More is remembered almost solely on account of his Utopia ( 1518). Utopia is an island in the southern hemisphere, where everything is done in the best possible way. It has been visited accidentally by a sailor named Raphael Hythloday, who spent five years there, and only returned to Europe to make its wise institutions known.
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In Utopia, as in Plato’s Republic, all things are held in common, for the public good cannot flourish where there is private property, and without communism there can be no equality. More, in the dialogue, objects that communism would make men idle, and destroy respect for magistrates; to this Raphael replies that no one would say this who had lived in Utopia.
There are in Utopia fifty-four towns, all on the same plan, except that one is the capital. All the streets are twenty feet broad, and all the private houses are exactly alike, with one door onto the street and one onto the garden. There are no locks on the doors, and every one may enter any house. The roofs are flat. Every tenth year people change houses–apparently to prevent any feeling of ownership. In the country, there are farms, each containing not fewer than forty persons, including two bondmen; each farm is under the rule of a master and mistress, who are old and wise. The chickens are not hatched by hens, but in incubators (which did not exist in More’s time). All are dressed alike, except that there is a difference between the dress of men and women, and of married and unmarried. The fashions never change, and no difference is made between summer and winter clothing. At work, leather or skins are worn; a suit will last seven years. When they stop work, they throw a woollen cloak over their working clothes. All these cloaks are alike, and are the natural colour of wool. Each family makes its own clothes.
Everybody–men and women alike–works six hours a day, three before dinner and three after. All go to bed at eight, and sleep eight hours. In the early morning there are lectures, to which multitudes go, although they are not compulsory. After supper an hour is devoted to play. Six hours’ work is enough, because there are no idlers and there is no useless work; with us, it is said, women, priests, rich people, servants, and beggars, mostly do nothing useful, and owing to the existence of the rich much labour is spent in producing unnecessary luxuries; all this is avoided in Utopia. Sometimes, it is found that there is a surplus, and the magistrates proclaim a shorter working day for a time.
Some men are elected to become men of learning, and are exempted from other work while they are found satisfactory. All who are concerned with government are chosen from the learned. The government is a representative democracy, with a system of indirect election;
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at the head is a prince who is elected for life, but can be deposed for tyranny.
Family life is patriarchal; married sons live in their father’s house, and are governed by him, unless he is in his dotage. If any family grows too large, the surplus children are moved into another family. If a town grows too large, some of the inhabitants are moved into another town. If all the towns are too large, a new town is built on waste land. Nothing is said as to what is to be done when all the waste land is used up. All killing of beasts for food is done by bondmen, lest free citizens should learn cruelty. There are hospitals for the sick, which are so excellent that people who are ill prefer them. Eating at home is permitted, but most people eat in common halls. Here the “vile service” is done by bondmen, but the cooking is done by women and the waiting by the older children. Men sic at one bench, women at another; nursing mothers, with children under five, are in a separate parlour. All women nurse their own children. Children over five, if too young to be waiters, “stand by with marvellous silence,” while their elders eat; they have no separate dinner, but must be content with such scraps as are given them from the table.
As for marriage, both men and women are sharply punished if not virgin when they marry; and the householder of any house in which misconduct has occurred is liable to incur infamy for carelessness. Before marriage, bride and groom see each other naked; no one would buy a horse without first taking off the saddle and bridle, and similar considerations should apply in marriage. There is divorce for adultery or “intolerable waywardness” of either party, but the guilty party cannot remarry. Sometimes divorce is granted solely because both parties desire it. Breakers of wedlock are punished by bondage.
There is foreign trade, chiefly for the purpose of getting iron, of which there is none in the island. Trade is used also for purposes connected with war. The Utopians think nothing of martial glory, though all learn how to fight, women as well as men. They resort to war for three purposes: to defend their own territory when invaded; to deliver the territory of an ally from invaders; and to free an oppressed nation from tyranny. But whenever they can, they get mercenaries to fight their wars for them. They aim at getting other nations into their debt, and letting them work off the debt by supplying mercenaries. For war purposes also they find a store of gold and silver useful, since
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they can use it to pay foreign mercenaries. For themselves, they have no money, and they teach contempt for gold by using it for chamberpots and the chains of bondmen. Pearls and diamonds are used as ornaments for infants, but never for adults. When they are at war, they offer large rewards to any one who will kill the prince of the enemy country, and still larger rewards to any one who will bring him alive, or to himself if he yields himself up. They pity the common people among their enemies, “knowing that they be driven and enforced to war against their wills by the furious madness of their princes and heads.” Women fight as well as men, but no one is compelled to fight. “Engines for war they devise and invent wondrous wittily.” It will be seen that their attitude to war is more sensible than heroic, though they display great courage when necessary.
As for ethics, we are told that they are too much inclined to think that felicity consists in pleasure. This view, however, has no bad consequences, because they think that in the next life the good are rewarded and the wicked punished. They are not ascetic, and consider fasting silly. There are many religions among them, all of which are tolerated. Almost all believe in God and immortality; the few who do not are not accounted citizens, and have no part in political life, but are otherwise unmolested. Some holy men eschew meat and matrimony; they are thought holy, but not wise. Women can be priests, if they are old and widowed. The priests are few; they have honour, but no power.
Bondmen are people condemned for heinous offenses, or foreigners who have been condemned to death in their own countries, but whom the Utopians have agreed to take as bondmen.
In the case of a painful incurable disease, the patient is advised to commit suicide, but is carefully tended if he refuses to do so.
Raphael Hythloday relates that he preached Christianity to the Utopians, and that many were converted when they learnt that Christ was opposed to private property. The importance of communism is constantly stressed; almost at the end we are told that in all other nations “I can perceive nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the common wealth.”
More’s Utopia was in many ways astonishingly liberal. I am not thinking so much of the preaching of communism, which was in the
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tradition of many religious movements. I am thinking rather of what is said about war, about religion and religious toleration, against the wanton killing of animals (there is a most eloquent passage against hunting), and in favour of a mild criminal law. (The book opens with an argument against the death penalty for theft.) It must be admitted, however, that life in More’s Utopia, as in most others, would be intolerably dull. Diversity is essential to happiness, and in Utopia there is hardly any. This is a defect of all planned social systems, actual as well as imaginary.
CHAPTER V The Reformation and CounterReformation
THE Reformation and Counter-Reformation, alike, represent the rebellion of less civilized nations against the intellectual domination of Italy. In the case of the Reformation, the revolt was also political and theological: the authority of the Pope was rejected, and the tribute which he had obtained from the power of the keys ceased to be paid. In the case of the Counter-Reformation, there was only revolt against the intellectual and moral freedom of Renaissance Italy; the power of the Pope was not diminished, but enhanced, while at the same time it was made clear that his authority was incompatible with the easy-going laxity of the Borgias and Medici. Roughly speaking, the Reformation was German,
