leagues and treaties. We
know how religiously they are observed in
Europe, more particularly where the
Christian doctrine is received, among
whom they are sacred and inviolable; which
is partly owing to the justice and goodness
of the princes themselves, and partly to the
reverence they pay to the popes; who as
they are most religious observers of their
own promises, so they exhort all other
princes to perform theirs; and when fainter
methods do not prevail, they compel them to
it by the severity of the pastoral censure,
and think that it would be the most indecent
thing possible if men who are particularly
distinguished by the title of the "faithful"
should not religiously keep the faith of their
treaties. But in that newfound world, which

-46-

of making them; since the world has taken
up a false maxim upon it, as if there were no
tie of nature uniting one nation to another,
only separated perhaps by 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 against which
there is no provision made by treaties; and
that when treaties are made, they do not cut
off the enmity, or restrain the license of
preying upon each other, if by the
unskilfulness of wording them there are not
effectual provisos made against them.
They, on the other hand, judge that no man
is to be esteemed our enemy that has never
injured us; and that the partnership of the
human nature is instead of a league. And
that kindness and good-nature unite men
more effectually and with greater strength
than any agreements whatsoever; since
thereby the engagements of men's hearts
become stronger than the bond and
obligation of words.

BOOK II: OF THEIR MILITARY DISCIPLINE

THEY detest war as a very brutal thing; and
which, to the reproach of human nature, is
more practised by men than by any sort of
beasts. They, in opposition to the
sentiments of almost all other nations, think
that there is nothing more inglorious than
that glory that is gained by war. And
therefore though they accustom themselves
daily to military exercises and the discipline
of war in which not only their men but their
women likewise are trained up, that in
cases of necessity they may not be quite
useless--yet they do not rashly engage in
war, unless it be either to defend
themselves, or their friends, from any unjust
aggressors; or out of good-nature or in
compassion assist an oppressed nation in
shaking off the yoke of tyranny. They indeed
help their friends, not only in defensive, but
also in offensive wars; but they never do

-47-

people. This is not because they consider
their neighbors more than their own
citizens; but since their neighbors trade
everyone upon his own stock, fraud is a
more sensible injury to them than it is to the
Utopians, among whom the public in such a
case only suffers. As they expect nothing in
return for the merchandise they export but
that in which they so much abound, and is of
little use to them, the loss does not much
affect them; they think therefore it would be
too severe to revenge a loss attended with
so little inconvenience, either to their lives or
their subsistence, with the death of many
persons; but if any of their people is either
killed or wounded wrongfully, whether it be
done by public authority or only by private
men, as soon as they hear of it they send
ambassadors, and demand that the guilty
persons may be delivered up to them; and if
that is denied, they declare war; but if it be
complied with, the offenders are
condemned either to death or slavery.

They would be both troubled and ashamed
of a bloody victory over their enemies, and
think it would be as foolish a purchase as to
buy the most valuable goods at too high a
rate. And in no victory do they glory so much
as in that which is gained by dexterity and
good conduct, without bloodshed. In such
cases they appoint public triumphs, and
erect trophies to the honor of those who
have succeeded; for then do they reckon
that a man acts suitably to his nature when
he conquers his enemy in such a way as that
no other creature but a man could be
capable of, and that is by the strength of his
understanding. Bears, lions, boars, wolves,
and dogs, and all other animals employ their
bodily force one against another, in which
as many of them are superior to men, both
in strength and fierceness, so they are all
subdued by his reason and understanding.

The only design of the Utopians in war is to

-48-

very securely; and they observe the
promises they make of this kind most
religiously.

They very much approve of this way of
corrupting their enemies, though it appears
to others to be base and cruel; but they look
on it as a wise course, to make an end of
what would be otherwise a long war,
without so much as hazarding one battle to
decide it. They think it likewise an act of
mercy and love to mankind to prevent the
great slaughter of those that must otherwise
be killed in the progress of the war, both on
their own side and on that of their enemies,
by the death of a few that are most guilty;
and that in so doing they are kind even to
their enemies, and pity them no less than
their own people, as knowing that the
greater part of them do not engage in the,
war of their own accord, but are driven into
it by the passions of their prince.

