Just as today, people complain that the laws are not strict enough or that they are not enforced; and everyone stubbornly refuses to look at the matter through Raphael Hythloday’s eyes and to see that the robbery and violence which are abroad are not a cause of bad times but a result of them.
What can a man of intelligence do in such a world?
More’s friend, Peter Giles, who is represented as the sponsor for Raphael, wonders why a man of Raphael’s talent does not enter into the service of the king—in short, go in for politics. Raphael answers that he does not wish to be enslaved; and he cannot try to fetch happiness on terms so abhorrent to his disposition, for “most princes apply themselves more to the affairs of war than to the useful arts of peace, and are more set on acquiring new kingdoms right or wrong than on governing those they possess.” There is no use trying to tell them about the wiser institutions of the Utopians: if they could not refute your arguments they would say that the old ways were good enough for their ancestors and are good enough for them, even though they have willingly let go of all the genuinely good things that might have been inherited from the past.
So much for the help an intelligent man might give on domestic problems. As for international affairs, it is a mess of chicane and intrigue and brigandage. While so many people of influence are advising preparedness and “how to carry on the war,” what chance would a poor intellectual like Hythloday have if he stood up and said that the government should withdraw their armies from foreign parts and try to improve conditions at home, instead of oppressing the people with taxes and spilling their blood without bringing them a single blessed advantage, whilst their manners are being corrupted by a long war, and their laws fall into contempt, with robbery and murder on every hand.
More, through the tongue of Raphael Hythloday, is painting a picture of the life he sees about him; but in it we seem to see every feature of our own national countenance.
This unhonored and disoriented intellectual is the very emblem of some of our best spirits today. Rack and ruin have gone too far to admit of any sort of repair except that which proceeds from the bottom up; and so Hythloday freely admits that “as long as there is any property, and while money is the standard of all other things, I cannot think that a nation can be governed either justly or happily; not justly, because the best things will fall to the share of the worst men; nor happily, because all things will be divided among a few (and even these are not in all respects happy), the rest being left to be absolutely miserable.” In short, says Hythloday, there is no salvation except through following the practices of the Utopians.
So the new world of exploration brings us within sight of a new world of ideas, and the beloved community, whose seed Plato had sought to implant in men’s minds, springs up again, after a fallow period of almost two thousand years. What sort of country is it?
IV
Geographically viewed, the island of Utopia exists only in More’s imagination. All that we can say of it is that it is two hundred miles broad, shaped something like a crescent, with an entrance into its great bay which lends itself to defence. There are fifty-four cities in the island; the nearest is twenty-four miles from its neighbor, and the farthest is not more than a day’s march distant. The chief town, Amaurot, is situated very nearly in the center; and each city has jurisdiction over the land for twenty miles around; so that here again we find the city-region as the unit of political life.
V
The economic base of this commonwealth is agriculture, and no one is ignorant of the art. Here and there over the countryside are great farmhouses, equipped for carrying on agricultural operations. While those who are well-adapted for rural life are free to live in the open country the whole year round, other workers are sent by turns from the city to take part in the farm-labor. Every farmstead or “family” holds no less than forty men and women. Each year twenty of this family come hack to town after two years in the country; and in their place another twenty is sent out from the town, so that they may learn the country work from those who have had at least a year’s experience.
Agricultural economics is so well advanced that the countryside knows exactly how much food is needed by the whole city-region; but the Utopians sow and breed more abundantly than they need, in order that their neighbors may have the overplus. Poultry-raising is also highly advanced. The Utopians “breed an infinite multitude of chickens in a very curious manner; for the hens do not sit and hatch them, but vast numbers of eggs are laid in a gentle and equal heat, in order to be hatched”—in short, they have discovered the incubator!
During the harvest season the country magistrates inform the city magistrates how many extra hands are needed for reaping; a draft of city workers is made, and the work is commonly done in short order.
While every man, woman, and child knows how to cultivate the soil, since each has learned partly in school and partly by practice, every person also has some “peculiar trade to which he applies
