Three Early Modern Utopias: Thomas More: Utopia / Francis Bacon: New Atlantis / Henry Neville: The Isle of Pines

by Thomas More

  Bargains and laws.

  The mutual recourse of kindness.

  Pleasure they call every motion and state of the body or mind wherein man hath naturally delectation. Appetite they join to nature, and that not without a good cause. For like as not only the senses, but also right reason, coveteth whatsoever is naturally pleasant, so that it may be gotten without wrong or injury, not letting or debarring a greater pleasure, nor causing painful labour, even so those things that men by vain imagination do feign against nature to be pleasant (as though it lay in their power to change the things, as they do the names of things), all such pleasures they believe to be of so small help and furtherance to felicity, that they count them a great let and hindrance. Because that in whom they have once taken place, all his mind they possess with a false opinion of pleasure. So that there is no place left for true and natural delectations. For there be many things which of their own nature contain no pleasantness, yea, the most part of them much grief and sorrow. And yet, through the perverse and malicious flickering enticements of lewd and unhonest desires, be taken not only for special and sovereign pleasures, but also be counted among the chief causes of life.

  The definition of pleasure.

  False and counterfeit pleasures.

  In this counterfeit kind of pleasure they put them that I spake of before, which the better gowns they have on, the better men they think themselves. In the which thing they do twice err. For they be no less deceived in that they think their gown the better, than they be in that they think themselves the better. For if you consider the profitable use of the garment, why should wool of a finer-spun thread be thought better than the wool of a coarse-spun thread? Yet they, as though the one did pass the other by nature and not by their mistaking, advance themselves, and think the price of their own persons thereby greatly increased. And therefore the honour which in a coarse gown they durst not have looked for, they require, as it were of duty, for their finer gown’s sake. And if they be passed by without reverence, they take it displeasantly and disdainfully. And again, is it not like madness to take a pride in vain and unprofitable honours? For what natural or true pleasure dost thou take of another man’s bare head or bowed knees? Will this ease the pain of thy knees or remedy the frenzy of thy head? In this image of counterfeit pleasure they be of a marvellous madness, which for the opinion of nobility rejoice much in their own conceit,* because it was their fortune to come of such ancestors whose stock of long time hath been counted rich (for now nobility is nothing else), specially rich in lands. And though their ancestors left them not one foot of land, or else they themselves have pissed it against the walls, yet they think themselves not the less noble therefore of one hair.

  The error of them that esteem themselves the more for apparel’s sake.

  Foolish honours.

  Vain nobility.

  In this number also they count them that take pleasure and delight (as I said) in gems and precious stones, and think themselves almost gods if they chance to get an excellent one, specially of that kind which in that time of their own countrymen is had in highest estimation. For one kind of stone keepeth not his price still in all countries and at all times. Nor they buy them not, but taken out of the gold and bare;* no nor so neither, until they have made the seller to swear that he will warrant and assure it to be a true stone and no counterfeit gem. Such care they take lest a counterfeit stone should deceive their eyes instead of a right stone. But why shouldest thou not take even as much pleasure in beholding a counterfeit stone, which thine eye cannot discern from a right stone? They should both be of like value to thee, even as to the blind man. What shall I say of them that keep superfluous riches, to take delectation only in the beholding and not in the use or occupying thereof? Do they take true pleasure, or else be they deceived with false pleasure? Or of them that be in a contrary vice, hiding the gold which they shall never occupy, nor peradventure never see more? And whiles they take care lest they shall lose it, do lose it indeed. For what is it else when they hide it in the ground, taking it both from their own use and perchance from all other men’s also? And yet thou, when thou hast hid thy treasure, as one out of all care hoppest for joy. The which treasure, if it should chance to be stolen, and thou ignorant of the theft shouldst die ten years after, all that ten years’ space that thou livest after thy money was stolen, what matter was it to thee whether it had been taken away or else safe as thou leftest it? Truly both ways like profit came to thee.

  Pleasure in precious stones most foolish.

  The opinion and fashion of people doth augment and diminish the price and estimation of precious stones.

  Beholders of treasure, not occupying the same.

  Hiders of treasure.

  A pretty fiction and a witty.

  To these so foolish pleasures they join dicers, whose madness they know by hearsay and not by use. Hunters also, and hawkers. For what pleasure is there (say they) in casting the dice upon a table, which thou hast done so often, that if there were any pleasure in it, yet the oft use might make thee weary thereof? Or what delight can there be, and not rather displeasure, in hearing the barking and howling of dogs? Or what greater pleasure is there to be felt when a dog followeth an hare than when a dog followeth a dog? For one thing is done in both, that is to say, running, if thou hast pleasure therein. But if the hope of slaughter and the expectation of tearing in pieces the beast doth please thee, thou shouldest rather be moved with pity to see a silly innocent hare murdered of a dog: the weak of the stronger, the fearful of the fierce, the innocent of the cruel and unmerciful. Therefore all this exercise of hunting, as a thing unworthy to be used of free men, the Utopians have rejected to their butchers, to the which craft (as we said before) they appoint their bondmen. For they count hunting the lowest, the vilest, and most abject part of butchery, and the other parts of it more profitable and more honest, as bringing much more commodity, in that they kill beasts only for necessity. Whereas the hunter seeketh nothing but pleasure of the silly and woeful beast’s slaughter and murder. The which pleasure in beholding death they think doth rise in the very beasts, either of a cruel affection of mind, or else to be changed in continuance of time into cruelty by long use of so cruel a pleasure.