If this method does not succeed with them,
then they sow seeds of contention among
their enemies, and animate the prince's
brother, or some of the nobility, to aspire to
the crown. If they cannot disunite them by
domestic broils, then they engage their
neighbors against them, and make them set
on foot some old pretensions, which are
never wanting to princes when they have
occasion for them. These they plentifully
supply with money, though but very
sparingly with any auxiliary troops: for they
are so tender of their own people, that they
would not willingly exchange one of them,
even with the prince of their enemies'
country.

But as they keep their gold and silver only
for such an occasion, so when that offers
itself they easily part with it, since it would
be no inconvenience to them though they
should reserve nothing of it to themselves.
For besides the wealth that they have

-49-

influence them; and yet this money, which
they value so highly, is of little use to them;
for what they purchase thus with their blood,
they quickly waste on luxury, which among
them is but of a poor and miserable form.

This nation serves the Utopians against all
people whatsoever, for they pay higher than
any other. The Utopians hold this for a
maxim, that as they seek out the best sort of
men for their own use at home, so they
make use of this worst sort of men for the
consumption of war, and therefore they hire
them with the offers of vast rewards, to
expose themselves to all sorts of hazards,
out of which the greater part never returns to
claim their promises. Yet they make them
good most religiously to such as escape.
This animates them to adventure again,
whenever there is occasion for it; for the
Utopians are not at all troubled how many of
these happen to be killed, and reckon it a
service done to mankind if they could be a
means to deliver the world from such a lewd
and vicious sort of people; that seem to
have run together as to the drain of human
nature. Next to these they are served in their
wars with those upon whose account they
undertake them, and with the auxiliary
troops of their other friends, to whom they
join a few of their own people, and send
some men of eminent and approved virtue
to command in chief. There are two sent
with him, who during his command are but
private men, but the first is to succeed him if
he should happen to be either killed or
taken; and in case of the like misfortune to
him, the third comes in his place; and thus
they provide against ill events, that such
accidents as may befall their generals may
not endanger their armies.

When they draw out troops of their own
people, they take such out of every city as
freely offer themselves, for none are forced
to go against their wills, since they think that

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die than give ground; for the certainty that
their children will be well looked after when
they are dead, frees them from all that
anxiety concerning them which often
masters men of great courage; and thus
they are animated by a noble and invincible
resolution. Their skill in military affairs
increases their courage; and the wise
sentiments which, according to the laws of
their country, are instilled into them in their
education, give additional vigor to their
minds: for as they do not undervalue life so
as prodigally to throw it away, they are not
so indecently fond of it as to preserve it by
base and unbecoming methods. In the
greatest heat of action, the bravest of their
youth, who have devoted themselves to that
service, single out the general of their
enemies, set on him either openly or by
ambuscade, pursue him everywhere, and
when spent and wearied out, are 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; so that unless he secures
himself by flight, they seldom fail at last to
kill or to take him prisoner.

When they have obtained a victory, they kill
as few as possible, and are much more
bent on taking many prisoners than on killing
those that fly before them; nor do they ever
let their men so loose in the pursuit of their
enemies, as not to retain an entire body still
in order; so that if they have been forced to
engage the last of their battalions before
they could gain the day, they will rather let
their enemies all escape than pursue them,
when their own army is in disorder;
remembering well what has often fallen out
to themselves, that when the main body of
their army has been quite defeated and
broken, when their enemies imagining the
victory obtained, have let themselves loose
into an irregular pursuit, a few of them that

-51-

is that they may be easily carried and
managed.

