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 licence that is
granted for travelling, and limits the time of their return. They are
furnished with a waggon and a slave, who drives the oxen and looks
after them; but, unless there are women in the company, the waggon 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
for nothing, but are everywhere treated as if they were at home. If
they stay in any place longer than a night, every one follows his
proper occupation, and is very well used by those of his own trade; but
if any man goes out of the city to which he belongs without leave, and
is found rambling without a passport, he is severely treated, he is
punished as a fugitive, and sent home disgracefully; and, if he falls
again into the like fault, is condemned to slavery. If any man has a
mind to travel only over the precinct of his own city, he may freely do
it, with his father’s permission and his wife’s consent; but when he
comes into any of the country houses, if he expects to be entertained
by them, he must labour with them and conform to their rules; and if he
does this, he may freely go over the whole precinct, being then as
useful to the city to which he belongs as if he were still within it.
Thus you see that there are no idle persons among them, nor pretences
of excusing any from labour. There are no taverns, no ale-houses, nor
stews among them, nor any other occasions of corrupting each other, of
getting into corners, or forming themselves into parties; all men live
in full view, so that all are obliged both to perform their ordinary
task and to employ themselves well in their spare hours; and it is
certain that a people thus ordered must live in great abundance of all
things, and these being equally distributed among them, no man can want
or be obliged to beg.
“In their great council at Amaurot, to which there are three sent from
every town once a year, they examine what towns abound in provisions
and what are under any scarcity, that so the one may be furnished from
the other; and this is done freely, without any sort of exchange; for,
according to their plenty or scarcity, they supply or are supplied from
one another, so that indeed the whole island is, as it were, one
family. When they have thus taken care of their whole country, and laid
up stores for two years (which they do to prevent the ill consequences
of an unfavourable season), they order an exportation of the overplus,
both 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 neighbours 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 them. For this end they have an incredible treasure; but they do
not keep it as a treasure, but in such a manner as I am almost afraid
to tell, lest you think it so extravagant as to be hardly credible.
This I have the more reason to apprehend because, if I had not seen it
myself, I could not have been easily persuaded to have believed it upon
any man’s report.
“It is certain that all things appear incredible to us in proportion as
they differ from known customs; but one who can judge aright will not
wonder to find that, since their constitution differs so much from
ours, their value of gold and silver should be measured by a very
different standard; for since they have no use for money among
themselves, but keep it as a provision against events which seldom
happen, and between which there are generally long intervening
intervals, they value it no farther than it deserves—that is, in
proportion to its use. So that it is plain they must prefer iron either
to gold or silver, for men can no more live without iron than without
fire or water; but Nature has marked out no use for the other metals so
essential as not easily to be dispensed with. The folly of men has
enhanced the value of gold and silver because of their scarcity;
whereas, on the contrary, it is their opinion that Nature, as an
indulgent parent, has freely given us all the best things in great
abundance, such as water and earth, but has laid up and hid from us the
things that are vain and useless.
“If these metals were laid up in any tower in the kingdom it would
raise a jealousy of the Prince and Senate, and give birth to that
foolish mistrust into which the people are apt to fall—a jealousy of
their intending to sacrifice the interest of the public to their own
private advantage. If they should work it into vessels, or any sort of
plate, they fear that the people might grow too fond of it, and so be
unwilling to let the plate be run down, if a war made it necessary, to
employ it in paying their soldiers. To prevent all these inconveniences
they have fallen upon an expedient which, as it agrees with their other
policy, so is it very different from ours, and will scarce gain belief
among us who value gold so much, and lay it up so carefully. They eat
and drink out of vessels of earth or glass, which make an agreeable
appearance, though formed of brittle materials; while they make their
chamber-pots and close-stools of gold and silver, and that not only in
their public halls but in their private houses. Of the same metals they
likewise make chains and fetters for their slaves, to some of which, as
a badge of infamy, they hang an earring of gold, and make others wear a
chain or a 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 were
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 coasts, 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 afterwards as children among us, when they come to years, are
of their puppets and other toys.
