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

by Thomas More

Ambrosius Holbein’s* woodcut of Utopia, as it appeared in the 1518 Basel edition of the text

  The Utopian alphabet, as it appeared in the 1518 Basel edition of the text

  The opening paragraph of Book One from the 1518 Basel edition of Utopia showing a woodcut (possibly by Ambrosius Holbein), of Hythloday, More, and Peter Giles talking on the bench covered with ‘turves’, with John Clements, More’s page, attending them on the left

  APPENDIX

  Ancillary Materials From Other Early Editions of Utopia

  Jerome Busleyden to Thomas More:* Greeting

  It was not enough, my accomplished friend More, that you formerly spent all your care, labour and study upon the interests and advantage of individuals; but you must bestow them (such is your kindness and generosity) on the community at large. You thought that this benefit of yours, whatever it might be, deserved the greater indulgence, courted the greater favour, and aimed at the higher renown, on this very account, that it was likely to profit the more, the more widely it was diffused and the more there were to share it. To confer this benefit has always been your object on other occasions, and of late you have, with singular good fortune, been most successful in attaining it: I mean, in that ‘afternoon’s talk’, which you have reduced to writing and published, about the right and good constitution, that all must long for, of the Utopian commonwealth.

  In your happy description of that fair institution, we nowhere miss either the highest learning or consummate knowledge of the world. Both those qualities are blended together in the work, meeting on such equal terms that neither yields to the other, but both contend on an equality for the palm.* The truth is, you are the able possessor of such varied learning, and on the other hand of so wide and exact a knowledge of the world, that, whatever you write you assert from full experience, and, whatever assertion you have decided to make, you write most learnedly. A felicity this as rare as it is admirable! What makes it rarer is that it withholds itself from the many, and only imparts itself to the few;—to such above all as have the candour to wish, the knowledge to understand, the credit which will qualify, and the influence which will enable them to consult the common interest as dutifully, justly, and providently as you now plainly do. For, deeming yourself born not for yourself alone, but for the whole world, you have thought fit by this fair service to make the whole world itself beholden to you.

  And this result you would not have been able to effect so well and rightly by any other means, as by delineating for rational beings themselves an ideal commonwealth, a pattern and finished model of conduct, than which there has never been seen in the world one more wholesome in its institution, or more perfect, or to be thought more desirable. For it far surpasses and leaves a long way behind the many famous states, that we have heard so much about, of Sparta and Athens and Rome. Had these been inaugurated under the same favourable conditions, with the same institutions, laws, enactments and rules of life to control them as this commonwealth of yours, they would not, we may be sure, have by this time been lying in ruins, levelled with the ground, and now, alas, obliterated beyond all hope of renewal. On the contrary, they would have been still unfallen, still fortunate and prosperous, leading a happy existence, mistresses of the world meanwhile, and dividing a widespread empire by land and sea.

  Of these commonwealths you compassionated the unhappy lot. And so you wished to save other states in like manner, which now hold the supreme power, from undergoing a like vicissitude, by your picture of a perfect state; one which directed its chief energies not so much to framing laws as to appointing the most approved magistrates. (And with good reason: for otherwise, without them, even the best laws, if we take Plato’s word for it,* would all be counted dead.) Magistrates these, above all after whose likeness, pattern of uprightness, example of conduct, and mirror of justice, the whole state and right course of any perfect commonwealth whatever ought to be modelled; wherein should unite, above all things, prudence in the rulers, courage in the soldiers, temperance in the private individuals, and justice in all.*

  And since the commonwealth you make so famous is manifestly formed, in fairest manner, of these principles it is no wonder if on this account it comes not only as an object of fear to many, but also of reverence to all nations, and one for all generations to tell of; the more so, that in it all competition for ownership is taken away, and no one has any private property at all. For the rest, all men have all things in common, with a view to the commonwealth itself; so that every matter, every action, however unimportant, whether public or private, instead of being directed to the greed of many or the caprice of a few, has sole reference to the upholding of one uniform justice, equality and communion. When that is made the entire object of every action, there must needs be a clearance of all that serves as matter and fuel and feeder of intrigue, of luxury, envy, and wrong; to which mankind are hurried on, even at times against their will, either by the possession of private property, or by the burning thirst of gain, and that most pitiable of all things, ambition, to their own great and immeasurable loss. For it is from these things that there often suddenly arise divisions of feeling, taking up of arms, and wars worse than civil; whereby not only is the flourishing state of wealthy republics utterly overthrown, but the renown they won in other days, the triumphs celebrated, the splendid trophies, the rich spoils so often won from conquered enemies, are all utterly effaced.

  If on these matters the words I write should chance to be less convincing than I desire, there will at any rate be ready at hand the most sufficient witnesses for me to refer you to: I mean, the many great cities formerly laid waste, the states destroyed, the republics overthrown, the villages burnt and consumed. As scarce any relics or traces of their great calamity are to be seen at this day, so neither are their names preserved by any history, however ancient it be, and however far back its records extend.