If they agree to a truce, they observe it so
religiously that no provocations will make
them break it. They never lay their enemies'
country waste nor burn their corn, and even
in their marches they take all possible care
that neither horse nor foot may tread it
down, for they do not know but that they may
have use for it-themselves. They hurt no
man whom they find disarmed, unless he is
a spy. When a town is surrendered to them,
they take it into their protection; and when
they carry a place by storm, they never
plunder it, but put those only to the sword
that opposed the rendering of it up, and
make the rest of the garrison slaves, but for
the other inhabitants, they do them no hurt;
and if any of them had advised a surrender,
they give them good rewards out of the
estates of those that they condemn, and
distribute the rest among their auxiliary
troops, but they themselves take no share of
the spoil.

When a war is ended, they do not oblige
their friends to reimburse their expenses;
but they obtain them of the conquered,
either in money, which they keep for the next
occasion, or in lands, out of which a
constant revenue is to be paid them; by
many increases, the revenue which they
draw out from several countries on such
occasions, is now risen to above 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, by which means they consume
much of it upon the place; and either bring
over the rest to Utopia, or lend it to that
nation in which it lies. This they most
commonly do, unless some great occasion,
which falls out but very seldom, should
oblige them to call for it all. It is out of these
lands that they assign rewards to such as

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By degrees, they fall off from the various
superstitions that are among them, and
grow up to that one religion that is the best
and most in request; and there is no doubt
to be made but that all the others had
vanished long ago, if some of those who
advised them to lay aside their superstitions
had not met with some unhappy accident,
which being considered as inflicted by
heaven, made them afraid that the God
whose worship had like to have been
abandoned, had interposed, and revenged
themselves on those who despised their
authority. After they had heard from us an
account of the doctrine, the course of life,
and the miracles of Christ, and of the
wonderful constancy of so many martyrs,
whose blood, so willingly offered up by
them, was the chief occasion of spreading
their religion over a vast number of nations;
it is not to be imagined how inclined they
were to receive it. I shall not determine
whether this proceeded from any secret
inspiration of God, or whether it was
because t seemed so favorable to that
community of goods, which is an opinion so
particular as well as so dear to them; since
they perceived that Christ and his followers
lived by that rule and that it was still kept up
in some communities among the sincerest
sort of Christians. From whichsoever of
these motives it might be, true it is that many
of them came over to our religion, and were
initiated into it by baptism. But as two of our
number were dead, so none of the four that
survived were in priest's orders; we
therefore could only baptize them; so that to
our great regret they could not partake of the
other sacraments, that can only be
administered by priests; but they are
instructed concerning them, and long most
vehemently for them. They have had great
disputes among themselves, whether one
chosen by them to be a priest would not be
thereby qualified to do all the things that
belong to that character, even though he

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banishment or slavery.

This law was made by Utopus, not only for
preserving the public peace, which he saw
suffered much by daily contentions and
irreconcilable heats, but because he
thought the interest of religion itself required
it. He judged it not fit to determine anything
rashly, and seemed to doubt whether those
different forms of religion might not all come
from God, who might inspire men in a
different manner, and be pleased with this
variety; he therefore thought it indecent and
foolish for any man to threaten and terrify
another to make him believe what did not
appear to him 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; while, on the other
hand, if such debates were carried on with
violence and tumults, as the most wicked
are always the most obstinate, so the best
and most holy religion might be choked with
superstition, as corn is with briars and
thorns.

He therefore left men wholly to their liberty,
that they might be free to believe as they
should see cause; only he made a solemn
and severe law against such as should so
far degenerate 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: for they all formerly believed
that there was a state of rewards and
punishments to the good and bad after this
life; and they now look on those that think
otherwise as scarce fit to be counted men,
since they degrade so noble a being as the
soul, and reckon it no better than a beast's:
thus they are far from looking on such men
as fit for human society, or to be citizens of

-54-

body, from some secret hints of
approaching misery. They think that such a
man's appearance before God cannot be
acceptable to him, who being called on,
does not go out cheerfully, but is backward
and unwilling, and is, as it were, dragged to
it. They are struck with horror when they see
any die in this manner, and carry them out in
silence and with sorrow, and praying God
that he would be merciful to the errors of the
departed soul, they lay the body in the
ground; but when any die cheerfully, and full
of hope, they do not mourn for them, but
sing hymns when they carry out their bodies,
and commending their souls very earnestly
to God: their whole behavior is then rather
grave than sad, they burn the body, and set
up a pillar where the pile was made, with an
inscription to the honor of the deceased.