“I never saw a clearer instance of the opposite impressions that
different customs make on people than I observed in the ambassadors of
the Anemolians, who came to Amaurot when I was there. As they came to
treat of affairs of great consequence, the deputies from several towns
met together to wait for their coming. The ambassadors of the nations
that lie near Utopia, knowing their customs, and that fine clothes are
in no esteem among them, that silk is despised, and gold is a badge of
infamy, used to come very modestly clothed; but the Anemolians, lying
more remote, and having had little commerce with them, understanding
that they were coarsely clothed, and all in the same manner, took it
for granted that they had none of those fine things among them of which
they made no use; and they, being a vainglorious rather than a wise
people, resolved to set themselves out with so much pomp that they
should look like gods, and strike the eyes of the poor Utopians with
their splendour. Thus three ambassadors made their entry with a hundred
attendants, all clad in garments of different colours, and the greater
part in silk; the ambassadors themselves, who were of the nobility of
their country, were in cloth-of-gold, and adorned with massy chains,
earrings and rings of gold; their caps were covered with bracelets set
full of pearls and other gems—in a word, they were set out with all
those things that among the Utopians were either the badges of slavery,
the marks of infamy, or the playthings of children. It was not
unpleasant to see, on the one side, how they looked big, when they
compared their rich habits with the plain clothes of the Utopians, who
were come out in great numbers to see them make their entry; and, on
the other, to observe how much they were mistaken in the impression
which they hoped this pomp would have made on them. It appeared so
ridiculous a show to all that had never stirred out of their country,
and had not seen the customs of other nations, that though they paid
some reverence to those that were the most meanly clad, as if they had
been the ambassadors, yet when they saw the ambassadors themselves so
full of gold and chains, they looked upon them as slaves, and forbore
to treat them with reverence. You might have seen the children who were
grown big enough to despise their playthings, and who had thrown away
their jewels, call to their mothers, push them gently, and cry out,
‘See that great fool, that wears pearls and gems as if he were yet a
child!’ while their mothers very innocently replied, ‘Hold your peace!
this, I believe, is one of the ambassadors’ 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 their 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 formed valued
themselves, and accordingly laid it aside—a resolution that they
immediately took when, on their engaging in some free discourse with
the Utopians, they discovered their sense of such things and their
other customs. The Utopians wonder how any man should be so much taken
with the glaring doubtful lustre of a jewel or a stone, that can look
up to a star or to the sun himself; or how any should value himself
because his cloth is made of a finer thread; for, how fine soever that
thread may be, it was once no better than the fleece of a sheep, and
that sheep, was a sheep still, for all its wearing it. They wonder much
to hear that gold, which in itself is so useless a thing, should be
everywhere so much esteemed that even man, for whom it was made, and by
whom it has its value, should yet be thought of less value than this
metal; that a man of lead, who has no more sense than a log of wood,
and is as bad as he is foolish, should have many wise and good men to
serve him, only because he has a great heap of that metal; and that if
it should happen that by some accident or trick of law (which,
sometimes produces as great changes as chance itself) all this wealth
should pass from the master to the meanest varlet of his whole family,
he himself would very soon become one of his servants, as if he were a
thing that belonged to his wealth, and so were bound to follow its
fortune! But they much more admire and detest the folly of those who,
when they see a rich man, though they neither owe him anything, nor are
in any sort dependent on his bounty, yet, merely because he is rich,
give him little less than divine honours, even though they know him to
be so covetous and base-minded that, notwithstanding all his wealth, he
will not part with one farthing of it to them as long as he lives!
“These and such like notions have that people imbibed, partly from
their education, being bred in a country whose customs and laws are
opposite to all such foolish maxims, and partly from their learning and
studies—for though there are but few in any town that are so wholly
excused from labour as to give themselves entirely up to their studies
(these being only such persons as discover from their childhood an
extraordinary capacity and disposition for letters), yet their children
and a great part of the nation, both men and women, are taught to spend
those hours in which they are not obliged to work in reading; and this
they do through the whole progress of life. They have all their
learning in their own tongue, which is both a copious and pleasant
language, and in which a man can fully express his mind; it runs over a
great tract of many countries, but it is not equally pure in all
places. They had never so much as heard of the names of any of those
philosophers that are so famous in these parts of the world, before we
went among them; and yet they had made the same discoveries as the
Greeks, both 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 a man in the
abstract as common to all men in particular (so that though we spoke of
him as a thing that we could point at with our fingers, yet none of
them could perceive him) and yet distinct from every one, as if he were
some monstrous Colossus or giant; 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 cause of the
saltness of the sea, of its ebbing and flowing, and of the original and
nature both of the heavens and the earth, they dispute of them partly
as our ancient philosophers have done, and partly upon some new
hypothesis, in which, as they differ from them, so they do not in all
things agree among themselves.