  These memorable disasters, devastations, overthrows, and other calamities of war our states, whatever they be, will easily succeed in escaping, if they only adapt themselves exactly to the one pattern of the Utopian commonwealth, and do not deviate a hair’s-breadth from it. By so acting alone, they will at length most fully recognize by the result how greatly they have profited by this service you have rendered them; especially since by its acquisition they have learnt to preserve their own state in safety, unharmed, and victorious. It follows that their debt to you, their present deliverer, will be no less than is the just due of those, who have saved—I do not say some one member of a state, but the whole state itself.

  Meanwhile farewell. Go on and prosper, ever devising, carrying out and perfecting something, the bestowal of which on your country may give it long continuance and yourself immortality. Farewell, learned and courteous More, glory of your island, and ornament of this world of ours.

  From my house at Mechlin,* 1516.

  Thomas More sends his Best Wishes to his own Peter Giles*

  I have been highly delighted, my dearest Peter, with the criticism, which has come also to your ears, of that very clever man* who in regard to my Utopia employs the following dilemma. ‘If it is supposed to be true, I consider some details to be rather absurd; if fictitious, I should like to know More’s real opinion about some of the matters he relates.’

  Whoever this man may be, Peter (and I suspect him to be learned and feel sure he is a friend), I am most grateful to him. Indeed I do not know that anyone, since the book was published, has given me such pleasure as he has by his candid criticism. First of all it is gratifying to find that, whether out of friendship to me or out of real interest in the book, he has not wearied of the task of reading it to the very end. Nor has he read it cursorily or hastily, as priests read their breviaries (those, that is to say, who read them at all), but so slowly and carefully that he weighs carefully every point as he proceeds. Then by the very fact that he disagrees with certain points, he makes it sufficiently evident that his agreement with the rest is not rash but considered. Lastly, by the very terms which he empl
oys to blame me, he confers on me, indirectly, much more praise than have those who have tried to flatter me. For a man who, on reading something faulty that I may have written, complains that he has been disappointed, clearly shows what a high opinion he has conceived of me. As for myself, on the other hand, if out of all that I have written some few details at least should not be entirely absurd, it is much more than I ventured to hope for.

  But (for I want, in my turn, to be equally open with him) I do not see why he should pride himself on being so sharp-sighted (or, as the Greeks call it, ‘oxyderches’) as to find some of the Utopian customs rather absurd, or to consider that I have unwisely contrived certain features in my commonwealth, as if nowhere else in the world were there any absurdity, or as if out of all the philosophers no one, in laying down regulations for the State, the ruler, or the private house, had ever suggested anything that could be improved upon. As to which, if I were not restrained by the reverence I bear to the memory, consecrated by age, of great men, I could from any one of them extract propositions which everyone would surely agree with me in condemning.

  But now as he doubts whether Utopia is real or imaginary, I in turn demand his real opinion. I do not indeed deny that if I had determined to write about a commonwealth, and the idea of one had formed itself in my mind, I would not perhaps have thought it a sin to add fictitious details so that the truth, thus coated with honey, might be more palatable to my readers. But in that case even if I had wished to abuse the ignorance of the unlearned, I should certainly not have omitted to insert indications by which scholars would easily have been able to see through my design. If I had done nothing else I should at least have given such names to the prince, the river, the city, the island, as would have warned the skilful reader that the island exists nowhere, that the city is of shadows, the river without water, and the prince without people. It would not have been difficult to do and would have been much more witty. Unless truth had compelled me, I should certainly not have been so stupid as to use those outlandish, meaningless names, Utopia, Anyder, Amaurote, Ademus.

  But, dear Giles, some men are so cautious. Whereas we, in simple faith, wrote out all that Hythloday narrated, they are so wary, so hard to satisfy, that they can scarcely be persuaded to believe it. At any rate, whatever they may think of the story, I am glad to think that they cannot call into question my own veracity, for I can say of my offspring what Mysis in Terence* says to prove that the son of Glycery was not supposititious, ‘Thank God there were reputable witnesses present at the birth.’ For it has, indeed, turned out most fortunately for me that Raphael not only said what he did to you and to me, but to many other men of dignity and credit he said at least as much if not indeed more. Or if they are so unbelieving as not to trust even these, let them go to Hythloday himself, for he is yet living. Only recently I heard from some who had just come from Portugal that on March 1 last he was as well and strong as ever. Let them ask him, let them worm out the truth from him, if they please, by their questions, but let them understand that all I can do is to reproduce the story faithfully, not to guarantee the truth of what I was told.

  Farewell, my dearest Peter, with your delightful wife and clever daughter, to whom my wife sends her best wishes.

  Guillaume Budé to his English friend Thomas Lupset:* Greeting

  I owe you many thanks, my learned young friend Lupset, for having sent me Thomas More’s Utopia, and so drawn my attention to what is very pleasant, and likely to be very profitable, reading.

  It is not long ago since you prevailed upon me (your entreaties seconding my own strong inclination) to read the six books of Galen On the Preservation of the Health, to which that master of the Greek and Latin tongues, Dr Thomas Linacre, has lately rendered the service (or rather, paid the compliment) of translating them from the extant originals into Latin.* So well has the task been performed, that if all that author’s works (which I consider worth all other medical lore put together) be in time translated, the want of a knowledge of Greek is not likely to be seriously felt by our schools of medicine.