When they come from the funeral, they
discourse of his good life and worthy
actions, but speak of nothing oftener and
with more pleasure than of his serenity at
the hour of death. They think such respect
paid to the memory of good men is both the
greatest incitement to engage others to
follow their example, and the most
acceptable worship that can be offered
them; for they believe that though by the
imperfection of human sight they are
invisible to us, yet they are present among
us, and hear those discourses that pass
concerning themselves. They believe it
inconsistent with the happiness of departed
souls not to be at liberty to be where they
will, and do not imagine them capable of the
ingratitude of not desiring to see those
friends with whom they lived on earth in the
strictest bonds of love and kindness:
besides they are persuaded that good men
after death have these affections and all
other good dispositions increased rather
than diminished, and therefore conclude
that they are still among the living, and
observe all they say or do. From hence they

-55-

and by that means, as they ease others very
much, so they afflict themselves, and spend
their whole life in hard labor; and yet they do
not value themselves upon this, nor lessen
other people's credit to raise their own; but
by their stooping to such servile
employments, they are so far from being
despised, that they are so much the more
esteemed by the whole nation.

Of these there are two sorts; some live
unmarried and chaste, and abstain from
eating any sort of flesh; and thus weaning
themselves from all the pleasures of the
present life, which they account hurtful, they
pursue, even by the hardest and painfullest
methods possible, that blessedness which
they hope for hereafter; and the nearer they
approach to it, they are the more cheerful
and earnest in their endeavors after it.
Another sort of them is less willing to put
themselves to much toil, and therefore
prefer a married state to a single one; and
as they do not deny themselves the pleasure
of it, so they think the begetting of children is
a debt which they owe to human nature and
to their country; nor do they avoid any
pleasure that does not hinder labor, and
therefore eat flesh so much the more
willingly, as they find that by this means they
are the more able to work; the Utopians
look upon these as the wiser sect, but they
esteem the others as the most holy. They
would indeed laugh at any man, who from
the principles of reason would prefer an
unmarried state to a married, or a life of
labor to an easy life; but they reverence and
admire such as do it from the motives of
religion. There is nothing in which they are
more cautious than in giving their opinion
positively concerning any sort of religion.
The men that lead those severe lives are
called in the language of their country
Brutheskas, which answers to those we call
religious orders.

-56-

country. For when deep impressions of
these things are made at that age, they
follow men through the whole course of their
lives, and conduce much to preserve the
peace of the government, which suffers by
nothing more than by vices that rise out of ill-
opinions. The wives of their priests are the
most extraordinary women of the whole
country; sometimes the women themselves
are made priests, though that falls out but
seldom, nor are any but ancient widows
chosen into that order.

None of the magistrates has greater honor
paid him than is paid the priests; and if they
should happen to commit any crime, they
would not be questioned for it. Their
punishment is left to God, and to their own
consciences; for they do not think it lawful to
lay hands on any man, how wicked soever
he is, that has been in a peculiar manner
dedicated to God; nor do they find any great
inconvenience in this, both because they
have so few priests, and because these are
chosen with much caution, so that it must be
a very unusual thing to find one who merely
out of regard to his virtue, and for his being
esteemed a singularly good man, was
raised up to so great a dignity, degenerate
into corruption and vice. And if such a thing
should fall out, for man is a changeable
creature, yet there being few priests, and
these having no authority but what rises out
of the respect that is paid them, nothing of
great consequence to the public can
proceed from the indemnity that the priests
enjoy.

