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FAMOUS 
 UTOPIAS 
 
FAMOUS 
 
 yy 
 
 UTOPIAS 
 
 Being the Complete Text of 
 
 ROUSSEAU'S SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 MORE'S UTOPIA ^ 
 BACON'S NEW ATLANTIS^ 
 CAMPANELLA'S CITY OF THE SUN 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 CHARLES M. ANDREWS, Ph.D, 
 
 TUDOR PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 NEW YOBX 
 

 COPYRrGHT, 1901, 
 BY 
 
 M. WALTER DUNNE. 
 
 PUBLISHER 
 
 
 [T 
 
 
 PRINTED IN U.S.A. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE term Utopia, as generally used, refers to those 
 ideal states which are impossible of realization, both 
 because they are peopled by ideal human beings 
 uninfluenced by personal jealousies or individual passions, 
 and because they are based, with but little regard for 
 the complexities and varieties of real society, upon what 
 the writer thinks ought to be, rather than upon the col- 
 lective experience of mankind. More broadly speaking, 
 however, the term need not be confined to these "fan- 
 tastic pictures of impossible societies, " or " romantic ac- 
 counts of fictitious states, " as they have been called, but ! 
 may be applied to any social, intellectual, or political/ 
 scheme which is impracticable at the time when it is con-| 
 ceived and presented. Thus enlarged, the field may be 
 made to include schemes as diverse as More's Utopia, 
 Campanella's City of tke Sun, Cabet's Icarie, and Morris's 
 News from Nowhere; Rousseau's society of the Social 
 Contract; and modern socialistic and communistic organi- 
 zations, such as the Co-operative Commonwealth of Law- 
 rence GrSnlund, popularized by Bellamy in Looking 
 Backward, and Fliircheim's Money Island. 
 
 U-tepias .have— gen©sally.-mads..their appearance during 
 periods of great social and, political unrest," and it is, there- 
 fore, no accident that after Platol§..^f/».^*c, written dur- 
 ing dark days in the history of Athens, all Utopias should 
 have fallen in the period from the beginning of the six- 
 teenth century to the present time. The Middle Ages, 
 with their fixed institutions, their blind faith, and their 
 acceptance of authority were not a suitable seed-ground 
 for the growth of Utopian schemes. Any ideals that 
 were conceived were of a religious character, based upon 
 conceptions of the past and hopes of the future : those of 
 
IDEAL EMPIRES AND REPUBLICS 
 
 the past combined the pagan notion of a golden age 
 with the Christian's concept of an age of innocence, giv- 
 ing rise to the doctrine that man had fallen from a per- 
 fect life whose simple rules were based on nftural law; 
 those of the future looked forward to the re-establishment 
 of Christ's kingdom on earth. Such doctrines were char- 
 acteristic of a period in which there existed no true idea 
 of human progress. 
 
 But in the. period following the Middle Ages, when 
 mediaeval institutions were breaking down and men were 
 awakening to the fact that governments had become cor- 
 rupt and tyrannical, and social relations unjust and im- 
 moral, it was natural that they should find comfort and 
 satisfaction in casting into romantic or ideal form their 
 conception of what society ought to be. Excellent ex- 
 amples of such Utopias are to be found among the works 
 of sixteenth century writers, who prompted by the new 
 spirit of inquiry constructed ideal conditions that should 
 eliminate the evils of their age. The earliest, More's 
 Uto^ (1516), presents the lofty ideals of the Oxford re- 
 formers, and stands as the greatest literary effort of the 
 time; Vives, a versatile Catholic humanist, in 1531 erected 
 in his De Corruptis Artibus and De Tradendis Discipliniis 
 an ideal academy, a pedagogical Utopia, founded on the 
 highest educational, scientific, and moral considerations ; * 
 Doni in / Mundi celesti, terrestri, et infernali (1552-53) 
 satirized in Utopian form the political and social vices 
 of Italy; and a little later, in 1605, under the pseudonym, 
 Mercurius Britannicus, Joseph Hall, made Bishop of Nor- 
 wich in 1641, published a moral satire, Mundus Alter et 
 Idem, in tone rather Rabelaisian than ideal. 
 
 As the seventeenth century advanced, the spirit of free 
 inquiry grew bolder, overthrowing the philosophy of Ar- 
 istotle, and leading men to study the operations of nature 
 in order to discover the fundamental principles that 
 underlay the constitution of the universe. Three writers, 
 in harmony with the spirit of the age, conceived philo- 
 sophical and intellectual Utopias, in which by means of 
 the new methods of scientific experimentation the social 
 and intellectual order was to be remodeled. Campa< 
 
 * Handbuch der Padagogik, Vol. VII., p. 425. ^ ' ■ 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 nella, a Dominican monk of Calabria, began in 1603 his 
 Civitas Solis, which he published in 1623; Bagon jn^the 
 Novus_ _ A tlantis , _written before^,.i6i7 and- published in 
 1627, exhibited a stater~of TwEich the most striking fea- 
 ture was a college " instituted for the interpreting -of 
 nature and the production qi great and marvelous works 
 for the benefit of man ; " and Comenius, after issuing his 
 Conatuutn Pansophicorum Dilucidatio in 1639, went to 
 England to form a " Universal College " for physical re- 
 search on the lines suggested by Bacon in the New 
 Atlantis.* But in the turmoil of the Civil War the 
 Pansophia of Comenius was lost, and hopes of a Uni- 
 versal College soon vanished. 
 
 During the next hundred years political questions sup- 
 planted philosophical. Harrington's Oceana dedicated to 
 Cromwell in 1656, was not a romance, but " the first 
 sketch in English political science of a written constitu- / 
 tion limiting sovereignty, '* f " the only valuable model of 
 a commonwealth," as Hume calls it. Hume himself, a 
 century later (1752), in his Essays, Moral and Political, 
 Part II., commenting on Plato, More, and Harrington, 
 presented his " Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth, " and be- 
 lieved that in his Utopia he had discovered a form of 
 government to which he himself could not in theory 
 formulate * any considerable objection. " 
 
 In France also, writers were coming forward with 
 schemes of a perfect government. Vairasse d'AUais, in 
 La Ripublique des S^varambes, a part, of his Histoire des 
 S^varambes, 1672, pictured a monarchy, with the state 
 owning land and wealth and the people dwelling in huge 
 osmasies like Fourier's phalanstires. F6n61on in Book X. 
 of the TMmaque, which contains his account of the 
 kingdom of Salente, described a perfect state under the 
 authority of a perfect king. 
 
 But Utopias advocating monarchy are jrare. With the 
 realization- of the evils of the_„ state .system of .the. eight- 
 eenth century, thought took a new direction. Morelly 
 in Naufrage des ties flottantes ou la Basiliade de Pilpai, 
 1753, declared that the existing conditions were corrupt, 
 
 ♦Keatinge: The Great Didactic of Comenius, p. 45. 
 t Dwight in « Political Science Quarterly," 1887, p. 17. 
 
IDEAL EMPIRES AND REPUBLICS 
 
 attacked the law of property, and tried to demonstrate 
 the necessity of placing society under the law of nature 
 and truth, — ideas more fully developed in his Code de la 
 Nature, 1755. This appeal to the law of nati*e showed 
 the prevailing political concept of the period. The eyes 
 of the reformers were now turned to the natural princi- 
 ples of social order and government, and in 1762 Rous- 
 seau gave to .the, world, in the ContKAt-Sacied his scheme 
 of the state founded on social compact. Mably went 
 further than Rousseau, and in his various writings from 
 1765 to 1784 denounced private property, inheritance and 
 right of bequest, commerce, credit, the arts and sciences, 
 libraries, museums, and the like. Finding his ideal 
 among the Greeks, he viewed the Spartan era as a 
 golden age, and extolled poverty as the mother of frugality 
 and the virtues. He preached not only equality and 
 equal education for all, but a federal state and commu- 
 nity of goods. If Rousseau inspired Robespierre and St. 
 Just, it is equally true that Mably and Pechm^ja (Tiliphe, 
 1784) inspired Marat, Babceuf, and Buonarrotti. Although 
 during the French Revolution men acted rather than 
 dreamed, yet in the teachings of Mar^chal, Marat, and 
 the Girondist Brissot de Warville, and in the speeches 
 of St. Just and Robespierre, we find embodied Utopian 
 ideals regarding man and his fundamental rights. The 
 adoption of the constitution of 1793 was as truly an at- 
 tempt to found a Utopia as was the forming of the 
 "Society of Equals," through which Baboeuf hoped to 
 hasten a communistic millenium. 
 
 The French Revolution so shattered society that 
 writers of Utopias, who before had had little real ex- 
 pectation of seeing their theories applied, now worked 
 to remodel the social and industrial order. The fol- 
 lowers of St. Simon established an experimental com- 
 munity in 1826; in 1840 & phalansUre of Fourier was set 
 up at Brook Farm in America; at New Lanark, before 
 the close of the eighteenth century, Robert Owen had 
 tried his economic Utopia, and in 1825 was experiment- 
 ing at New Harmony in Pennsylvania. In 1848 great 
 national workshops were set up in Paris; and in Algiers 
 Marshal Bugeaud endeavored to establish a military 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 colony on a communistic basis. Cabet copied More's 
 Utopia in his Voyage en Icarie, and gave it a better 
 trial at Nauvoo in Illinois in 1849 than had Frank, Miin- 
 ster, and Miiazer in Germany in the sixteenth century. 
 But after Cabet's Icarie, except in a few cases such as 
 Lytton's Coming Race, Bellamy's Looking Backward, and 
 Secrdtan's Mon Utopie, which were little more than lit- 
 erary pastimes, and such experimental communities as 
 the Christian Commonwealth near Columbus, Georgia, and 
 the Ruskin Colony in the same state, both of which have 
 failed, the history of Utopias is the history of scientific 
 socialism, and is not to be dealt with here. 
 
 Of all the Utopias the most famous are the four 
 selected for presentation in this volume, for not only 
 are they great creations of the imagination, but they 
 stand in the first rank of literary productions; and two 
 of them, those of More and Rousseau, have surpassed 
 all others in influence. The work of More is further 
 distinguished by the fact that it was the first of the 
 modern productions of the kind, and also the first to 
 bear the familiar title of IJtopia. Sir Thomas More 
 was born in 1478. He earlyBecame a student of law 
 and the new learning, and though his later years were 
 spent in the practice of law, diplomacy, and statecraft, 
 he remained to the end of his life devoted to learning 
 and religion. That he was a keen observer of the social ■ 
 conditions of his time the Utopia proves; for it con- 
 tains not only a picture of an ideal community, but a 
 severe indictment of the disorders attending the great 
 social and economic transformation from an agricultural 
 to an industrial and commercial state through which 
 England was passing. New conditions of industry and 
 commerce had made impossible the retention of the old 
 manorial system ; villenage was disappearing and the vil- 
 leins were becoming copy-holders ; agriculture was ceasing 
 to be profitable under the old methods ; money was tak- 
 ing the place of payments in kind; and the dispersion 
 of the manorial tenantry was increasing vagabondage and 
 the number of the unemployed. The old towns, too, like 
 Norwich, Exeter, York, Winchester, and Southampton, 
 with their narrow gild restrictions were falling into 
 
IDEAL EMPIRES AND REPUBLICS 
 
 decay, and were making way for new industrial centers 
 like Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield. 
 More important still was the introduction, in many of 
 the counties, of the inclosure system. landlords, dis- 
 covering that farming was more profitable when done on 
 a large scale, and that sheep raising brought even larger 
 returns than agriculture, turned arable lands into pasture, 
 thus depopulating the old villages, setting adrift large 
 number of villeins to find work wherever they could, and 
 bringing great distress and misery to the people. Such 
 were the conditions that inspired More in his Utopia, the 
 first book of which is a treatise on the evils of the time. 
 
 The second book of the Utopia presents as a remedy 
 for all ills an ideal state in which there are no drones 
 and of which the key-note is moderation. With the ex- 
 ception of the very learned, the inhabitants of the new 
 state are all producers, who devote six hours of each 
 day to labor and the remaining to social and intellectual 
 pleasures; who avoid war and all luxuries; and whose 
 king, chosen by themselves and for life, lives like a 
 common citizen, governing not in the interest of the few, 
 but for the happiness of the many. In his treatment of 
 labor, questions of criminal law, education, public health,^ 
 and freedom of speech. More strikes a very modern note ; 
 but though he showed himself, like the other Oxford re- 
 formers, a lover of liberty, justice, truth, and toleration,, 
 and though he rose to be Chancellor of England, he made 
 no effort to apply as a politician the doctrines he had 
 advanced as a philosopher. Possibly, as Master of the 
 Court of Requests, or Court of Poor Men's Causes, he 
 may have dispensed the justice of the Utopia; but in 
 other matters, notably that of religion, he did not in 
 practice rise to the height he had attained in his thought. 
 He opposed Lutheranism, and while not persecuting the 
 Protestants, as has been charged, battled with heresy till 
 his death. In fact, the second book of the Utopia at its 
 best but reflects the character of a noble man, whose mind 
 revolted against the injustice and inequalities of his age. 
 