  Dice play.

  Hunting and hawking.

  Hunting the basest part of butchery among the Utopians and yet this is now the exercise of most noble men.

  These, therefore, and all suchlike, which be innumerable, though the common sort of people doth take them for pleasures, yet they, seeing there is no natural pleasantness in them, do plainly determine them to have no affinity with true and right pleasure. For as touching that they do commonly move the sense with delectation (which seemeth to be a work of pleasure), this doth nothing diminish their opinion. For not the nature of the thing, but their perverse and lewd custom is the cause hereof. Which causeth them to accept bitter or sour things for sweet things even as women with child in their vitiate and corrupt taste think pitch and tallow sweeter than any honey. Howbeit, no man’s judgement depraved and corrupt, either by sickness or by custom, can change the nature of pleasure more than it can do the nature of other things.

  They make divers kinds of true pleasures. For some they attribute to the soul and some to the body. To the soul they give intelligence and that delectation that cometh of the contemplation of truth. Hereunto is joined the pleasant remembrance of the good life past. The pleasure of the body they divide into two parts. The first is when delectation is sensibly felt and perceived. Which many times chanceth by the renewing and refreshing of those parts which our natural heat drieth up. This cometh by meat and drink. And sometimes whiles those things be expulsed and voided, whereof is in the body over-great abundance. This pleasure is felt when we do our natural easement, or when we be doing the act of generation, or when the itching of any part is eased with rubbing or scratching. Sometimes pleasure riseth exhibiting to any member nothing that it desireth, nor taking from it any pain that it feeleth, which nev
ertheless tickleth and moveth our senses with a certain secret efficacy, but with a manifest motion turneth them to it; as is that which cometh of music. The second part of bodily pleasure, they say, is that which consisteth and resteth in the quiet and upright state of the body. And that truly is every man’s own proper health, intermingled and disturbed with no grief. For this, if it be not letted, nor assaulted with no grief, is delectable of itself, though it be moved with no external or outward pleasure. For though it be not so plain and manifest to the sense as the greedy lust of eating and drinking, yet, nevertheless, many take it for the chiefest pleasure. All the Utopians grant it to be a right sovereign pleasure and, as you would say, the foundation and ground of all pleasures, as which even alone is able to make the state and condition of life delectable and pleasant; and it being once taken away, there is no place left for any pleasure.

  The kinds of true pleasure.

  The pleasures of the body.

  Bodily health.

  For to be without grief not having health, that they call insensibility and not pleasure: the Utopians have long ago rejected and condemned the opinion of them which said that steadfast and quiet health (for this question also hath been diligently debated among them) ought not therefore to be counted a pleasure,* because, they say, it cannot be presently and sensibly perceived and felt by some outward motion. But of the contrary part now they agree almost all in this, that health is a most sovereign pleasure. For seeing that in sickness (say they) is grief, which is a mortal enemy to pleasure, even as sickness is to health, why should not then pleasure be in the quietness of health? For they say it maketh nothing to this matter, whether you say that sickness is a grief, or that in sickness is grief, for all cometh to one purpose. For whether health be a pleasure itself, or a necessary cause of pleasure, as fire is of heat, truly both ways it followeth that they cannot be without pleasure that be in perfect health. Furthermore, whiles we eat (say they), then health, which began to be appaired, fighteth by the help of food against hunger. In the which fight, whiles health by little and little getteth the upper hand, that same proceeding and, (as ye would say), that onwardness to the wont strength ministreth that pleasure whereby we be so refreshed.* Health, therefore, which in the conflict is joyful, shall it not be merry when it hath gotten the victory? But as soon as it hath recovered the pristinate strength, which thing only in all the fight it coveted, shall it incontinent be astonied? Nor shall it not know nor embrace the own wealth and goodness?* For where it is said health cannot be felt, this, they think, is nothing true. For what man waking, say they, feeleth not himself in health, but he that is not?* Is there any man so possessed with stonish insensibility or with lethargy, that is to say, the sleeping sickness, that he will not grant health to be acceptable to him, and delectable? But what other thing is delectation than that which by another name is called pleasure?

  Delectation.

  They embrace chiefly the pleasures of the mind, for them they count the chiefest and most principal of all. The chief part of them they think doth come of the exercise of virtue and conscience of good life.* Of these pleasures that the body ministreth, they give the pre-eminence to health. For the delight of eating and drinking, and whatsoever hath any like pleasantness, they determine to be pleasures much to be desired, but no other ways than for health’s sake. For such things of their own proper nature be not so pleasant, but in that they resist sickness privily stealing on. Therefore, like as it is a wise man’s part rather to avoid sickness than to wish for medicines, and rather to drive away and put to flight careful griefs than to call for comfort, so it is much better not to need this kind of pleasure than thereby to be eased of the contrary grief. The which kind of pleasure if any man take for his felicity, that man must needs grant that then he shall be in most felicity, if he live that life which is led in continual hunger, thirst, itching, eating, drinking, scratching, and rubbing.* The which life how not only foul and unhonest, but also how miserable and wretched it is, who perceiveth not? These doubtless be the basest pleasures of all, as unpure and unperfect. For they never come, but accompanied with their contrary griefs, as with the pleasure of eating is joined hunger, and that after no very equal sort. For of these two the grief is both the more vehement and also of longer continuance. For it beginneth before the pleasure, and endeth not until the pleasure die with it.