They have indeed very few of them, lest
greater numbers sharing in the same honor
might make the dignity of that order which
they esteem so highly to sink in its
reputation. They also think it difficult to find
out many of such an exalted pitch of
goodness, as to be equal to that dignity
which demands the exercise of more than

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Cynemernes, and the last the
Trapemernes; which answers in our
language to the festival that begins, or
ends, the season.

They have magnificent temples, that are not
only nobly built, but extremely spacious;
which is the more necessary, as they have
so few of them; they are a little dark within,
which proceeds not from any error in the
architecture, but is done with design; for
their priests think that too much light
dissipates the thoughts, and that a more
moderate degree of it both recollects the
mind and raises devotion. Though there are
many different forms of religion among
them, yet all these, how various soever,
agree in the main point, which is the
worshipping of the Divine Essence; and
therefore there is nothing to be seen or
heard in their temples in which the several
persuasions among them may not agree;
for every sect performs those rites that are
peculiar to it, in their private houses, nor is
there anything in the public worship that
contradicts the particular ways of those
different sects. There are no images for
God in their temples, so that everyone may
represent Him to his thoughts, according to
the way of his religion; nor do they call this
one God by any other name than that of
Mithras, which is the common name by
which they all express the Divine Essence,
whatsoever otherwise they think it to be; nor
are there any prayers among them but such
as every one of them may use without
prejudice to his own opinion.

They meet in their temples on the evening of
the festival that concludes a season: and not
having yet broke their fast, they thank God
for their good success during that year or
month, which is then at an end; and the next
day being that which begins the new
season, they meet early in their temples, to
pray for the happy progress of all their

-58-

and pure way of worshipping God, so they
think those sweet savors and lights,
together with some other ceremonies, by a
secret and unaccountable virtue, elevate
men's souls, and inflame them with greater
energy and cheerfulness during the divine
worship.

All the people appear in the temples in white
garments, but the priest's vestments are
parti-colored, and both the work and colors
are wonderful. They are made of no rich
materials, for they are neither embroidered
nor set with precious stones, but are
composed of the plumes of several birds,
laid together with so much art and so neatly,
that the true value of them is far beyond the
costliest 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 concerning them; and that they are
as hieroglyphics, putting them in mind of the
blessings that they have received from God,
and of their duties both to Him and to their
neighbors. As soon as the priest appears in
those ornaments, they all fall prostrate on
the ground, with so much reverence and so
deep a silence that such as look on cannot
but be struck with it, as if it were the effect
of the appearance of a deity. After they
have been for some time in this posture,
they all stand up, upon a sign given by the
priest, and sing hymns to the honor of God,
some musical instruments playing all the
while. These are quite of another form than
those used among us: but as many of them
are much sweeter than ours, so others are
made use of by us.

Yet in one thing they very much exceed us;
all their music, both vocal and instrumental,
is adapted to imitate and express the
passions, and is so happily suited to every
occasion, that whether the subject of the
hymn be cheerful or formed to soothe or

-59-

military exercises.

Thus have I described to you, as particularly
as I could, the constitution of that
commonwealth, which I do not only think the
best in the world, but indeed the only
commonwealth that truly deserves that
name. In all other places it is visible, that
while people talk of a commonwealth, every
man only seeks his own wealth; but there,
where no man has any property, all men
zealously pursue the good of the public:
and, indeed, it is no wonder to see men act
so differently; for in other commonwealths,
every man knows that unless he provides
for himself, how flourishing soever the
commonwealth may be, he must die of
hunger; so that he sees the necessity of
preferring his own concerns to the public;
but in Utopia, where every man has a right
to everything, they all know that if care is
taken to keep the public stores full, no
private man can want anything; for among
them there is no unequal distribution, so that
no man is poor, none in necessity; and
though no man has anything, yet they are all
rich; for what can make a man so rich as to
lead a serene and cheerful life, free from
anxieties; neither apprehending want
himself, nor vexed with the endless
complaints of his wife? He is not afraid of
the misery of his children, nor is he
contriving how to raise a portion for his
daughters, but is secure in this, that both he
and his wife, his children and
grandchildren, to as many generations as
he can fancy, will all live both plentifully and
happily; since among them there is no less
care taken of those who were once
engaged in labor, but grow afterward
unable to follow it, than there is elsewhere
of these that continue still employed. I would
gladly hear any man compare the justice
that is among them with that of all other
nations; among whom, may I perish, if I see
anything that looks either like justice or