 Both Campanella's City of the Sun and Bacon's New 
 Atlantis, notwithstanding their differences in setting 
 and treatment, represent an awakened interest in a new 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 philosophy. Unlike Sir Thomas More, neither Campa-t 
 nella nor Bacon concerned himself much with the economic \ 
 or social questions of his time. Campanella was from ; 
 boyhood a student of logic and physics. Bacon, led partly 
 by personal inclination, and partly by the fact that in the 
 greater prosperity of the age of Elizabeth, social condi- 
 tions had become less exigent, turned his attention to 
 politics and philosophy. The crisis reflected in the Uto- 
 pias of these writers were, therefore, revolutions, not in' 
 society, but in philosophical thought and method. In- 
 fluenced by Bernhard Telesius (1508-88), the great Ital- 
 ian opponent of the doctrines of Aristotle, Campanella, 
 like Bacon saw the need of a fundamental reform of 
 natural philosophy, and the substitution for analogies and 
 abstract generalizations of the sounder method of exact j 
 observation. Unwilling to employ principles established 
 arbitrarily, they based all conclusions on careful and scien- 
 tific experimentation. Before Campanella was twenty-five '^ 
 years old he had published a series of works supporting 
 the contention that men can understand the world only <; 
 through the senses. Bacon, born in 1561, seven years 
 earlier than Campanella, although from boyhood eager tcT" 
 accomplish by means of a new philosophy something of 
 practical benefit for humanity, was slower in publishing 
 his views. Whereas the Ciij' of the Sun, written after 
 the De Sensu Rerum, Philosophia Sensibus Demonstrata, 
 and De Investigatione Rerum, presents a social and 
 philosophical scheme worked out in minute detail, the 
 New Atlantis, written before the publication of the. 
 Novum Organum and the Instauratio Magna, is but/" 
 a sketch of the results Bacon would like to have at- 
 tained, rather than a demonstration of the methods nec- 
 essary for their attainment. Campanella's work is, so far 1 
 as it goes, complete; Bacon's is only a fragment which ' 
 probably he never intended to perfect. 
 
 Campanella, bom in southern Calabria in 1568, became 
 at a very early age a Dominican monk and was interested 
 rather in physics than in theology. By attacking the 
 prevailing Aristotelian philosophy, he soon roused ene- > 
 mies against him, and was imprisoned on the charge of 
 conspiring to overthrow the Kingdom of Naples and found 
 
IDEAL EMPIRES AND REPUBLICS 
 
 a republic. He was seven times tortured during twenty- 
 seven years of confinement in fifty different prisons, and 
 was often deprived of the means of study and writing. 
 After his release in 1626, he withdrew t(f* France; a.nd 
 in 1639, died in a convent of his order. The Civitas 
 Soils seu idea reipublicae philosophic^, written in prison, 
 is believed to have been the beginning of a large work, 
 of which the first part was to deal with the laws of 
 nature, the second with the manners and customs of men, 
 the third with the organization of the state, the fourth 
 with the economic bases of society. It was, as Campanella 
 himself says, the counterpart of Plato's Republic, and on 
 its scientific side was based on Telesius. It formulated 
 for the first time a complete socialistic system on a scien- 
 tific foundation,* and, in France especially, furnished a 
 model for later ideal communities. 
 
 The city with its seven walls, its compact organization, 
 , its carefully divided labors, and rigorous discipline reflect 
 the monastic experiences of the writer; but the principles, 
 in accordance with which the state is governed, the 
 social relation determined, and industry controlled, are 
 / such as to interest men in all ages. Cjjljectixely, the 
 ' inhabitants labor for the common good ; individually, each 
 seeks the perfecting of his body and soul, the care of 
 the young children, and the worship of God. Govern- 
 ment is intrusted to the wisest and ablest, and laws are 
 made and administered only so far as they promote the 
 object for which all are laboring. The essences of life 
 are equality, sacrifice of self for the community, the 
 banishment of egotism; and peculiar features are the com- 
 munity of wives and goods, common meals, state control 
 of produce, and of children after a certain age, dislike of 
 commercial exchange, depreciation of money, love of all 
 for manual labor, and the high regard which all show for 
 intellectual and artistic pursuits. It is a remarkable fact 
 that in spite of Campanella's sufferings his work should 
 not only shbw no trace of bitterness, but should main- 
 tain consistently the loftiest ideals. 
 
 Less purely Utopian in conception than the City of the 
 Sun is Bacon's Atlantis, and almost entirely wanting is 
 •Sigwart, Kletne Schriften, p. 151. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 it in the communistic extravagances of Campanella's work. 
 It contains an expression of the scientific views of Bacon 
 and his opinion regarding the duty of the state toward 
 science. More than this it describes his tastes in fconduct 
 and dress, and is characterized by a spirit of hospitality, 
 kindliness, and courtesy, which betrays his sympathetic 
 nature. As has been well said " there is no single work 
 of his which has so much of himself in it. ® Unlike More, 
 who would limit the population. Bacon, as the institutions 
 of the Tirsan shows, would have families large; and 
 unlike other writers of his age, he gives a prominent part 
 and attractive character to Joabin, a Jew. But the chief 
 interest of the author centers in Solomon's House, the 
 College of the Six Days Works, a state institution governed 
 by an official body, and founded for the purpose of dis- 
 covering " the causes and secret motions of things. " Here 
 Bacon gives a list of those experiments and observations, 
 which he hoped would increase knowledge, ameliorate 
 the conditions of life, improve the physical well-being of 
 man, and enlarge the bounds of the human empire. In 
 medicine, surgery, meteorology, food, and mechanical 
 contrivances he anticipates many of the improvements 
 of later times. It has been generally supposed that " this 
 noblest foundation that ever was on earth " suggested 
 the foundation and program of the Royal Society in 
 England and of similar societies abroad. 
 
 From Campanella and Bacon to Rousseau is a long 
 reach not only in time, but in thought also; and noth- 
 ing could be more foreign to the philosophy advocated 
 by the earlier writers than the a priori methods of Rous- 
 seau, and his disregard of history, observation, and in- 
 duction. Taking ideas that had been floating about in 
 Europe for two centuries, he presented them, with great 
 charm and vigor of style, as a set of positive principles 
 governing the organization of the state. Nor did he in- 
 vent an island of Utopia, a City of the Sun, or a far away 
 Atlantis in which to apply, his principles, but he declared 
 that they were capable of universal application, and that 
 they indicated what every government would be if it were 
 stripped of the artificial garb of civilization. His vague 
 generalizations and impracticable doctrines were the more 
 
IDEAL EMPIRES AND REPUBLICS 
 
 efiEective because not embodied in a romantic form, for 
 each doctrine applied directly to the man who read it 
 and was applied by him to the state that was oppressing 
 him. Rousseau fascinated the multitude because he 
 seemed to appeal, not to their imagination, but to their 
 reason, and seemed to say that the state of the Social 
 Contract was what France ought to be and might be, 
 if only the people of France had their rights. 
 
 The central idea of the Social Contract is the abso- 
 lute authority of the people. Rousseau declares that the 
 existing situation is but a degeneration from a more per- 
 fect order, when man, born free, was possessed of natural 
 liberty and governed by natural law; and that this de- 
 , generation had begun when man exchanged natuoraj lib- 
 erty for civil liberty, and natural law for positive law. 
 Rousseau further holds that government and the state 
 are the result of a social compact, a common agreement 
 between individuals who voluntarily 3rield themselves to 
 be subject to the common will ; that such body politic is 
 composed of equal members possessed of absolute author- 
 ity; that sovereignty residing in the people can neither 
 be delegated to representatives nor modified by contract 
 with a king; and that the will of the majority, as ex- 
 pressed by universal suffrage, determines the form tht 
 government should take, and can at any time change thft 
 government if it desires. The result of such ideas was to 
 lead the people to believe that existing institutions had 
 no right to exist ; that sovereignty rightfully belonged not 
 to the king but to them; and that a government which 
 had usurped sovereignty could be set aside. 
 
 But Rousseau's Utopia was based on four fallacies: first, 
 the essential goodness of man ; secondly, the original free- 
 dom and equality of man; thirdly, the possession by man 
 of inherent political rights; and fourthly, the compact 
 between individuals as the basis of the State Yet its 
 doctrines found a firm rooting among the people of the 
 period after Rousseau, both in France and in America, 
 and rights of man and an original compact became the 
 shibboleths of statesmen for half a century Rousseau's 
 Utopia, unlike the ideal states that had gone before, ap- 
 pealed to the masses of the people already ripe for revo- 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 lution, became a standard around which they were to rally, 
 an article of faith for which they were to fight. In this 
 respect, the Social Contract is no longer a Utopia, but 
 a creed, of that class to which Calvin's Institutes be- 
 long With the rise of the historical school, however, its 
 doctrines have vanished, much as did those of Aristotle 
 before the attacks of Campanella and Bacon. Latter-day 
 Utopias are not founded on a /wr« deductions ; they gen-L' 
 erally have a scientific basis. 
 
 The systematic study of Utopias cannot but be fruit- 
 ful of results. Fantastic though many of the systems are, 
 each is nevertheless a mirror of the prevailing thought of 
 the period in which it is written and a key to the ideals 
 of the best men. To write properly the history of Uto- 
 pias from the time of Sir Thomas More to the present 
 is to write the history of the progress of human thought 
 in the last five centuries. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAOB 
 
 ROUSSEAU'S SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 Prefatory Note i 
 
 Introductory Note to Book I. . .y/T^^-f'^s .... 3 
 
 BOOK /\ 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I. Subject of the First Book . 'T'-^t^ 4 
 
 II. Primitive Societies 4 
 
 III. The Right of the Strongest 6 
 
 IV. Slavery 7 
 
 V. That It Is Always Necessary to Go Back to a First 
 
 Convention . . . . , 12 
 
 VI. The Social Pact -j — : — r- 13 
 
 VII. The Sovereign xj 
 
 VIII. The Civil State 17 
 
 IX. Real Property . .__.. , . 18 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 I. That Sovereignty Is Inalienable 21 
 
 II. That Sovereignty Is Indivisible 22 
 
 III. Whether the General Will Can Err . ,. — r- « . 24 
 
 IV. The Limits of the Sovereign Power . . . . ■ . . 25 
 V The Right of Life and Death 29 
 
 VI. The Law .... 31 
 
 VII. The Legislator 34 
 
 VIII. The People , . 37 
 
 IX. The People (continued) 39 
 
 X. The People (continued) 42 
 
 XI. The Different Systems of Legislation 45 
 
 XII. Division of the Laws 47 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 I. Government in General-^ — . — . — 49 
 
 II. The Principle which Constitutes the Different 
 
 Forms of Government 54 
 
 III. Classification of Governments .57 
 
 IV. Democracy 58 
 
 V. Aristocracy «.... 60 
 
IDEAL EMPIRES AND REPUBLICS 
 
 CEAF. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 XI. 
 
 XII. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 XV. 
 XVI. 
 
 xvn. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Monarchy ''3 
 
 Mixed Governments 68 
 
 That Every Form of Government Is Not Fit for 
 
 Every Country 69 
 
 The Marks of a Good Government „r-^zx==-^ • • 74 
 The Abuse of the Government and Its Tendency to 
 
 Degenerate . ... 76 
 
 The Dissolution op the Body Politic 78 
 
 How THE Sovereign Authority Is Maintained ... 79 
 How the Sovereign Authority Is Maintained (con- 
 tinued) ... 80 
 
 How the Sovereign Authority Is Maintained (con- 
 tinued) 8a 
 
 Deputies or Representatives 83 
 
 That the Institution of the Government Is Not a 
 
 Contract .- — ; — 86 
 
 The Institution op the Government 88 
 
 Means of Preventing Usurpations of the Government. 8q 
 
 BOOK TV. 
 
 I. That the General Will Is Indestructible 
 
 II. Voting .... 
 
 III. Elections . 
 
 IV. The Roman Comitia 
 V. The Tribuneship . 
 
 VI. The Dictatorship 
 
 VII. The Censorship .i:i=r.; 
 
 VIII. Civil Religion 
 
 IX. Conclusion .- . - 
 
 92 
 
 94 
 
 97 
 
 99 
 
 109 
 
 III 
 
 114 
 
 115 
 
 126 
 
 SIR THOMAS MORE'S UTOPIA 
 
 Book 1 129 
 
 Book II 162 
 
 Of The Towns of Utopia, Particularly of Amaurot . . 165 
 
 Of Their Magistrates 167 
 
 Of Their Trade, and Manner of Life 168 
 
 Of Their Traffic 173 
 
 Of the Traveling of the Utopians . 178 
 
 Of Their Slaves and of Their Marriages 198 
 
 Of Their Military Discipline 206 
 
 Of the Religions of the Utopians 215 
 
 LORD FRANCIS BACON'S NEW ATLANTIS 
 
 • 835 
 
 THOMAS CAMPANELLA'S CITY OP THE SUN . 
 
 -Is' 
 
 i7S 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 fgis^ little treatise is extracted from a larger work 
 undertaken at an earlier time without consideration of my 
 capacity, and long since abandoned. Of the various 
 fragments that might be selected from what was accom- 
 plished, the following is the most considerable and ap- 
 pears to me the least unworthy of being offered to the 
 public. The rest of the work is no longer in existence. 
 » (0 
 
BOOK I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 I WISH to inquire whether, taking men as they are and 
 laws as they can be made, it is possible to establish some 
 just and certain rule of administration in civil affairs. 
 In this investigation I shall always strive to reconcile 
 what right per mits with what interest prescribes, so that 
 Qustice"and utility~may~notbe_^^re3? 
 
 r enter upon tEis" inquiry without demonstrating the 
 importance of my subject. I shall be asked whether I 
 am a prince or a legislator that I write on politics. I 
 reply that I am not ; and that it is for this very reason 
 that I write on politics. If I were a prince or a legis- 
 lator, I should not waste my time in saying what ought 
 to be done; I should do it or remain silent. 
 