  I have hastily skimmed over that work, as it stands in Linacre’s papers (for the courteous loan of which, for so long a time, I am very greatly indebted to you) with the result that I deem myself much benefited by the perusal. But I promise myself still greater profit when the book itself, on the publication of which at the presses of this city you are now busily engaged, shall have appeared in print.

  While I thought myself already under a sufficient obligation to you on this account, here you have presented to me More’s Utopia, as an appendix or supplement to your former kindness. He is a man of the keenest discernment, of a pleasant disposition, well versed in knowledge of the world. I have had the book by me in the country, where my time was taken up with running about and giving directions to workpeople (for you know something, and have heard more, of my having been occupied for more than a twelvemonth on business connected with my country-house); and was so impressed by reading it, as I learnt and studied the manners and customs of the Utopians, that I well-nigh forgot, nay, even abandoned, the management of my family affairs. For I perceived that all the theory and practice of domestic economy, all care whatever for increasing one’s income, was mere waste of time.

  And yet, as all see and are aware, the whole race of mankind is goaded on by this very thing, as if some gadfly were bred within them to sting them. The result is that we must needs confess the object of nearly all legal and civil qualification and training to be this: that with jealous and watchful cunning, as each one has a neighbour with whom he is connected by ties of citizenship, or even at times of relationship, he should be ever conveying or abstracting something from him; should pare away, repudiate, squeeze, chouse, chisel, cozen, extort, pillage, purloin, thieve, filch, rob, and (partly with the connivance, partly with the sanction of the laws) be ever plundering and appropriating.

  This goes on all the more in countries where the civil and canon law, as they are called, have greater authority in the two courts. For it is evident that their customs and institutions are pervaded by the principle, that those are to be deemed the high-priests of Law and Equity, who are skilled in caveats (or capias, rather); men who hawk at their unwary fellow-citizens; artists in formulas, that is, in gudgeon-traps; adepts in concocted law; getters up of cases; jurisconsults of a controverted, perverted, inverted jus. These are the only fit persons to give opinions as to what is fair and good; nay, what is far more, to settle with plenary power what each one is to be allowed to have, and what not to have, and the extent and limit of his tenure. How deluded must public opinion be to have determined matters thus!

  The truth is that most of us, blind with the thick rheum of ignorance in our eyes, suppose that each one’s cause, as a rule, is just, in proportion to its accordance with the requirements of the law, or to the way in which he has based his claim on the law. Whereas, were we agreed to demand our rights in accordance with the rule of truth, and what the simple Gospel prescribes, the dullest would understand, and the most senseless admit, if we put it to them, that, in the decrees of the canonists, the divine law differs as much from the human; and, in our civil laws and royal enactments, true equity differs as much from law; as the principles laid down by Christ, the founder of human society, and the usages of His disciples, differ from the decrees and enactments of those who think the summum bonum and perfection of happiness to lie in the moneybags of a Croesus or a Midas.* So that, if you chose to define Justice nowadays, in the way that early writers liked to do, as the power who assigns to each his due, you would either find her non-existent in public, or, if I may use such a comparison, you would have to admit that she was a kind of kitchen stewardess: and this, alike whether you regard the character of our present rulers, or the disposition of fellow-citizens and fellow-countrymen one towards another.

  Perhaps indeed it may be argued, that the law I speak of has been derived from that inherent, world-old justice called natural law; which teaches that the stronger a
man is, the more he should possess; and, the more he possesses, the more eminent among his countrymen he ought to be: with the result that now we see it an accepted principle in the Law of Nations, that persons who are unable to help their fellows by any art or practice worth mentioning, if only they are adepts in those complicated knots and stringent bonds, by which men’s properties are tied up (things accounted a mixture of Gordian knots and charlatanry, with nothing very wonderful about them, by the ignorant multitude, and by scholars living, for the sake of recreation or of investigating the truth, at a distance from the Courts),—that these persons, I say, should have an income equal to that of a thousand of their countrymen, nay, even of a whole state, and sometimes more than that; and that they should then be greeted with the honourable titles of wealthy men, thrifty men, makers of splendid fortunes. Such in truth is the age in which we live; such our manners and customs; such our national character. These have pronounced it lawful for a man’s credit and influence to be high, in proportion to the way in which he has been the architect of his own fortunes and of those of his heirs: an influence, in fact, which goes on increasing, according as their descendants in turn, to the remotest generation, vie in heaping up with fine additions the property gained by their ancestors; which amounts to saying, according as they have ousted more and more extensively their connections, kindred, and even their blood relations.

  But the founder and regulator of all property, Jesus Christ, left among His followers a Pythagorean communion* and love; and ratified it by a plain example, when Ananias* was condemned to death for breaking this law of communion. By laying down this principle, Christ seems to me to have abolished, at any rate among his followers, all the voluminous quibbles of the civil law, and still more of the later canon law; which latter we see at the present day holding the highest position in jurisprudence, and controlling our destiny.