  The pleasures of the mind.

  Wherefore such pleasures they think not greatly to be set by, but in that they be necessary. Howbeit, they have delight also in these, and thankfully knowledge the tender love of mother nature, which with most pleasant delectation allureth her children to that, to the necessary use whereof they must from time to time continually be forced and driven. For how wretched and miserable should our life be, if these daily griefs of hunger and thirst could not be driven away but with bitter potions and sour medicines, as the other diseases be wherewith we be seldomer troubled? But beauty, strength, nimbleness: these as peculiar and pleasant gifts of nature they make much of. But those pleasures that be received by the ears, the eyes, and the nose, which nature willeth to be proper and peculiar to man (for no other living creature doth behold the fairness and the beauty of the world or is moved with any respect of savours, but only for the diversity of meats, neither perceiveth the concordant and discordant distances of sounds and tunes), these pleasures, I say, they accept and allow as certain pleasant rejoicings of life. But in all things this cautel they use, that a less pleasure hinder not a bigger, and that the pleasure be no cause of displeasure, which they think to follow of necessity if the pleasure be unhonest. But yet to despise the comeliness of beauty, to waste the bodily strength, to turn nimbleness into sluggishness, to consume and make feeble the body with fasting, to do injury to health, and to reject the pleasant motions of nature (unless a man neglect these commodities whiles he doth with a fervent zeal procure the wealth of others or the common profit, for the which pleasure forborne he is in hope of a greater pleasure at God’s hand), else for a vain shadow of virtue for the wealth and profit of no man, to punish himself, or to the intent he may be able courageously to suffer adversity (which perchance shall never come to him), this to do they think it a point of extreme madness, and a token of a man cruelly minded towards himself and unkind towards nature, as one so disdaining to be in her danger, that he renounceth and refuseth all her benefits. This is their sentence and opinion of virtue and pleasure. And they believe that by man’s reason none can be found truer than this, unless any godlier be inspired into man from heaven. Wherein whether they believe well or no, neither the time doth suffer us to discuss, neither it is now necessary. For we have taken upon us to show and declare their laws and ordinances, and not to defend them.

  The gifts of nature.

  Mark this well.

  But this thing I believe verily: howsoever these decrees be, that there is in no place of the world neither a more excellent people, neither a more flourishing commonwealth. They be light and quick of body, full of activity and nimbleness, and of more strength than a man would judge them by their stature, which for all that is not too low. And though their soil be not very fruitful, nor their air very wholesome, yet against the air they so defend them with temperate diet, and so order and husband their ground with diligent travail, that in no country is greater increase and plenty of corn and cattle, nor men’s bodies of longer life and subject or apt to fewer diseases. There, therefore, a man may see well and diligently exploited and furnished, not only those things which husbandmen do commonly in other countries, as by craft and cunning to remedy the barrenness of the ground, but also a whole wood by the hands of the people plucked up by the roots in one place, and set again in another place. Wherein was had regard and consideration, not of plenty, but of commodious carriage, that wood and timber might be nigher to the sea or the rivers or the cities. For it is less labour and business to carry grain far by land than wood. The people be gentle, merry, quick, and fine witted, delighting in quietness and, when need requireth, able
to abide and suffer much bodily labour. Else they be not greatly desirous and fond of it; but in the exercise and study of the mind they be never weary.

  The wealth and description of the Utopians.

  When they had heard me speak of the Greek literature or learning (for in Latin there was nothing that I thought they would greatly allow, besides historians and poets)* they made wonderful earnest and importunate suit unto me that I would teach and instruct them in that tongue and learning. I began, therefore, to read unto them, at the first, truly, more because I would not seem to refuse the labour than that I hoped that they would anything profit therein. But when I had gone forward a little, I perceived incontinent by their diligence that my labour should not be bestowed in vain. For they began so easily to fashion their letters, so plainly to pronounce the words, so quickly to learn by heart, and so surely to rehearse the same, that I marvelled at it, saving that the most part of them were fine and chosen wits, and of ripe age, picked out of the company of the learned men which not only of their own free and voluntary will, but also by the commandment of the council, undertook to learn this language. Therefore in less than three years’ space there was nothing in the Greek tongue that they lacked. They were able to read good authors without any stay, if the book were not false.* This kind of learning, as I suppose, they took so much the sooner because it is somewhat alliant to them. For I think that this nation took their beginning of the Greeks, because their speech, which in all other points is not much unlike the Persian tongue, keepeth divers signs and tokens of the Greek language in the names of their cities and of their magistrates.