 Having been bom a citizen of a free State,* and a 
 member of the sovereign body, however feeble an in- 
 fluence my voice may have in public affairs, the right to 
 vote upon them is sufficient to impose on me the duty 
 of informing myself about them; and I feel happy, when- 
 ever I meditate on governments, always to discover in my 
 researches new reasons for loving that of my own country. 
 
 * Rousseau, bom at Geneva in 1712, was a citizen, that is,_a^member 
 of thes overeign body enjoyin g full politicaljrigbts»- He was proud of 
 his mem bership of this cl ose~ariiEocracy. Rousseau'Delieved that the 
 Social Contract would be well received in his native city on account of 
 the praise bestowed on aristocratic go vernment ; but the work was burned, 
 and in 1763 he renounced his citizenship. — jiD. 
 
 (3) 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 Subject of the Fisst Book. 
 
 Man is bom free, and everywhere he ^s in ch ains . 
 Many a one believes" himself ~the"master of others, and 
 yet he is a greater slave than they. How has this change 
 come about ? I do not know. What can render it legiti- 
 mate ? I believe that I can settle this question. 
 
 If I considered only force and the results that proceed 
 from it, I should say that so long as a people is compelled 
 to obey and does obey, it does well ; but that, so soon as 
 it can shake off the yoke and does shake it off, it does 
 better; for, if men recover their freedom by virtue of the 
 same right by which it was taken away, either they are 
 justified in resuming it, or there was no justification for 
 depriving them of it. But the social_order is a sacred 
 righ|__which serves as a fpundation fgr_a ll othe rs. This 
 right, howevei\~^di2efiJiQt,i;ama-irQiii^oa±ure^ It is there- 
 fore based on conventions. The question is to know what 
 these conventions are. Before coming to that, I must 
 establish what I have just laid down. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Primitive Societies. 
 
 / The earliest of all societies,* and the only natural one, 
 ' is the family; yet children remain attached to their father 
 only so long as they have need of him for their own 
 preservation. As soon as this need ceases, the natural 
 bond is dissolved. The children being freed from the 
 obedience which they owed to their father, and the father 
 from the cares which he owed to his children, become 
 equally independent. If they remain united, it is no 
 
 • Rousseau's endeavor in chapters 2 to 4 is to establish that freebom 
 men have fallen into slavery. — Ed. 
 (4) 
 
PRIMITIVE SOCIETIES 5 
 
 longer naturally but voluntarily; and the family itself is 
 kept together only by convention. 
 
 This common liberty is a consequence of man's nature, 
 His first law .is_ to attend to his,_oHn. preserKatiQll< his 
 first cares are those which he owes to himself; and as 
 soon as he comes to years of discretion, being sole judge 
 of the means adapted for his own preservation, he be- 
 comes his own master. 
 
 T he family is, then , if yo u will, the primitive model of 
 ■ political societies ; the chiet is the analogue of the father, 
 while the people represent the children; and all, being 
 born free and equal, alienate their liberty only for their 
 owrT advantage. The whole difference is that, in the 
 family, the father's love for his children repays him for 
 the care that he bestows upon them ; while, in the State, 
 the pleasure of ruling makes up for the chief's lack of 
 love for his people. 
 
 Grotius * denies that all human authority is established 
 for the benefit of the governed, and he cites slavery as 
 an instance. His invariable mode of reasoning is to 
 establish right by fact. A juster method might be em- 
 ployed, but none more favorable to tyrants. 
 
 It is doubtful, then, according to Grotius, whether the 
 human race belongs to a hundred men, or whether these 
 hundred men belong to the human race; and he appears 
 throughout his book to incline to the former opinion, 
 which is also that of Hobbes. In this way we have man 
 kind divided like herds of cattle, each of which has a 
 master, who looks after it in order to devour it. 
 
 Just as a herdsman is superior in nature to his herd, 
 so chiefs, who are the herdsmen of men, are superior in 
 nature to their people. Thus, according to Philo's ac- 
 count, the Emperor Caligula reasoned, inferring truly 
 enough from this analogy that kings are gods, or that 
 men are brutes. 
 
 The reasoning of Caligula is tantamount to that of 
 Hobbes and Grotius. Aristotle, before them all, had 
 
 * Grotius (b. 1582, d. 1645). See Book I. 3 of his De Jure Belli ei 
 Pacis. Hallam (Lit. of Europe, III, 4) denies that Grotius confounded 
 right with fact, though he concedes that the latter's theological prejudices 
 led him to carry too far the principle of obedience to government — Ed. 
 
 -V 
 
6 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 likewise said that men are not naturally equal, but that 
 some are born for slavery and others for dominion. 
 
 Aristotle was right, but he mistook the eifect for the 
 cause. Every man bom in slavery is born £ot slavery; 
 nothing is more certain. Slaves lose everything in their 
 bonds, even the desire to escape from them; they love 
 their servitude as the companions of Ulysses loved their 
 brutishness. If, then, there are slaves by nature, it is 
 because there have been slaves contrary to nature. The 
 first slaves were made such by force; their cowardice 
 kept them in bondage. 
 
 I have said nothing about King Adam nor about Em- 
 peror Noah, the father of three great monarchs who shared 
 the universe, like the children of Saturn with whom they 
 are supposed to be identical. I hope that my modera- 
 tion will give satisfaction; for, as I am a direct descend- 
 ant of one of these princes, and perhaps of the eldest 
 branch, how do I know whether, by examination of titles, 
 I might not find myself the lawful king of the human 
 race ? Be that as it may, it cannot be denied that Adam 
 was sovereign of the world, as Robinson was of his island, 
 so long as he was its sole inhabitant ; anli it was an agreea- 
 ble feature of that empire that the monarch, secure on 
 his throne, had nothing to fear from rebellions, or wars, 
 or conspirators. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Right of the Strongest. 
 
 The strongest man is never strong enough to be always 
 master, unless he transforms his power into right, and 
 
 obedience into duty. Hence the right of the strongest 
 
 a right apparently assumed in irony, and really estab- 
 lished in principle. But will this phrase never be ex- 
 plained to us? Force is a physical power; I do not see 
 what morality can result from its effects. To yield to 
 force is an act of necessity, not of will; it is at most an 
 act of prudence. In what sense can it be a duty ? 
 
SLAVERY 7 
 
 Let us assume for a moment this pretended right. I 
 say that nothing results from it but inexplicable non- 
 sense; for if force constitutes right, the effect changes 
 with the cause, and any force which overcomes the first 
 succeeds to its rights. As soon as men can disobey with 
 impunity, they may do so legitimately; and since the 
 strongest is always in the right, the only thing is to act 
 in such a way that one may be the strongest. But what 
 sort of a right is it that perishes when force ceases ? If 
 it is necessary to obey by compulsion, there is no need 
 to obey from duty; and if men are no longer forced to 
 obey, obligation is at an end. We see then, that this 
 word RIGHT adds nothing to force ; it here means nothing 
 at all. 
 
 Obey the powers that be. If that means. Yield to 
 force, the precept is good but superfluous ; I reply th^t it 
 will never be violated. All power comes from God, I 
 admit; but every disease comes from him tod; does it i 
 follow that we are prohibited from calling in a physi- 
 cian ? If a brigand should surprise me in the recesses 
 of a wood, am I bound not only to give up my purse 
 when forced, but am I also morally bound to do so when 
 I might conceal it? For, in effect, the pistol which he 
 holds is a superior force. 
 
 Let us agree, then, that might does not make right, 
 and that we are bound to obey none but lawful authori- 
 ties. Thus my original question ever recurs. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Slavery. 
 
 fimcE no man has any natural auth ority over his fellow- 
 m ^* and smce torce ia IluL Llm tjutirce of right, conven- 
 tions remain as the basis of all lawful authority among 
 m en.* 
 
 * Having shown that political authority does not spring from the law 
 of nature, and that force is not a source of right, Rousseau reverts 
 to his statement in chapter I. that all lawful authority rests on con- 
 ventions, and he now proceeds to consider what conventions are 
 legitimate.— ( Ed. ) 
 
8 THE SOCIAL COISPTRACT 
 
 If an individual, says Grotius, can alienate his liberty 
 and become the slave of a master, why should not a 
 whole people be able to alienate theirs, and become sub- 
 ject to a king? In this there are many e^ivocal terms 
 requiring explanation ; but let us confine ourselves to the 
 word ALIENATE. To alienate is to give or sell. Now, a 
 man who becomes another's slave does not give himself; 
 he sells himself at the very least for his subsistence. 
 But why does a nation sell itself ? So far from a king 
 supplying his subjects with their subsistence, he draws 
 his from them; and, according to Rabelais, a king does 
 not live on a little. Do subjects, then, give up their 
 persons on condition that their property also shall be 
 taken ? I do not see what is left for them to keep. 
 
 It will be said that the despot secures to his subjects 
 civil peace. Be it so; but what do they gain by that, if 
 the wars which his ambition brings upon them, together 
 with his insatiable greed and the vexations of his ad- 
 ministration, harass them more than their own dissen- 
 sions would ? What do they gain by it if this tranquillity 
 is itself one of their miseries ? Men live tranquilly also 
 in dungeons; is that enough to make them contented 
 there ? The Greeks confined in the cave of the Cyclops 
 lived peacefully until their turn came to be devoured. 
 
 To say that a man gives himself for nothing is to say 
 what is absurd and inconceivable ; such an act is illegiti- 
 mate and invalid, for the simple reason that he who per- 
 forms it is not in his right mind. To say the same thing 
 of a whole nation is to suppose a nation of fools; and 
 madness does not confer rights. 
 
 Even if each person could alienate himself, he could 
 not alienate his children; they are bom free men; their 
 liberty belongs to them, and no one has a right to dis- 
 pose of it except themselves. Before they have come to 
 years of discretion, the father can, in their name, stipu- 
 late conditions for their preservation and welfare, but 
 not surrender them irrevocably and unconditionally; for 
 such a gift is contrary to the ends of nature, and exceeds 
 the rights of paternity. In order, then, that an arbitrary 
 government might be legitimate, it would be necessary 
 that the people in each generation should have the option 
 
SLAVERY 9 
 
 of accepting or rejecting it ; but in that case such a gov- y^ 
 ernment would no longer be arbitrary. 
 
 To renounce one's liberty is to renounce one's qualify 
 as a ma ^^hf? rigbtn nnri alnn the^duties of humanity. 
 "For him who renounces everything there is no possible 
 compensation. Such a renunciation is incompatible with 
 man's nature, for to take away all freedom from his will 
 is to take away all morality from his actions. In short, 
 a convention which stipulates absolute authority on the I 
 one side and unlimited obedience on the other is vain and ' 
 contradictory. Is it not clear that we are under no obli- 
 gations whatsoever toward a man from whom we have 
 a right to demand everything ? And does not this single 
 condition, without equivalent, without exchange, involve 
 the nullity of the act ? For what right would my slave 
 have against me, since all that he has belongs to me ? 
 His rights being mine, this right of me against myself 
 is a meaningless phrase. 
 
 Grotius and others derive from war another origin for 
 the pretended right of slavery. The victor having, accord- 
 ing to them, the right of slaying the vanquished, the 
 latter may purchase his life at the cost of his freedom; 
 an agreement so much the more legitimate that it turns 
 to the advantage of both. 
 
 But it is manifest that this pretended right of slaying 
 the vanquished in no way results from the state of war. 
 Men are not naturally enemies, if only fr >r j^e-. rf-asnTi 
 
 ffiaf^livin'pr in thP^r pritnitiim inrlppppr^p-npp.^ they have 
 
 no mutual relations suiSciently durable to cons titute a^ 
 stats of peace or a state of war. It is the relation of ; 
 things and not of men which constitutes war; and since 
 the state of war cannot arise from simple personal relations, / 
 but only from real relations, private war — war between ^ 
 man and man — cannot exist either in the state of nature, 
 where there is no settled ownership, or in the social state 
 where everything is under the authority of the laws. 
 
 Private co mbats, duels, and encounters are acts which 
 do not constitute a State ot war; ana witn re gard to the 
 private wars authorized by the Establishments oi Louis 
 jy., kinor nf Frgripp anrl suspended bv the Peace of God. 
 they were abuses of the feudal government, an absurd 
 
lo THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 system if ever there was one, contrary both to the 
 principles of natural right and to all sound government. 
 
 W'ar. then, is not a relation between man and many bu t 
 aTelation between ^^»^p arirl Statp in which inHitHHiigls 
 a re enemies o nly by accident, not as men, nor even as 
 citizens, b ut as soldiers; not as members f^f thp. fatlier- 
 land, but as its defenders. In short, each State can have 
 as enemies only other States and not individual men, 
 inasmuch as it is impossible to fix any true relation 
 between things of different kinds. 
 