-60-

deserve so well of the public, yet they have
given those hardships the name and color
of justice, by procuring laws to be made for
regulating them. Therefore I must say that,
as I hope for mercy, I can have no other
notion of all the other governments that I see
or know, than that they are a conspiracy of
the rich, who on pretence of managing the
public only pursue their private ends, and
devise all the ways and arts they can find
out; first, that they may, without danger,
preserve all that they have so ill acquired,
and then that they may engage the poor to
toil and labor for them at as low rates as
possible, and oppress them as much as
they please. And if they can but prevail to
get these contrivances established by the
show of public authority, which is
considered as the representative of the
whole people, then they are accounted
laws. Yet these wicked men after they have,
by a most insatiable covetousness, divided
that among themselves with which all the
rest might have been well supplied, are far
from that happiness that is enjoyed among
the Utopians: for the use as well as the
desire of money being extinguished, much
anxiety and great occasions of mischief is
cut off with it. And who does not see that the
frauds, thefts, robberies, quarrels, tumults,
contentions, seditions, murders,
treacheries, and witchcrafts, which are
indeed rather punished than restrained by
the severities of law, would all fall off, if
money were not any more valued by the
world? Men's fears, solicitudes, cares,
labors, and watchings, would all perish in
the same moment with the value of money:
even poverty itself, for the relief of which
money seems most necessary, would fall.
But, in order to the apprehending this aright,
take one instance.

Consider any year that has been so
unfruitful that many thousands have died of
hunger; and yet if at the end of that year a

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scheme and foundation of policy, that as
men live happily under it, so it is like to be of
great continuance; for they having rooted
out of the minds of their people all the seeds
both of ambition and faction, there is no
danger of any commotion at home; which
alone has been the ruin of many States that
seemed otherwise to be well secured; but
as long as they live in peace at home, and
are governed by such good laws, the envy
of all their neighboring princes, who have
often though in vain attempted their ruin, will
never be able to put their State into any
commotion or disorder.

When Raphael had thus made an end of
speaking, though many things occurred to
me, both concerning the manners and laws
of that people, that seemed very absurd, as
well in their way of making war, as in their
notions of religion and divine matters;
together with several other particulars, but
chiefly what seemed the foundation of all
the rest, their living in common, without the
use of money, by which all nobility,
magnificence, splendor, and majesty,
which, according to the common opinion,
are the true ornaments of a nation, would be
quite taken away;--yet since I perceived
that Raphael was weary, and was not sure
whether he could easily bear contradiction,
remembering that he had taken notice of
some who seemed to think they were bound
in honor to support the credit of their own
wisdom, by finding out something to
censure in all other men's inventions,
besides their own; I only commended their
constitution, and the account he had given
of it in general; and so taking him by the
hand, carried him to supper, and told him I
would find out some other time for
examining this subject more particularly,
and for discoursing more copiously upon it;
and indeed I shall be glad to embrace an
opportunity of doing it. In the meanwhile,
though it must be confessed that he is both

-62-

a very learned man, and a person who has
obtained a great knowledge of the world, I
cannot perfectly agree to everything he has
related; however, there are many things in
the Commonwealth of Utopia that I rather
wish, than hope, to see followed in our
governments. THE END

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