“As to moral philosophy, they have the same disputes among them as we
have here. They examine what are properly good, both for the body and
the mind; and whether any outward thing can be called truly _good_, or
if that term belong only to the endowments of the soul. They inquire,
likewise, into the nature of virtue and pleasure. But their chief
dispute is concerning the happiness of a man, and wherein it
consists—whether in some one thing or in a great many. They seem,
indeed, more inclinable to that opinion that places, if not the whole,
yet the chief part, of a man’s happiness in pleasure; and, what may
seem more strange, they make use of arguments even from religion,
notwithstanding its severity and roughness, for the support of that
opinion so indulgent to pleasure; for they never dispute concerning
happiness without fetching some arguments from the principles of
religion as well as from natural reason, since without the former they
reckon that all our inquiries after happiness must be but conjectural
and defective.
“These are their religious principles:—That the soul of man is
immortal, and that God of His goodness has designed that it should be
happy; and that He has, therefore, appointed rewards for good and
virtuous actions, and punishments for vice, to be distributed after
this life. Though these principles of religion are conveyed down among
them by tradition, they think that even reason itself determines a man
to believe and acknowledge them; and freely confess that if these were
taken away, no man would be so insensible as not to seek after pleasure
by all possible means, lawful or unlawful, using only this caution—that
a lesser pleasure might not stand in the way of a greater, and that no
pleasure ought to be pursued that should draw a great 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 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 endeavours 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 the same time advise them to do all they could in order to
relieve and ease the miserable, and who did not represent gentleness
and good-nature as amiable dispositions. And from thence they infer
that if a man ought to advance the welfare and comfort of the rest of
mankind (there being no virtue more proper and peculiar to our nature
than to ease the miseries of others, to free from trouble and anxiety,
in furnishing them with the comforts of life, in which pleasure
consists) Nature much more vigorously leads them to do all this for
himself. A life of pleasure is either a real evil, and in that case we
ought not to assist others in their pursuit of it, but, on the
contrary, to keep them from it all we can, as from that which is most
hurtful and deadly; or if it is a good thing, so that we not only may
but ought to help others to it, why, then, ought not a man to begin
with himself? since no man can be more bound to look after the good of
another than after his own; for Nature cannot direct us to be good and
kind to others, and yet at the same time to be unmerciful and cruel to
ourselves. Thus as they define virtue to be living according to Nature,
so they imagine that Nature prompts all people on to seek after
pleasure as the end of all they do. They also observe that in order to
our supporting the pleasures of life, Nature inclines us to enter into
society; for there is no man so much raised above the rest of mankind
as to be the only favourite of Nature, who, on the contrary, seems to
have placed on a level all those that belong to the same species. Upon
this they infer that no man ought to seek his own conveniences so
eagerly as to prejudice others; and therefore they think that not only
all agreements between private persons ought to be observed, but
likewise that all those laws ought to be kept which either a good
prince has published in due form, or to 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 advantage 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 which men by a foolish, though common, mistake
call pleasure, as if they could change as easily the nature of things
as the use of words, as things that greatly obstruct their real
happiness, instead of advancing it, because they so entirely possess
the minds of those that are once captivated by them with a false notion
of pleasure that there is no room left for pleasures of a truer or
purer kind.