 This principle is also conformable to the established 
 maxims of all ages and to the invariable practice of all 
 civilized nations. Declarations of war are not so much 
 warnings to the powers as to their subjects. The for- 
 eigner, whether king, or nation, or private person, that 
 robs, .„slays, or detains subjects without declaring war 
 against the government, is not an enemy, but a brigand. 
 Even in open war, a just prince, while he rightly takes 
 possession of all that belongs to the State in an enemy's 
 country, respects the person and property of individuals ; 
 he respects the rights on which his own are based. The 
 aim of war being the destruction of the hostile State, we 
 have a right to slay its defenders so long as they have 
 arms in their hands ; but as soon as they lay them down 
 and surrender, ceasing to be enemies or instruments of the 
 enemy, they become again simply men, and no one has 
 any further right over their lives. Sometimes it is possi- 
 ble to destroy the State without killing a single one of its 
 members ; but war confers no right except what is .neces- 
 sary to its end. These are not the principles of Grotius ;* 
 they are not based on the authority of poets, but are 
 derived from the nature of things, and are founded on 
 reason. 
 
 With regard to the right of conquest, it has no other 
 foundation than the law of the strongest. If war does 
 not confer on the victor the right of slajdng the van- 
 
 • Grotius treats of declarations of war in Ds Jure III. 3. The 
 reference to the authority of poets is a sneer at Grotius, borrowed 
 probably from Hobbes (Review and Conclusion) and Locke I. 11. 
 Mackintosh and Hallam have defended Grotius by pointing out that he 
 quotes poets as witnesses, not as authorities.— Ed. 
 
SLAVERY II 
 
 qiiished, this right, which he does not possess, cannot be 
 the foundation of a right to enslave them. If we have 
 a right to slay an enemy only when it is impossible to 
 enslave him, the right to enslave him is not derived from 
 the right to kill him; it is, therefore, an iniquitous bar- 
 gain to make him purchase his life, over which the victor 
 has no right, at the cost of his liberty. In establishing 
 the right of life and death upon the right of slavery, 
 and the right of slavery upon the right of life and death, 
 is it not manifest that one falls into a vicious circle ? 
 
 Even if we grant this terrible right of killing every- 
 body, I say that a slave made in war, or a conquered 
 nation, is under no obligation at all to a master, except 
 to obey him so far as compelled. In taking an equiva- 
 lent for his life the victor has conferred no favor on the 
 slave ; ^instead of killing him unprofitably, he has de- 
 ^stroy qf* ^^'"^ f" r his own advantage.! Far, then, from 
 having acquired over him any authority in addition to 
 that of force, the state of war subsists between them as 
 before, their relation even is the effect of it; and the 
 exercise of the rights of war supposes that there is no 
 treaty of peace. They have made a_£oiiyention. Be it 
 so; but this convention, far from terminating the state 
 of war, supposes its continuance. 
 
 Thus, in whatever way we regard things, the right of 
 slavery is invalid, not only because it is illegitimate, but 
 because it is absurd and meajaingless. These term's, slavery 
 and RIGHT, are contradictory and mutually exclusive. 
 Whether addressed by a man to a man, or by a man to 
 a nation, such a speech as this will' always be equally 
 foolish: "I make an agreement with you wholly at your 
 expense and wholly for my benefit, and I shall observe 
 it as long as I please, while you also shall observe it as 
 long as I please." 
 
CHAPTER V. ^ 
 
 That It Is Always Necessary to Go Back to a First 
 Convention. 
 
 If I should concede all that I have so far refuted, those 
 who favor despotism would be no farther advanced. 
 There will always be a great difference between subduing 
 a multitude and ruling a society. When isolated men, 
 however numerous they may be, are subjected one after 
 another to a single person, this seems to me only a case 
 of master and slaves, not of a nation and its chief; they 
 form, if you will, an aggregation, but not an association, 
 for they have neither public property nor a body politic. 
 Such a man, had he enslaved half the world, is never any- 
 , thing but an individual ; his interest, separated from that 
 \of the rest, is never an3rthing but a private interest. If 
 he dies, his empire after him is left disconnected and dis- 
 united, as an oak dissolves and becomes a heap of ashes 
 after the fire has consumed it. 
 
 A nation, says Grotius, can give itself to a king. Ac- 
 cording to Grotius, then, a nation is a nation before it 
 gives itself to a king. This gift itself is a civil act, and 
 presupposes a public resolution. Consequently, before ex- 
 amining the act by which a nation elects a king, it would 
 be proper to examine the act by which a nation becomes 
 a nation; for this act, being necessarily anterior to the 
 other, is the real foundation of the society. 
 
 In fact, if there were no anterior convention, where, 
 unless the election were unanimous, would be the obliga- 
 tion upon the minority to submit to the decision of the 
 majority? And whence do the hundred who desire a 
 master derive the right to vote on behalf of ten who do 
 not desire one ? The law of the plurality of votes is itself 
 established by convention, and presupposes unanimity once 
 at least. 
 (la) 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 / 
 The Social Pact. ' 
 
 I ASSUME that men have reached a point at which 
 the obstacles that endanger their preservation in the 
 state of nature overcome by their resistance the forces 
 which each individual can exert with a view to main- 
 taining himself in that state. Then . this primitive condi- 
 tion cannot longer subsist, and the human race would 
 perish unless it changed its mode of existence. 
 
 Now as men cannot create any new forces, but only 
 combine and direct those that exist, they have no other 
 means of self-preservation than to form by aggregation 
 a sum of forces which may overcome the resistance, 
 to put them in action by a single motive power, and 
 to make them work in concert. 
 
 This sum of forces can be produced only by the com- 
 bination of many; but the strength and freedom of each 
 man being the chief instruments of his preservation, 
 how can he pledge them without injuring himself, and 
 without neglecting the cares which he owes to him- 
 self ? This difl&culty, applied to my subject, may be ex- 
 pressed in these terms: — 
 
 "To find a form of association which may defend and i- 
 protect with the whole force of the community the per- 1\ 
 son and property of every associate, and by means of 
 which, coalescing with all, may nevertheless obey only 
 himself, and remain as free as before." Such is the 
 fundamental problem of which the social contract fur- 
 nishes the solution. 
 
 The clauses of this contract are so determined by the 
 nature of the act that the slightest modification would 
 render them vain and ineffectual; so that, although they 
 have never perhaps been formally enunciated, they are 
 everywhere the same, everywhere tacitly admitted and 
 recognized, until, the social pact being violated, each 
 man regains his original rights and recovers his natural 
 liberty while losing the conventional liberty for which 
 he renounced it. 
 
14 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 These clauses, rightly understood, are reducible to one 
 only, viz, the total alienation to the whole community 
 of each associate with all his rights; for, in the first 
 place, since each gives himself up entirdl^,_ the condi-^ 
 tions are e qual for all; and, the conditions being equal 
 lor "allTno^ne has any interest in making them _biirden- 
 some to oth ers. 
 
 ~ Further, the ajienation being made without reserve, 
 the union is as perfect as it can be, and an individual 
 associate can no longer claim anjrthing; for, if any rights 
 were left to individuals, since there would be no common 
 superior who could judge between them and the public, 
 each, being on some point his own judge, would soon 
 claim to be so on all ; the state of nature would still sub- 
 sist, and the association would necessarily become tyran- 
 nical or useless. 
 
 In short, each giving himself to all, gives himself to 
 
 nobody; and as there is not one associate over whom we 
 
 ' "do not acquire the same rights which we concede to him 
 
 over ourselves, we gain the equivalent of all that we lose, 
 
 and more power to preserve what we have. 
 
 If, then, we set aside what is not of the essence of the 
 social contract, we shall find that it is reducible to the 
 following terms: "j^jfilL-P^ ^'"' V"^' ^ ^^ common his per- 
 son and his w hole power under the supreme direction o f 
 
 -t he jyfenerai will; and in return we receive eve r^jmeffifcer 
 as an J TirliY^piVvlp pg-rt pf the whole. » 
 
 Forthwith, instead of the individual personalities of all 
 the contracting parties, this act of association produces a 
 moral and collective body, which is composed of as many 
 members as the assembly has voices, and which receives 
 from this same act its unity, its common self {mot), its 
 life, and its will. This public person , which is thus 
 formed by the union of all the individual members, for- 
 
 . merly took the name of city, and now takes that of re- 
 public or BODY POLITIC, which is called by its members 
 State when it is passive, sovereign when it is active, 
 POWER when it is compared to similar bodies. With re- 
 gard to the asssociates, they take collectively the name 
 of PEOPLE, and are called individually citizens, as par- 
 ticipating in the sovereign power, and subjects, as sub- 
 
THE SOVEREIGN 15 
 
 jected to the laws of the State. But these terms are 
 often confused and are mistaken one for another; it is 
 sufficient to know how to distinguish them when they 
 are used with complete precision. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 The Sovereign. 
 
 We see from this formula that the act of association 
 contains a reciprocal engagement between the public and 
 individuals, and that every individual, contracting so to 
 speak with himself, is engaged in a double relation, viz, 
 as a member of the sovereign toward individuals, and as 
 a member of the State toward the sovereign. But we 
 cannot apply here the maxim of civil law that no one is 
 bound by engagements made with himself; for there is 
 a great difference between being bound to oneself and 
 to a whole of which one forms part. 
 
 We must further observe that the public resolution 
 which can bind all subjects to the sovereign in conse- 
 quence of the two different relations under which each 
 of them is regarded cannot, for a contrary reason, bind 
 the sovereign to itself; and that accordingly it is con- 
 trary to the nature of the body politic for the sovereign 
 to impose on itself a law which it cannot transgress. As 
 it can only be considered under one and the same rela- 
 tion, it is in the position of an individual contracting with 
 himself; whence we see that there is not, nor can be, 
 any kind of fundamental law binding upon the body of 
 the people, not even the social contract. This does not 
 imply that such a body cannot perfectly well enter into 
 engagements with others in what does not derogate from 
 this contract ; for, with regard to foreigners, it becomes a 
 simple being, an individual. 
 
 But the body politic or sovereign, deriving its exist- 
 ence only from the sanctity of the contract, can never 
 bind itself, even to others, in anything that derogates 
 from the original act. such as alienation of some portion 
 
i6 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 of itself, or submission to another sovereign. To violate 
 the act by which it exists would be to annihilate itself; 
 and what is nothing produces nothing. 
 
 So soon as the multitude is thus united in^ne body, 
 it is impossible to injure one of the members without 
 attacking the body, still less to injure the body without 
 the members feeling the effects.^ Thus duty and interest 
 alike oblige the two contracting parties to give mutual 
 assistance; and the men themselves should seek to com- 
 bine in this twofold relationship all the advantages which 
 are attendant on it. 
 
 Now, the sovereign, being formed only of the indi- 
 viduals that compose it, neither has nor can have any 
 interest contrary to theirs; consequently the sovereign 
 power needs no guarantee toward its subjects, because it 
 is impossible that the body should wish to , injure all its 
 members; and we shall see hereafter that it can injure 
 no one as an individual. The sovereign, for the simple 
 reason that it is so, is always everything that it ought 
 to be. 
 
 But this is not the case as regards the relation of sub- 
 jects to the sovereign, which, notwithstanding the com- 
 mon interest, would have no security for the perform- 
 ance of their engagements, unless it found means to 
 ensure their fidelity. 
 
 Indeed, every individual may, as a man, have a par- 
 ticular will contrary to, or divergent from, the general 
 will which he has as a citizen; his private interest may 
 prompt him quite differently from the common interest; 
 his absolute and naturally independent existence may 
 make him regard what he owes to the common cause as 
 a gratuitous contribution, the loss of which will be less 
 harmful to others than the payment of it will be burden- 
 some to him; and, regarding the moral person that con- 
 stitutes the State as an imaginary being because it is 
 not a man, he would be willing to enjoy the rights of a 
 citizen without being willing to fulfil the duties of a 
 subject. The progress of such injustice would bring 
 -about the ruin of the body politic. 
 
 In order, then, that the social pact may not be a vain 
 formulary, it tacitly includes this engagement, which can 
 
THE CIVIL STATE 17 
 
 alone give force to the others, that whoever refuses to 
 obey the general will shall be constrained to do so by| 
 the whole, body; which means nothing else than that he' 
 shall be forced to be free; for such is the condition 
 which, uniting every citizen to his native land, guaran- 
 tees him from all personal dependence, a condition that 
 insures the control and working of the political machine, 
 and alone renders legitimate civil engagements, which, 
 without it, would be absurd and tyrannical, and subject 
 to the most enormous abuses. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 The Civil State. 
 
 The passage from the state of nature to the civil s tate 
 ^produ ces m man a very remakable change, by substitut- 
 i ng in uiij liuudutiL llislice for instinct, ana py giving nis 
 actions the moral quality that they previou sly lacked. It 
 is only when the voice of duty succeeds physical impulse, V 
 and law succeeds appetite, that man, who till then had ' ! 
 regarded only himself, sees that he is obliged to act on 
 other principles, and to consult his reason before listen- 
 ing to his inclinations. Although, in this state, he is 
 deprived of many advantages that he derives from nature, 1 
 he acquires equally great ones in return; his faculties i 
 are exercised and developed; his ideas are expanded; his 
 feelings are ennobled; his whole soul is exalted to such 
 a degree that, if the abuses of this new condition did 
 not often degrade him below that from which he has 
 emerged, he ought to bless without ceasing the happy 
 moment that released him from it for ever, and trans- 
 formed him from a stupid and ignorant animal into an 
 intelligent being and a man. 
 