“There are many things that in themselves have nothing that is truly
delightful; on the contrary, they have a good deal of bitterness in
them; and yet, from our perverse appetites after forbidden objects, are
not only ranked among the pleasures, but are made even the greatest
designs, of life. Among those who pursue these sophisticated pleasures
they reckon such as I mentioned before, who think themselves really the
better for having fine clothes; in which they think they are doubly
mistaken, both in the opinion they have of their clothes, and in that
they have of themselves. For if you consider the use of clothes, why
should a fine thread be thought better than a coarse one? And yet these
men, as if they had some real advantages beyond others, and did not owe
them wholly to their mistakes, look big, seem to fancy themselves to be
more valuable, and imagine that a respect is due to them for the sake
of a rich garment, to which they would not have pretended if they had
been more meanly clothed, and even resent it as an affront if that
respect is not paid them. It is also a great folly to be taken with
outward marks of respect, which signify nothing; for what true or real
pleasure can one man find in another’s standing bare or making legs to
him? Will the bending another man’s knees give ease to yours? and will
the head’s being bare cure the madness of yours? And yet it is
wonderful to see how this false notion of pleasure bewitches 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 stole, the owner, though he might live
perhaps ten years after the theft, of which he knew nothing, would find
no difference between his having or losing it, for both ways it was
equally useless to him.
“Among those foolish pursuers of pleasure they reckon all that delight
in hunting, in fowling, or gaming, of whose madness they have only
heard, for they have no such things among them. But they have asked us,
‘What sort of pleasure is it that men can find in throwing the dice?’
(for if there were any pleasure in it, they think the doing it so often
should give one a surfeit of it); ‘and what pleasure can one find in
hearing the barking and howling of dogs, which seem rather odious than
pleasant sounds?’ Nor can they comprehend the pleasure of seeing dogs
run after a hare, more than of seeing one dog run after another; for if
the seeing them run is that which gives the pleasure, you have the same
entertainment to the eye on both these occasions, since that is the
same in both cases. But if the pleasure lies in seeing the hare killed
and torn by the dogs, this ought rather to stir pity, that a weak,
harmless, and fearful hare should be devoured by strong, fierce, and
cruel dogs. Therefore all this business of hunting is, among the
Utopians, turned over to their butchers, and those, as has been already
said, are all slaves, and they look on hunting as one of the basest
parts of a butcher’s work, for they account it both more profitable and
more decent to kill those beasts that are more necessary and useful to
mankind, whereas the killing and tearing of so small and miserable an
animal can only attract the huntsman with a false show of pleasure,
from which he can reap but small advantage. They look on the desire of
the bloodshed, even of beasts, as a mark of a mind that is already
corrupted with cruelty, or that at least, by too frequent returns of so
brutal a pleasure, must 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 taste 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 senses, raises the passions, and strikes the
mind with generous impressions—this is, the pleasure that arises from
music. Another kind of bodily pleasure is that which results from an
undisturbed and vigorous constitution of body, when life and active
spirits seem to actuate every part. This lively health, when entirely
free from all mixture of pain, of itself gives an inward pleasure,
independent of all external objects of delight; and though this
pleasure does not so powerfully affect us, nor act so strongly on the
senses as some of the others, yet it may be esteemed as the greatest of
all pleasures; and almost all the Utopians reckon it the foundation and
basis of all the other joys of life, since this alone makes the state
of life easy and desirable, and when this is wanting, a man is really
capable of no other pleasure. They look upon freedom from pain, if it
does not rise from perfect health, to be a state of stupidity rather
than of pleasure. This subject has been very narrowly canvassed among
them, and it has been debated whether a firm and entire health could be
called a pleasure or not. Some have thought that there was no pleasure
but what was ‘excited’ by some sensible motion in the body. But this
opinion has been long ago excluded from among them; so that now they
almost universally agree that health is the greatest of all bodily
pleasures; and that as there is a pain in sickness which is as opposite
in its nature to pleasure as sickness itself is to health, so they hold
that health is accompanied with pleasure. And if any should say that
sickness is not really pain, but that it only carries pain along with
it, they look upon that as a fetch of subtlety that does not much alter
the matter. It is all one, in their opinion, whether it be said that
health is in itself a pleasure, or that it begets a pleasure, as fire
gives heat, so it be granted that all 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 vigour? 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 arise out of true virtue and the
witness 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, and scratching himself;
which any one may easily see would be not only a base, but a miserable,
state of a life. These are, indeed, the lowest of pleasures, and the
least pure, for we can never relish them but when they are mixed with
the contrary pains. The pain of hunger must give us the pleasure of
eating, and here the pain out-balances the pleasure. And as the pain is
more vehement, so it lasts much longer; for as it begins before the
pleasure, so it does not cease but with the pleasure that extinguishes
it, and both expire together. They think, therefore, none of those
pleasures are to be valued any further than as they are necessary; yet
they rejoice in them, and with due gratitude acknowledge the tenderness
of the great Author of Nature, who has planted in us appetites, by
which those things that are necessary for our preservation are likewise
made pleasant to us. For how miserable a thing would life be if those
daily diseases of hunger and thirst were to be carried off by such
bitter drugs as we must use for those diseases that return seldomer
upon us! And thus these pleasant, as well as proper, gifts of Nature
maintain the strength and the sprightliness of our bodies.