 Let us reduce this whole balance to terms easy to com- 
 pare. What man loses by the social contract is his 
 natural liberty and an unlimited right to anything which 
 tempts him and which he is able to attain : what he gains 
 is civil liberty and property in all that he possesses. In 
 
 / 
 
1 8 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 order that we may not be mistaken about these com- 
 pensations,* we must clearly distinguish natural liberty, 
 which is limited only by the powers of the individual, 
 from civil liberty, which is limited by the gftieral will; 
 and possession, which is nothing but the result of force 
 or the right of first occupancy, from property, which 
 can be based only on a positive title. 
 
 Besides the preceding, we might add to the acquisitions 
 of the civil state moral^ freedom, which alone renders 
 man truly master of himself; for the impulse of inere 
 appetite is slavery, while obedience to a self-prescribed 
 law is liberty. But I have already said too much on 
 this head, and the philosophical meaning of the term 
 LIBERTY does uot belong to my present subject. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 REAL PROPERTY. 
 
 Every member of the community at the moment of its 
 formation gives himself up to it, just as he actually is, 
 himself and all his powers, of which the property that 
 he possesses forms part. By this act, possession does not 
 change its nature when it changes hands, and become 
 property in those of the sovereign ; but, as the powers of 
 the State {cit^) are incomparably greater than those of 
 an individual, public possession is also, in fact, more 
 secure and more irrevocable, without' being more legiti^ 
 mate, at least in respect of foreigners; for the State, with 
 regard to its members, is owner of all their property by 
 the social contract, which, in the State, serves as the" 
 basis of all rights; but with regard to other powers, it 
 is owner only by the right of first occupancy which it 
 derives from individuals. 
 
 The right of first occupancy, although more real than that 
 of the strongest, becomes a true right only after the estab- 
 lishment of that of property. Every man has by nature 
 a right to all that is necessary to him ; but the positive 
 act which makes him proprietor of certain property 
 
REAL PROPERTY 19 
 
 excludes him from all the residue. His portion having 
 been allotted, he ought to confine himself to it, and he has 
 no further right to the undivided property. That is why 
 the right of first occupancy, so weak in the state of 
 nature, is respected by every member of a State. In this 
 right men regard not so much what belpngs toothers as 
 what does not belong to themselves. 
 
 In order to legalize the right of first occupancy over 
 any domain whatsoever, the following conditions are, in 
 general, necessary : first, the land must not yet be inhab- 
 ited by any one; secondly, a man must occupy only the 
 area required for his subsistence; thirdly, he must take 
 possession of it, not by an empty ceremony, but by labor 
 and cultivation, the only mark of ownership which, in 
 default of legal title, ought to be respected by others. 
 
 Indeed, if we accord the right of first occupancy to 
 necessity and labor, do we not extend it as far as it can 
 go ? Is it impossible to assign limits to this right ? "Will 
 the mere setting foot on common ground be sufficient to 
 give an immediate claim to the ownership of it? Will 
 the power of driving away other men from it for a moment 
 suffice to deprive them for ever of the right of returning 
 to it ? How can a man or a people take possession of an 
 immense territory and rob the whole human race of it 
 except by a punishable usurpation, since other men are 
 deprived of the place of residence and the sustenance 
 which nature gives to them in common. When NuSez 
 Balboa on the seashore took possession of the Pacific 
 Ocean and of the whole of South America in the name of 
 the crown of Castile, was this sufficient to dispossess all 
 the inhabitants, and exclude from it all the princes in the 
 world ? On this supposition such ceremonies might have 
 been multiplied vainly enough; and the Catholic king in 
 his cabinet might, by a single stroke, have taken posses- 
 sion of the whole world, only cutting off afterward from 
 his empire what was previously occupied by other princes. 
 
 We perceive how the lands of individuals, united and 
 contiguous, become public territory, and how the right of 
 sovereignty, extending itself from the subjects to the land 
 which they occupy, becomes at once real and personal,- 
 which places the possessors in greater dependence, and 
 
20 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 makes their own powers a guarantee for their fidelity — 
 an advantage which ancient monarchs do not appear to 
 have clearly perceived, for, calling themselves only kings 
 of the Persians or Scythians or Macedonians,*they seem 
 to have regarded themselves as chiefs of men rather than 
 as owners of countries. Monarchs of to-day call them- 
 selves more cleverly kings of France, Spain, England, 
 etc. ; in thus holding the land they are quite sure of 
 holding its inhabitants. 
 
 The peculiarity of this alienation is that the community, 
 in receiving the property of individuals, so far from rob- 
 bing them of it, only assures them lawful possession, 
 and changes usurpation into true right, enjoyment into 
 ownership. Also, the possessors being considered as 
 depositaries of the public property, and their rights being 
 respected by all the members of the State, as well as 
 maintained by all its power against foreigners, they have, 
 as it were, by a transfer advantageous to the public and 
 still more to themselves, acquired all that they have given 
 up — a paradox which is easily explained by distinguish- 
 ing between the rights which the sovereign and the pro- 
 prietor have over the same property, as we shall see 
 hereafter. 
 
 It may also happen that men begin to unite before 
 they possess anything, and that afterward occupying ter- 
 ritory sufficient for all, they enjoy it in common, or share 
 it among themselves, either equally or in proportions 
 fixed by the sovereign. In whatever way this acquisition 
 is made, t he ri^ht which every indiy if^iial Tia a f^^rc-r h^'q^, 
 own property is a1wav <i. snhnrrli Tigt» tr> t>.o -n^ ^ which th e 
 
 pnTniyinnity Tiag nypr all ;__o therwise th ere WOUld be UO 
 
 s tability in the social unjon, and no re'a 
 exercise vff gr.TrPi-<^i^<-y . 
 
 I shall close this chapter and this book with a remark 
 which ought to serve as a basis for the whole social sys- 
 tem ; it is that instead of destroying natural equality, the 
 fundamental pact, on the contrary, substitutes a moral 
 and lawful equality for the physical inequality which - 
 nature imposed upon men, so that, although unequal in 
 strength or intellect, they all become equal by conven- 
 tion and legal right. 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 That Sovereignty is Inalienable. 
 
 The first and most important consequence of the prin- 
 ciples above established is that the general wi ll alone 
 c an dire ct the forcesofthe State according- to the nhjppt. 
 of its institution, w hich Is the common good; for if the 
 opposition of private interests has rendered necessary the 
 establishment of societies, the agreement of these same 
 interests has rendered it possible. That which is com- 
 mon to these dififerent interests forms the social bond; 
 and unless there were some point in which all interests 
 agree, no society could exist. Now, it is solely with 
 regard to this common interest that the society should 
 be governed. ^_^,, 
 
 I say, then, that sove reignty, being nothing but the '■ ; 
 exe rcise of the general ~will. can ..never . be alienated, and 'y 
 that the sovereign power, which^ is only a colle ctive \ 
 
 ^Sl^ZI^^I5i£!ISSl£5li§lSLi^l,?lL^°^^; power indeed \ 
 can be transmitted, but not wffl- -' 
 
 In fact, if it is not impossible that a particular will should 
 agree on some point with the general will, it is at least 
 impossible that this agreement should be lasting and con- 
 stant; for the particular will naturally tends to prefer- 
 ences, and the general will to equality. It is still more 
 impossible to have a security for this agreement; even 
 though it should always exist, it would not be a result 
 of art, but of chance. The sovereign may indeed say: 
 " I will now what a certain man wills, or at least what 
 he says that he wills"; but he cannot say: "What 
 that man wills to-morrow, I shall also will," since it is 
 absurd that the will should bind itself as regards 
 the future, and since it is not incumbent on any will to 
 
 (21) 
 
22 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 consent to anything contrary to the welfare o£ the being 
 that wills. If then, the nation simply promises to obey, 
 it dissolves itself by that act and loses its character as a 
 people; the moment there rs a master, there ft no longer 
 a sovereign, and forthwitn the body politic is destroyed. 
 
 This does not imply that the orders of the chiefs cannot 
 pass for decisions of the general will, so long as the sov- 
 ereign, free to oppose them, refrains from doing so. In 
 such a case the consent of the people should be inferred 
 from the universal silence. This will be explained at 
 greater length. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 That Sovereignty is Indivisible. 
 
 For the same reason that sovereignty is inalienable it 
 is indivisible; for the will is either general, or it is not; 
 it is either that of the body of the people, or that of 
 only a portion. In the first case, this declared will is an 
 act of sovereignty and constitutes law; in the second 
 case, it is only a particular will, or an act of magistracy 
 — it is at most a decree. 
 
 But our publicists, being unable to divide sovereignty 
 in its principle, divide it in its object. They divide it 
 into force and will, into legislative power and executive 
 power; into rights of taxation, of justice, and of war; 
 into internal administration and power of treating with 
 foreigners — sometimes confounding all these departments, 
 and sometimes separating them. They make the sover- 
 eign a fantastic being, formed of connected parts; it is 
 as if they composed a man of several bodies, one with 
 eyes, another with arms, another with feet, and nothing 
 else. The Japanese conjurers, it is said, cut up a child 
 before the eyes of the spectators; then, throwing all its 
 limbs into the air, they make the child come down again 
 alive and whole. Such almost are the juggler's tricks of 
 our publicists; after dismembering the social body by a 
 deception worthy of the fair, they recombine its parts, 
 nobody knows how. 
 
THAT SOVEREIGNTY IS INDIVISIBLE 33 
 
 This error arises from their not having formed exact 
 notions about the sovereign authority, and from their 
 taking as parts of this authority what are only emana- 
 tions from it. Thus, for example, the acts of declaring 
 war and making peace have been regarded as acts of 
 sovereignty, which is not the case, since neither of them 
 is a law, but only an application of the law, a particular 
 act which determines the case of the law, as will be 
 clearly seen when the idea attached to the word law is 
 fixed. 
 
 By following out the other divisions in the same way 
 it would be found that, whenever the sovereignty ap- 
 pears divided, we are mistaken in our supposition; and 
 that the rights which are taken as parts of that sov- 
 ereignty are all subordinate to it, and always suppose 
 supreme wills of which these rights are merely executive. 
 
 It would be impossible to describe the great obscur- 
 ity in which this want of precision has involved the con- 
 clusions of writers on the subject of political right 
 when they have endeavored to decide upon the respec- 
 tive rights of kings and peoples on the principles that 
 they had established. Every one can see in chap- 
 ters III. and IV. of the first book of Grotius, how that 
 learned man and his translator Barbeyrac became en- 
 tangled and embarrassed in their sophisms, for fear of 
 sajnlng too much or not saying enough according to their 
 views, and so offending the interests that they had to 
 conciliate. Grotius, having taken refuge in France 
 through discontent with his own country, and wishing 
 to pay court to Louis XIII., to whom his book is dedi- 
 cated, spares no pains to despoil the people of all their 
 rights, and, in the most artful manner, bestow them on 
 kings. This also would clearly have been the inclination 
 of Barbeyrac, who dedicated his translation to the king of 
 England, George I. But unfortunately the expulsion of 
 James II., which he calls an abdication, forced him to 
 be reserved and to equivocate and evade in order not 
 to make William appear a usurper. If these two writers 
 had adopted true principles, all difficulties would have 
 been removed, and they would have been always con- 
 sistent; but they would have spoken the truth with 
 
24 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 regret, and would have paid court only to the people. 
 Truth, however, does not lead to fortune, and the peo- 
 ple confer neither embassies, nor professorships, nor 
 pensions. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Whether the General Will can Err. 
 
 It follows from what precedes that the general will 
 is always right and always tends to the public advantage; 
 but it does not follow that the resolutions of the people 
 have always the same rectitude. Men always desire their 
 own good, but do not always discern it; the people are 
 never corrupted, though often deceived, and it is only 
 then that they seem to will what is evil. 
 
 There is often a great deal of difference between the 
 will of all and the general will; the latter regards only 
 the common interest, while the former has regard to 
 private interests, and is merely a sum of particular wills ; 
 but take away from these same wills the pluses and 
 minuses which cancel one another, and the general will 
 remains as the sum of the differences. 
 
 If the people come to a resolution when adequately 
 informed and without any communication among the 
 citizens, the general will would always result from the 
 great number of slight differences, and the resolution 
 would always be good. But when factions, partial 
 associations, are formed to the detriment of the whole 
 society, the will of each of these associations becomes 
 general with reference to its members, and particular 
 with reference to the State; it may then be said that 
 there are no longer as many voters as there are men, 
 but only as many voters as there are associations. The 
 differences become less numerous and yield a less general 
 result. Lastly, when one of these associations becomes 
 so great that it predominates over all the rest, you no 
 longer have as the result a sum of small differences, but a 
 single difference; there is then no longer a general 
 
THE LIMITS OF THE SOVEREIGN POWER 25 
 
 will, and the opinion which prevails is only a particular \ 
 opinion. 
 
 It is important, then, in order to have a clear declaration 
 of the general will, that there should be no partial as- 
 sociation in the State, and that every citizen should 
 express only his own opinion.* Such was the unique and 
 sublime institution of the great Lycurgus. But if there 
 are partial associations, it is necessary to multiply their 
 number and prevent inequality, as Solon, Numa, and 
 Servius did. These are the only proper precautions for 
 insuring that the general will may always be enlightened, 
 and that the people may not be deceived. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Limits of the Sovereign Power. 
 
 If the State or city is nothing but a moral person, the 
 life of which consists in the union of its members, and 
 if the most important of its cares is that of self-preserva- 
 tion, it needs a universal and compulsive force to move 
 and dispose jay^rv part in the manner most expedient for__ 
 the whole. 4 As nature gives every man an absolute power 
 over all his limbs, /the social pact gives the body politic 
 an absolute power over all its members; and it is this 
 same power which, when, directed by the general will, 
 bears, as I said, the name of sovereignty. 
 
 But besides the public person, we have to consider the 
 private persons who compose it, and whose life and 
 liberty are naturally independent of it. The question, 
 then, is to distinguish clearly between the respective 
 rights of the citizens and of the sovereign,! as well as 
 
 * «It is true," says Machiavelli, «that some divisions injure the 
 State, while some are beneficial to it; those are injurious to it 
 which are accompanied by cabals and factions; those assist it 
 which are maintained without cabals, without factions. Since, 
 therefore, no founder of a State can provide against enmities in it, 
 he ought at least to provide that there shall be no cabals. » ("History 
 of Florence," Book VII.). 
 
 t Attentive readers, do not, I beg you, hastily charge me with con- 
 tradiction here. I could not avoid it in terms owing to the poverty 
 of the lang^iage, but waif. 
 
26 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 between the duties which the former have to fulfil in 
 their capacity as subjects and the natural rights which 
 they ought to enjoy in their character as men. 
 
 It is admitted that whatever part of his power, prop- 
 erty, and liberty each one alienates by the social com- 
 pact is only that part of the whole of which the use is 
 important to the community; but we must also admit 
 that the sovereign alone is judge of what is important. 
 
 All the services that a citizen can render to the State 
 he owes to it as soon as the sovereign demands them; 
 but the sovereign on its part, cannot impose on its sub- 
 jects any burden which is useless to the community; it 
 cannot even wish to do so, for, by the law of reason, 
 just as by the law of nature, nothing is done without a 
 
 The engagements which bind us to the social body 
 are obligatory only because they are mutual; and their 
 nature is such that in fulfilling them we cannot work 
 for others without also working for ourselves. Why is 
 the general will always right, and why do all invariably 
 desire the prosperity of each, unless it is because there 
 is no one but appropriates to himself this word each 
 and thinks of himself in voting on behalf of all ? This 
 proves that equality of rights and the notion of justice 
 that it produces are derived from the preference which 
 each gives to himself, and consequently from man's na- 
 ture; that the general will, to be truly such, should be 
 so in its object as well as in its essence; that it ought 
 to proceed from all in order to be applicable to all; and 
 that it loses its natural rectitude when it tends to some 
 individual and determinate object, because in that case, 
 judging of what is unknown to us, we have no true 
 principle of equity to guide us. 
 
 Indeed, so soon as a particular fact or right is in 
 question with regard to a point which has not been 
 regulated by an anterior general convention, the matter 
 becomes contentious ; it is a process in which the private 
 persons interested are one of the parties and the public 
 the other, but in which I perceive neither the law which 
 must be followed, nor the judge who should decide. It 
 would be ridiculous in such a case to wish to refer the 
 
THE LIMITS OF THE SOVEREIGN POWER 27 
 
 matter for an express decision of the general will, which 
 can be nothing but the decision of one of the parties, 
 and which, consequently, is for the other party only a 
 will that is foreign, partial, and inclined on such an 
 occasion to injustice as well as liable to error. There- 
 fore, just as a particular will cannot represent the gen- 
 eral will, the general will in turn changes its nature 
 when it has a particular end, and cannot, as general, 
 decide about either a person or a fact. When the peo- 
 ple of Athens, for instance, elected or deposed their 
 chiefs, decreed honors to one, imposed penalties on an- 
 other, and by multitudes of particular decrees exercised 
 indiscriminately all the functions of government, the 
 people no longer had any general will properly so called ; 
 they no longer acted as a sovereign power, but as mag- 
 istrates. This will appear contrary to common ideas, but 
 I must be allowed time to expound my own. 
 
 From this we must understand that what generalizes 
 the will is not so much the number of voices as the 
 common interest which unites them; for, under this 
 system, each necessarily submits to the conditions which 
 he imposes on others — an admirable union of interest and 
 justice, which gives to the deliberations of the commu- 
 nity a spirit of equity that seems to disappear in the dis- 
 cussion of any private affair, for want of a common 
 interest to unite and identify the ruling principle of the 
 judge with that of the party. 
 
 By whatever path we return to our principle we always 
 arrive at the same conclusion. Adz, that the social com- 
 pact establishes among the citizens such an equality that 
 they all pledge themselves under the same conditions 
 and ought all to enjoy the same rights. Thus, by the 
 nature of the compact, every act of sovereignty, that is, 
 every authentic act of the general will, binds or favors 
 equally all the citizens ; /^o that the sovereign knows only 
 the body of the nation, and distinguishes none of those 
 that compose it.\ 
 
 What, then, is an act of sovereignty properly so called ? 
 It is not an agreement between a superior and an inferior, 
 but an agreement of the body with each of its members ; 
 a lawful agreement, because it has the social contract as 
 
2S THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 its foundation; equitable, because it is common to all; 
 useful, because it can have no other object than the gen- 
 eral welfare ; and stable, because it has the public force 
 and the supreme power as a guarantee. So*ong as the 
 subjects submit only to such conventions, they obey no 
 one, but simply their own will; and tc ask how far the 
 respective rights of the sovereign and citizens extend is 
 to ask up to what point the latter can make engage- 
 ments among themselves, each with all and all with each. 
 
 Thus we see that the sovereign power, wholly abso- 
 lute, wholly sacred, and wholly inviolable as it is, does 
 not, and cannot, pass the limits of general conventions, 
 and that every man can fully dispose of what is left to 
 him, of his property and liberty by these conventions; 
 so that the sovereign never has a right to burden one 
 subject more than another, because then the matter 
 becomes particular and his power is no longer competent. 
 
 These distinctions once admitted, so untrue is it that 
 in the social contract there is on the part of individuals 
 any real renunciation, that their situation, as a result of 
 this contract, is in reality preferable to what it was 
 before, and that, instead of an alienation, they have only 
 made an advantageous exchange of an uncertain and 
 precarious mode of existence for a better and more 
 assured one, of natural independence for liberty, of the 
 power to injure others for their own safety, and of their 
 strength, which others might overcome, for a right which 
 the social union renders inviolable. Their lives, also, 
 which they have devoted to the State, are continually 
 protected by it; and in exposing their lives for its de- 
 fense, what do they do but restore what they have 
 received from it ? What do they do but what they would 
 do more frequently and with more risk in the state of 
 nature, when, engaging in inevitable struggles, they would 
 defend at the peril of their lives their means of preser- 
 vation ? All have to fight for their country in case of 
 need, it is true; but then no one ever has to fight for 
 himself. Do we not gain, moreover, by incurring, for 
 what insures our safety, a part of the risks that we should 
 have to incur for ourselves individually, as soon, as we were 
 deprived of it ? 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 The Right of Life and Death. 
 
 It may be asked how individuals who have no right to 
 dispose of their own lives can transmit to the sovereign 
 this right which they do not possess. The question 
 appears hard to solve only because it is badly stated. 
 Every man has a right to risk his own life in order to 
 preserve it. Has it ever been said that one who throws 
 himself out of a window to escape from a fire is guilty 
 of suicide ? Has this crime, indeed, ever been imputed 
 to a man who perishes in a storm, although, on embark- 
 ing, he was not ignorant of the danger? 
 
 The social treaty has as its end the preservation of the 
 contracting parties. He who desires the end desires also 
 the means, and some risks, even some losses, are insep- 
 arable from these means. He who is willing to preserve 
 his life at the expense of others ought also to give it up 
 for them when necessary. Now, the citizen is not a 
 judge of the peril to which the law requires that he 
 should expose himself; and when the prince has said to 
 him: *It is expedient for the State that you should die," 
 he ought to die, since it is only on this condition that 
 he has lived in security up to that time, and since his 
 life is no longer merely a gift of nature, but a condi- 
 tional gift of the State. 
 
 I The penalty of death inflicted on criminals may be 
 regarded almost from the same point of view; it is in 
 order not to be the victim of an assassin that a man 
 consents to die if he becomes one. In this treaty, far 
 from disposing of his own life, he thinks only of secur- 
 ing it, and it is not to be supposed that any of the con- 
 tracting parties contemplates at the time being hanged. 
 
 Moreover, every evil-doer who attacks social rights 
 becomes by his crimes a rebel and a traitor to his 
 country; by violating its laws he ceases to be a member 
 of it, and even makes war upon it. Then the preserva- 
 tion of the State is incompatible with his own — one of 
 the two must perish ; and when a guilty man is executed, 
 
 (29) 
 
io THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 it is less as a citizen than as an enemy. The proceed- 
 ings and the judgment are the proofs and the declaration 
 that he has broken the social treaty, and consequently 
 that he is no longer a member of the State, ^ow, as he 
 has acknowledged himself to be such, at least by his resi- 
 dence, he ought to be cut off from it by exile as a vio- 
 lator of the compact, or by death as a public enemy ; for 
 such an enemy is not a moral person, he is simply a man ; 
 and this is a cas e in which the right of war is to slay 
 the vanquish^L/ 
 
 But, it wm be said, the condemnation of a criminal is 
 a particular act. Granted; but this condemnation does 
 not belong to the sovereign; it is a right which that 
 power can confer, though itself unable to exercise it. 
 All my ideas are connected, but I could not expound 
 them all at once. 
 
 /"Again, the frequency of capital punishments is always 
 a sign of weakness or indolence in the government. 
 There is no man so worthless that he cannot be made 
 good for something. We have a right to kill, even for 
 example's sake, only those who cannot be preserved 
 without dangen. 
 
 As regardSthe right to pardon , or to exempt a guilty 
 man from the penalty imposed by the law and inflicted 
 by the judge, it belongs only to a power which is above 
 both the judge and the law, that is to say, the sov- 
 ereign; still its right in this is not very pla^^and the 
 occasions for exercising it are very rare.Mfi^ a well- 
 governed State there are few punishments, ni)f because 
 many pardons are granted, but because there are few 
 criminals; the multitude of crimes insures impunity 
 when the State is decaying. Under the Roman Repub- 
 lic neither the Senate nor the consuls attempted to grant 
 pardons; the people even did not grant any, although 
 they sometimes revoked their own judgments. Frequent 
 pardons proclaim that crimes will soon need them no 
 longer, and every one sees to what that leads. But 1 
 feel my heart murmuring and restraining my pen; let 
 us leave these questions to be discussed by the just man 
 who has not erred, and who never needed pardon him- 
 self. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 The Law. 
 
 By the social compact we have given existence and 
 iife to the body politic ; the question now is to endow it 
 with movement, and will by legislation. For the original 
 act by which this body is formed and consolidated deter- 
 mines nothing in addition as to what it must do for its 
 own preservation. 
 
 What is right and conformable to order is such by the 
 nature of things, and independently of human conven- 
 tions. All justice comes from God, he alone is the 
 source of it : but could we receive it direct from so lofty 
 a source, we should need neither government nor laws. 
 Without doubt there is a universal justice emanating from 
 reason alone; but this justice, in order to be admitted 
 among us, should be reciprocal. Regarding things from 
 a human standpoint, the laws of justice are inoperative 
 among men for want of a natural sanction; they only 
 bring good to the wicked and evil to the just when the 
 latter observe them with every one, and no one observes 
 them in return. Conventions and laws, then, are neces- 
 sary to couple rights with duties and apply justice to its 
 object. In the state of nature, where everything is in 
 common, I owe nothing to those to whom I have prom- 
 ised nothing; I recognize as belonging to others only 
 what is useless, to me. This is not the case in the civil 
 state, in which all rights are determined by law. 
 
 But then, finally, what is a law? So long as men are 
 content to attach to this word only metaphysical ideas, 
 they will continue to argue without being understood; 
 and when they have stated what a law of nature is, they 
 will know no better, what a law of the State is. 
 
 I have already said that there is no general will with 
 reference to a particular object. In fact, this particular 
 object is either in the State or outside of it. If it is 
 outside of the State, a will which is foreign to it is not 
 general in relation to it; and if it is within the State, it 
 forms part of it ; then there is formed between the whole 
 
 (31) 
 
32 THE SOCIAL CONTRACr 
 
 and its part a relation whicli makes of it two separate 
 beings, of which the part is one, and the whole, less this 
 same part, is the other. But the whole, less one part, is 
 not the whole, and so long as the relation sualists, there 
 is no longer any whole, but two unequal parts; whence 
 it follows that the will of the one is no longer general 
 in relation to the other. 
 
 But when the whole people decree concerning the whole 
 people, they consider themselves alone; and if a relation 
 is then constituted it is between the whole object under 
 one point of view and the whole object under another 
 point of view, without any division at all. Then the mat- 
 ter respecting which they decree is general like the will 
 that decrees. It is this act that I call a law. 
 
 When I say that the object of the laws is always gen- 
 eral, I mean that the law considers subjects collectively, 
 and actions as abstract, never a man as an individual 
 nor a particular action. Thus the law may indeed decree 
 that there shall be privileges, but cannot confer them on 
 any person by name; the law can create several classes 
 of citizens, and even assign the qualifications which shall 
 entitle them to rank in these classes, but it cannot nomi- 
 nate such and such persons to be admitted to them; it 
 can establish a royal government and a hereditary suc- 
 cession, but cannot elect a king or appoint a royal fam- 
 ily; in a word, no function^, which has reference to an 
 individual object appertains to the legislative power. 
 