“They also entertain themselves with the other delights let in at their
eyes, their ears, and their nostrils as the pleasant relishes and
seasoning of life, which Nature seems to have marked out peculiarly for
man, since no other sort of animals contemplates the figure and beauty
of the universe, nor is delighted with smells any further than as they
distinguish meats by them; nor do they apprehend the concords or
discords of sound. Yet, in all pleasures whatsoever, they take care
that a lesser joy does not hinder a greater, and that pleasure may
never breed pain, which they think always follows dishonest pleasures.
But they think it 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 favours, and therefore rejects 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 whatever 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 see
reduced to practice not only all the art that the husbandman employs in
manuring and improving an ill soil, but whole woods plucked up by the
roots, and in other places new ones planted, where there were none
before. Their principal motive for this is the convenience of carriage,
that their timber may be either near their towns or growing on the
banks of the sea, or of some rivers, so as to be floated to them; for
it is a harder work to carry wood at any distance over land than corn.
The people are industrious, apt to learn, as well as cheerful and
pleasant, and none can endure more labour when it is necessary; but,
except in that case, they love their ease. They are unwearied pursuers
of knowledge; for when we had given them some hints of the learning and
discipline of the Greeks, concerning whom we only instructed them (for
we know that there was nothing among the Romans, except their
historians and their poets, that they would value much), it was strange
to see how eagerly they were set on learning that language: we began to
read a little of it to them, rather in compliance with their
importunity than out of any hopes of their reaping from it any great
advantage: but, after a very short trial, we found they made such
progress, that we saw our labour was like to be more successful than we
could have expected: they learned to write their characters and to
pronounce their language so exactly, had so quick an apprehension, they
remembered it so faithfully, and became so ready and correct in the use
of it, that it would have looked like a miracle if the greater part of
those whom we taught had not been men both of extraordinary capacity
and of a fit age for instruction: they were, for the greatest part,
chosen from among their learned men by their chief council, though some
studied it of their own accord. In three years’ time they became
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 Dioscerides. 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 honours 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 Author of
nature; and imagine, that as He, like the inventors of curious engines
amongst mankind, has exposed this great machine of the universe to the
view of the only creatures capable of contemplating it, so an exact and
curious observer, who admires His workmanship, is much more acceptable
to Him than one of the herd, who, like a beast incapable of reason,
looks on this glorious scene with the eyes of a dull and unconcerned
spectator.
“The minds of the Utopians, when fenced with a love for learning, are
very ingenious in discovering all such arts as are necessary to carry
it to perfection. Two things they owe to us, the manufacture of paper
and the art of printing; yet they are not so entirely indebted to us
for these discoveries but that a great part of the invention was their
own. We showed them some books printed by Aldus, we explained to them
the way of making paper and the mystery of printing; but, as we had
never practised these arts, we described them in a crude and
superficial manner. They seized the hints we gave them; and though at
first they could not arrive at perfection, yet by making many essays
they at last found out and corrected all their errors and conquered
every difficulty. Before this they only wrote on parchment, on reeds,
or on the barks of trees; but now they have established the
manufactures of paper and set up printing presses, so that, if they had
but a good number of Greek authors, they would be quickly supplied with
many copies of them: at present, though they have no more than those I
have mentioned, yet, by several impressions, they have multiplied them
into many thousands. If any man was to go among them that had some
extraordinary talent, or that by much travelling had observed the
customs of many nations (which made us to be so well 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 neighbouring countries better, so they
keep up the art of navigation which cannot be maintained but by much
practice.