 From this standpoint we see immediately that it is no 
 longer necessary to ask whose office it is to make laws, 
 since they are acts of the general will; nor whether the 
 prince is above the laws, since he is a member of the 
 State; nor whether the law can be unjust, since no one 
 is unjust to himself; nor how we are free and yet sub- 
 ject to the laws, since the laws are only registers of our wills. 
 
 We see, further, that since the law combines the uni- 
 versality of the will with the universality of the object, 
 whatever any man prescribes on his own authority is not a 
 law; and whatever the sovereign itself prescribes respect- 
 ing a particular object is not a law, but a decree, not an 
 act of sovereignty, but of magistracy. 
 
 I therefore call any State a republic which is governed 
 
THE LAW 33 
 
 by laws, under whatever form of administration it may be ; 
 for then only does the public interest predominate and 
 the commonwealth count for something. Every legiti- 
 mate government is republican ; * I will explain hereafter 
 what government is. 
 
 Laws are properly only the conditions of civil associa- 
 tion. The people, being subjected to the laws, should be 
 the authors of them; it concerns only the associates to 
 determine the conditions of association. But how will 
 they be determined ? Will it be by a common agreement, 
 by a sudden inspiration ? Has the body politic an organ 
 for expressing its will ? Who will give it the foresight 
 necessary to frame its acts and publish them at the out- 
 set ? Or how shall it declare them in the hour of need ? 
 How would a blind multitude, which often knows not 
 what it wishes because it rarely knows what is good for 
 it, execute of itself an enterprise so great, so difficult, as 
 a system of legislation ? Of themselves, the people always 
 desire what is good, but do not always discern it. The 
 general will is always right, but the judgment which 
 guides it is not always enlightened. It must be made to 
 see objects as they are, sometimes as they ought to ap- 
 pear; it must be shown the good path that it is seeking, 
 and guarded from the seduction of private interests; it 
 must be made to observe closely times and places, and 
 to balance the attraction of immediate and palpable ad- 
 vantages against the danger of remote and concealed 
 evils. Individuals see the good which they reject; the 
 public desire the g'ood which they do not see. All alike 
 have need of guides. The former must be compelled to 
 conform their wills to their reason; (the people must be 
 taught to know what they require..^/Then from the pub. 
 lie enlightenment results the union of the understanding 
 and the will in the social body; and from that the close 'j 
 co-operation of the parts, and, lastly, the maximum power 
 of the whole. Hence arises the need of a legislator. 
 
 » I do not mean by this word an aristocracy or democracy only, but 
 in general any government directed by the general will, which is the 
 law. Ta be legitimate, the^ovemment mu^tjiot be combined with the 
 sovereign pSwefTTjutmusfbe its -fflinfeter; then monarchy itself is a re- 
 public. This will be made clear in the next book. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 The Legislator. 
 
 In order to discover the rules of association that are 
 most suitable to nations, a superior intelligence would 
 be necessary who could see all the passions of men with- 
 out experiencing any of them ; who would have no affinity 
 with our nature and yet know it thoroughly; whose hap- 
 piness would not depend on us, and who would never- 
 theless be quite willing to interest himself in ours; and, 
 lastly, one who, storing up for himself with the progress 
 of time a far-ofiE glory in the future, could labor in one 
 age and enjoy in another. Gods would be necessary to 
 give laws to men. 
 
 The same argument that Caligula adduced as to fact, 
 Plato put forward with regard to right, in order to give 
 an idea of the civil or royal man whom he is in quest of in 
 his work, the "Statesman." But if it is true that a great 
 prince is a rare man, what will a great legislator be? 
 The first has only to follow the model which the other 
 has to frame. The latter is the mechanician who invents 
 the machine, the former is only the workman who puts 
 it in readiness and works it. *In the birth of societies," 
 says Montesquieu, "it is the chiefs of the republics who 
 frame the institutions, and afterward it is the institu- 
 tions which mold the chiefs of the republics." 
 
 He who dares undertake to give institutions to a nation 
 ought to feel himself capable, as it were, of changing 
 human nature; of transforming every individual, who in 
 himself is a complete and independent whole, into part 
 of a greater whole, from which he receives in some man- 
 ner his life and his being; of altering man's constitution 
 in order to strengthen it; of substituting a social and 
 moral existence for the independent and physical exist- 
 ence which we have all received from nature. In a 
 word, it is necessary to deprive man of his native pow- 
 ers in order to endow him with some which are alien to 
 him, and of which he cannot make use without the aid 
 (34) 
 
THE LEGISLATOR 35 
 
 of other people. The more thoroughly those natural 
 powers are deadened and destroyed, the greater and more 
 durable are the acquired powers, the more solid and per- 
 feet also are the institutions ; so that if every citizen is 
 nothing, and can be nothing, except in combination with 
 all the rest, and if the force acquired by the whole be 
 equal or superior to the sum of the natural forces of all 
 the indivi3uars,'"we may say that legislation is at the 
 highest point of perfection which it can attain. 
 
 The legislator is in all respects an extraordinary man in 
 the State. If he ought to be so by his genius, he is not 
 less so by his office. It is not magistracy nor sover- 
 eignty. This ofl&ce, which constitutes the republic, does 
 not enter into its constitution ; it is a special and superior 
 office, having nothing in common with human govern- 
 ment ; for if he who rules men ought not to control leg- 
 islation, he who controls legislation ought not to rule 
 men; otherwise his laws, being ministers of his passions, 
 would often serve only to perpetrate his acts of injustice ; 
 he would never be able to prevent private interests from 
 corrupting the sacredness of his work. 
 
 When Lycurgus gave laws to his country, he began 
 by abdicating his royalty. It was the practice of the 
 majority of the Greek towns to intrust to foreigners the 
 framing of their laws. The modem republics of Italy 
 often imitated this usage; that of Geneva did the same 
 and found it advantageous. Rome, at her most glorious 
 epoch, saw all the crimes of tyranny spring up in her 
 bosom, and saw herself on the verge of destruction, 
 though uniting in the same hands legislative authority 
 and sovereign power. 
 
 Yet the Decemvirs themselves never arrogated the 
 right to pass any law on their sole authority. Nothing 
 that we propose to y^ou, they said to the people, can pass 
 into law without your consent. Romans, be yourselves 
 the authors of the laws which are to secure your happi- 
 ness. 
 
 He who frames laws, then, has, or ought to have, no 
 legislative right, and the people themselves cannot, even 
 if they wished, divest themselves of this incommunicable 
 right, because, according to the fundamental compact, it 
 
36 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 is only the general will that binds individuals, and we 
 can never be sure that a particular will is comformable 
 to the general will until it has been submitted to the free 
 votes of the people. I have said this already^ but it is 
 not useless to repeat it. 
 
 Thus we find simultaneously in the work of legislation 
 two things that seem incompatible — an enterprise sur- 
 passing human powers, and, to execute it, an authority 
 that is a mere nothing. 
 
 Another difficulty deserves attention. Wise men who 
 want to speak to the vulgar in their own language in- 
 stead of in a popular way will not be understood. Now, 
 there are a thousand kinds of ideas which it is impossible 
 to translate into the language of the people. Views very 
 general and objects very remote are alike beyond its reach ; 
 and each individual, approving of no other plan of gov- 
 ernment than that which promotes his own interests, does 
 not readily perceive the benefits that he is to derive from 
 the continual deprivations which good laws impose. In 
 order that a newly formed nation might approve sound 
 maxims of politics and observe the fundamental rules of 
 state policy, it would be necessary that the eflEect should 
 become the cause; that the social spirit, which should be 
 the work of the institution, should preside over the insti- 
 tution itself, and that men should be, prior to the laws, 
 what they ought to become by means of them. Since, 
 then, the legislator cannot employ either force or reason- 
 ing, he must needs have recourse to an authority of a 
 different order, which can compel without violence and 
 persuade without convincing. 
 
 It is this which in all ages has constrained the founders 
 of nations to resort to the intervention of heaven, and to 
 give the gods the credit for their own wisdom, in order 
 that the nations, subjected to the laws of the State as to 
 those of nature, and recognizing the same power in the 
 formation of man and in that of the State, might obey 
 willingly, and bear submissively the yoke of the public 
 welfare. 
 
 The legislator puts into the mouths of the immortals 
 
 'that sublime reason which soars beyond the reach of 
 
 common men, in order that he may win over by divine 
 
THE PEOPLE 37 
 
 authority those whom htrnian prudence could not move. 
 But it does not belong to every man to make the gods 
 his oracles, nor to be believed when he proclaims him- 
 self their interpreter. The great soul of the legislator is 
 the real miracle which must give proof of his mission. 
 Any man can engrave tables of stone, or bribe an ora- 
 cle, or pretend secret intercourse with some divinity, or 
 train a bird to speak injiis ear, or find some other clumsy 
 means to impose on the people. He who is acquainted 
 with such means only will perchance be able to assemble 
 a crowd of foolish persons; but he will never found an 
 empire, and his extravagant work will speedily perish 
 with him. Empty deceptions form but a transient bond ; 
 it is only wisdom that makes it lasting. The Jewish law, 
 which still endures, and that of the child of Ishmael, 
 which for ten centuries has ruled half the world, still 
 bear witness to-day to the great men who dictated them ; 
 and while proud philosophy or blind party spirit sees in 
 them nothing but fortunate impostors, the true states- 
 man admires in their systems the great and powerful 
 genius which directs durable institutions. 
 
 It is not necessary from all this to infer with Warbur- 
 ton that politics and religion have among us a common 
 aim, but only that, in the origin of nations, one serves 
 as an instrument of the other. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The People. 
 
 As AN architect, before erecting a large edifice, exam- 
 ines and tests the soil in order to see whether it can 
 support the weight, so a wise lawgiver does not begin 
 by drawing up laws that are good in themselves, but 
 considers first whether the people for whom he designs 
 them are fit to endure them. It is on this account that 
 Plato refused to legislate for the Arcadians and Cyrenians, 
 knowing that these two peoples were rich and could not 
 tolerate equality; and it is on this account that good laws 
 
38 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 and worthless men were to be found in Crete, for Minos 
 had only disciplined a people steeped in vice. 
 
 A thousand nations that have flourished on the earth 
 could never have borne good laws; and even tMbse that 
 might have done so could have succeeded for only a very 
 short period of their whole duration. The majority of 
 nations, as well as of men, are tractable only in their 
 youth; they become incorrigible as they grow old. When 
 once customs are established and prejudices have taken 
 root, it is a perilous and futile enterprise to try and re- 
 form them; for the people cannot even endure that their 
 evils should be touched with a view to their removal, 
 like those stupid and cowardly patients that shudder at 
 the sight of a physician. 
 
 But just as some diseases unhinge men's minds and 
 deprive them of all remembrance of the past, so we 
 sometimes find, during the existence of States, epochs of 
 violence, in which revolutions produce an influence upon 
 nations such as certain crises produce upon individuals, 
 in which horror of the past supplies the place of forget- 
 fulness, and in which the State, inflamed by civil wars, 
 springs forth so to speak from its ashes, and regains the 
 vigor of youth in issuing from the arms of death. Such 
 was Sparta in the time of Lycurgus, such was Rome 
 after the Tarquins, and such among us moderns were 
 Holland and Switzerland after the expulsion of their 
 t3n:ants. 
 
 But these events are rare; they are exceptions, the ex- 
 planation of which is always found in the particular consti- 
 tution of the excepted State. They could not even hap- 
 pen twice with the same nation ; for it may render itself 
 free so long as it is merely barbarous, but can no longer 
 do so when the resources of the State are exhausted. 
 Then commotions may destroy it without revolutions 
 being able to restore it, and as soon as its chains are 
 broken, it falls in pieces and ceases to exist; hencefor- 
 ward it requires a mstster and not a deliverer. Free 
 nations, remember this maxim: « Liberty may be ac- 
 quired but never recovered. " 
 
 Youth is not infancy. There is for nations as for men 
 a period of youth, or, if you will, of maturity, which 
 
THE PEOPLE 39 
 
 they must await before they are subjected to laws; but 
 it is not always easy to discern when a people is mature, 
 and if the time is anticipated, the labor is abortive. One 
 nation is governable from its origin, another is not so at 
 the end of ten centuries. The Russians will never be 
 really civilized, because they have been civilized too early. 
 Peter had an imitative genius ; he had not the true genius 
 that creates and produces anything from nothing. Some 
 of his measures were beneficial, but the majority were 
 ill-timed. He saw that his people were barbarous, but 
 he did not see that they were unripe for civilization; he 
 wished to civilize them, when it was necessary only to 
 discipline them. He wished to produce at once Germans 
 or Englishmen when he should have begun by making 
 Russians; he prevented his subjects from ever becoming 
 what they might have been, by persuading them that 
 they were what they were not. It is in this way that a 
 French tutor trains his pupil to shine for a moment in 
 childhood, and then to be forever a nonentity. The 
 Russian Empire will desire to subjugate Europe, and 
 will itself be subjugated. The Tartars, its subjects or 
 neighbors, will become its masters and ours. This rev- 
 olution appears to me inevitable. All the kings of Europe 
 are working in concert to accelerate it. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The People (Continued). 
 
 As NATURE has set limits to the stature of a properly 
 formed man, outside which it produces only giants and 
 dwarfs; so likewise, with regard to the best constitution 
 of a State, there are limits to its possible extent so that 
 it may be neither too great to enable it to be well gov- 
 erned, nor too small to enable it to maintain itself single- 
 handed. There is in every body politic a maximum of 
 force which it cannot exceed, and which is often dimin- 
 ished as the State is aggrandized. The more the social 
 bond is extended, the more it is weakened; and, in gen- 
 
40 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 eral, a small State is proportionally stronger than a large 
 one. 
 
 A thousand reasons demonstrate the truth of this 
 maxim. In the first place, administration b^omes more 
 difficult at great distances, as a weight becomes heavier 
 at the end of a longer lever. It also becomes more bur- 
 densome in proportion as its parts are multiplied; for 
 every town has first its own administration, for which the 
 people pay; every district has its administration, still paid 
 for by the people ; next, every province, then the superior 
 governments, the satrapies, the vice-royalties, which must 
 be paid for more dearly as we ascend, and always at the 
 cost of the unfortunate people ; lastly comes the supreme 
 administration, which overwhelms everything. So many 
 additional burdens perpetually exhaust the subjects; and 
 far from being better governed by all these different or- 
 ders, they are much worse governed than if they had 
 but a single superior. Meanwhile, hardly any resources 
 remain for cases of emergency; and when it is necessary 
 to have recourse to them the State trembles on the brink 
 of ruin. 
 
 Nor is this all ; not only has the government less vigor 
 and activity in enforcing observance of the laws, in put- 
 ting a stop to vexations, in reforming abuses, and in 
 forestalling seditious enterprises which may be entered 
 upon in distant places, but the people have less affection 
 for their chiefs whom they never see, for their country, 
 which is in their eyes like the world, and for their fellow- 
 citizens, most of whom are strangers to them. The same 
 laws cannot be suitable to so many different provinces, 
 which have different customs and different climates, and 
 cannot tolerate the same form of government. Different 
 laws beget only trouble and confusion among the nations 
 which, living under the same chiefs and in constant com- 
 munication, mingle or intermarry with one another, and, 
 when subjected to other usages, never know whether 
 their patrimony is really theirs. Talents are hidden, vir- 
 tues ignored, vices unpunished, in that multitude of men, 
 unknown to one another, whom the seat of the supreme 
 administration gathers together in one place. The chiefs, 
 overwhelmed with business, see nothing themselves ; clerks 
 
THE PEOPLE 4T 
 
 rule the State. In a word, the measures that must be 
 taken to maintain the general authority, which so many 
 oflScers at a distance wish to evade or impose upon, ab- 
 sorb all the public attention; no regard for the welfare 
 of -the people remains, and scarcely any for their de- 
 fense in time of need; and thus a body too huge for its 
 constitution sinks and perishes, crushed by its own weight. 
 
 On the other hand, the State must secure a certain 
 foundation, that it may possess stability and resist the 
 shocks which it will infallibly experience, as well as sus- 
 tain the efforts which it will be forced to make in order 
 to maintain itself; for all nations have a kind of centrif- 
 ugal force, by which they continually act one against 
 another, and tend to aggrandize themselves at the ex- 
 pense of their neighbors, like the vortices of Descartes. 
 Thus the weak are in danger of being quickly swallowed 
 up, and none can preserve itself long except by putting 
 itself in a kind of equilibrium with all, which renders 
 the compression almost equal everywhere. 
 
 Hence we see that there are reasons for expansion and 
 reasons for contraction; and it is not the least of a 
 statesman's talents to find the proportion between the 
 two which is most advantageous for the preservation of 
 the State. We may say, in general, that the former, 
 being only external and relative, ought to be subordi- 
 nated to the others, which are internal and absolute. A 
 healthy and strong constitution is the first thing to be 
 sought; and we should rely more on the vigor that 
 springs from a good government than on the resources 
 furnished by an extensive territory. 
 
 States have, however, been constituted in such a way 
 that the necessity of making conquests entered into their 
 very constitution, and in order to maintain themselves 
 they were forced to enlarge themselves continually. Per- 
 haps they rejoiced greatly at this happy necessity, which 
 nevertheless revealed to them, with the limit of their 
 greatness, the inevitable moment of their fall. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 The People (Continued.) 
 
 A BODY politic may be measured in two ways, viz, by 
 the extent of its territory, and by the number of its 
 people ; and there is between these two modes of measure- 
 ment a suitable relation according to which the State may 
 be assigned its true dimensions. It is the men that con- 
 stitute the State, and it is the soil that sustains the men; 
 the due relation, then, is that the land should suffice for 
 the maintenance of its inhabitants, and that there should 
 be as many inhabitants as the land can sustain. In this 
 proportion is found the maximum power of a given num- 
 ber of people; for if there is too much land, the care of 
 it is burdensome, the cultivation inadequate, and the 
 produce superfluous, and this is the proximate cause of 
 defensive wars. If there is not enough land, the State is 
 at the mercy of its neighbors for the additional quantity; 
 and this is the proximate cause of offensive wars. Any 
 nation which has, by its position, only the alternative 
 between commerce and war is weak in itself; it is depend- 
 ent on its neighbors and on events; it has only a short 
 and precarious existence. It conquers and changes its 
 situation, or it is conquered and reduced to nothing. It 
 can preserve its freedom only by virtue of being small or 
 great. 
 
 It is impossible to express numerically a fixed ratio 
 between the extent of land and the number of men which 
 are reciprocally sufficient, on account of the differences 
 that are found in the quality of the soil, in its degrees 
 of fertility, in the nature of its products, and in the in- 
 fluence of climate, as well as on account of those which 
 we observe in the constitutions of the inhabitants, of 
 whom some consume little in a fertile country, while 
 others consume much on an unfruitful soil. Further, 
 attention must be paid to the greater or less fecundity of 
 the women, to the conditions of the country, whether 
 more or less favorable to the population, and to the num- 
 C42) 
 
THE PEOPLE 43 
 
 bers which the legislator may hope to draw thither by 
 his institutions; so that an opinion should be based not 
 on what is seen, but on what is foreseen, while the actual 
 state of the people should be less observed than that which 
 it ought naturally to attain. In short, there are a thou- 
 sand occasions on which the particular accidents of situa- 
 tion require or permit that more territory than appears 
 necessary should be taken up. Thus men will spread out 
 a good deal in a mountainous country, where the natural 
 productions, viz, woods and pastures, require less labor, 
 where experience teaches that women are more fecund 
 than in the plains, and where with an extensive inclined 
 surface there is only a small horizontal base, which alone 
 should count for vegetation. On the other hand, people 
 may inhabit a smaller space on the sea-shore, even among 
 rocks and sands that are almost barren, because fishing 
 can, in great measure, supply the deficiency in the pro- 
 ductions of the earth, because men ought to be more 
 concentrated in order to repel pirates, and because, 
 further, it is easier to relieve the country, by means of 
 colonies, of the inhabitants with which it is over- 
 burdened. 
 
 In order to establish a nation, it is necessary to add 
 to these conditions one which cannot supply the place of 
 any other, but without which they are all useless — it is 
 that the people should enjoy abundance and peace; for 
 the time of a State's formation is, like that of forming 
 soldiers in a square, the time when the body is least 
 capable of resistance and most easy to destroy. Resist- 
 ance would be greater in a state of absolute disorder 
 than at a moment of fermentation, when each is occupied 
 with his own position and not with the common danger. 
 Should a war, a famine, or a sedition supervene at this 
 critical period, the State is inevitably overthrown. 
 
 Many governments, indeed, may be established during 
 such storms, but then it is these very governments that 
 destroy the State. Usurpers always bring about or select 
 troublous times for passing, under cover of the public 
 agitation, destructive laws which the people would never 
 adopt when sober-minded. The choice of the moment 
 for the establishment of a government is one of the 
 
44 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 surest marks for distinguishing the work of the legislator 
 from that of the tyrant. 
 
 What nation, then, is adapted for legislation ? That 
 which is already united by some bond of interest, origin, 
 oi convention, but has not yet borne the real yoke of 
 the laws; that which has neither customs nor supersti- 
 tions firmly rooted; that which has no fear of being 
 overwhelmed by a sudden invasion, but which, without 
 entering into the disputes of its neighbors, can single- 
 handed resist either of them, or aid one in repelling the 
 other; that in which every member can be known by all, 
 and in which there is no necessity to lay on a man a 
 greater burden than a man can bear; that which can 
 subsist without other nations, and without which every 
 other nation can subsist;* that which is neither rich 
 nor poor and is self-sufficing; lastly, that which com- 
 bines the stability of an old nation with the docility of a 
 new one. The work of legislation is rendered arduous 
 not so much by what must be established as by what 
 must be destroyed; and that which makes success so 
 rare is the impossibility of finding the simplicity of 
 nature conjoined with the necessities of society. All 
 these conditions, it is true, are with difficulty combined; 
 hence few well-constituted States are seen. 
 
 There is still one country in Europe capable of legis- 
 lation; it is the island of Corsica. The courage and 
 firmness which that brave nation has exhibited in recov- 
 ering and defending its freedom would well deserve that 
 some wise man should teach it how to preserve it. I 
 have some presentiment that this small island will one 
 day astonish Europe. 
 
 *If of two neighbcniug nations one could not subsist withoui 
 the other, it would be a very hard situation for the first and a 
 very dangerous one for the second. Every wise nation in such a 
 case will endeavor very quickly to free the other from this depend- 
 ence. The republic of Thlascala, inclosed in the empire of Mexico, 
 preferred to do without salt rather than buy it of the Mexicans or 
 even accept it gratuitously. The wise Thlascalans saw a trap hid- 
 den beneath this generosity. They kept themselves free; and this 
 small State, inclosed in that great empire, was at last the instm- 
 ment of its downfall. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 The Different Systems of Legislation. 
 
 If we ask precisely wherein consists the greatest good 
 of all, which ought to be the aim of every system of 
 legislation, we shall find that it is summed up in two 
 principal objects, liberty and equality, liberty, because 
 any individual dependence is so much force withdrawn 
 from the body" of the State; equality, because liberty 
 cannot subsist without it. 
 
 I have already said what civil liberty is. With regard 
 to equality,' we must not understand by this word that 
 the degrees of power and wealth should be absolutely 
 the same; but that, as to power, it should fall short of 
 all violence, and never be exercised except by virtue 
 of station and of the laws ; while, as to wealth, no citizen 
 should be rich enough to be able to buy anSther, and 
 none poor enough to be forced to sell himself,* which 
 supposes, on the part of the great, moderation in property 
 and influence, and, on the part of _ ordinary citizens,! re- 
 pression of avarice and covetousness. t ~ 
 
 It is said that this equality is a chimera of specula- 
 tion which cannot exist in practical affairs. But if the 
 abuse is inevitable, does it follow that it is unneces- 
 sary even to regulate it ? It is precisely because the 
 force of circumstances is ever tending to destroy equal- 
 ity that the force of legislation should always tend to 
 maintain it. 
 
 But these general objects of every good institution ought 
 to be modified in each country by the relations which arise 
 both from the local situation and from the character of 
 the inhabitants ; and it is with reference to these relations 
 that we must assign to each nation a particular system 
 
 * If, then, you wish to g^ive stabiUty tothe State, bring the two extremes 
 as near together as possible ; tolerate neither rich people nor beggars. 
 These two conditions, naturally inseparable, are equally fatal to the 
 general welfare; from the one class spring tyrants, from the other, the 
 supporters of tyranny ; it is always between these that the traffic in public 
 liberty is carried on ; the one buys and the other sells. 
 
 (45) 
 
46 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 of institutions, which shall be the best, not perhaps in 
 itself, but for the State for which it is designed. For 
 instance, if the soil is unfruitful and barren, or the 
 country too confined for its inhabitants, turn your atten- 
 tion to arts and manufactures, and exchange their pro- 
 ducts for the provisions that you require. On the other 
 hand, if you occupy rich plains and fertile slopes, if, in 
 a productive region, you are in need of inhabitants, be- 
 stow all your cares on agriculture, which multiplies men, 
 and drives out the arts, which would only end in depopu-' 
 lating the country by gathering together in a few spots 
 the few inhabitants that the land possesses.* If you 
 occupy extensive and convenient coasts, cover the sea 
 with vessels and foster commerce and navigation; you 
 will have a short and brilliant existence. If the sea on 
 your coasts bathes only rocks that are almost inaccessible, 
 remain fish-eating barbarians; you will lead more peace- 
 ful, perhaps better, and certainly happier lives. In a 
 word, besides the maxims common to all, each nation 
 contains within itself some cause which influences it in a 
 particular way, and renders its legislation suitable for 
 it alone. Thus the Hebrews in ancient times, and the 
 Arabs more recently, had religion as their chief object, 
 the Athenians literature, Carthage and Tyre commerce, 
 Rhodes navigation, Sparta war, Rome valor. The author 
 of the " Spirit of the Laws " has shown in a multitude 
 of instances by what arts the legislator directs his insti- 
 tutions toward each of these objects. 
 
 What renders the constitution of a State really solid 
 and durable is the observance of expediency in such a 
 way that natural relations and the laws always coincide, 
 the latter only serving, as it were, to secure, support, 
 and rectify the former. But if the legislator, mistaken in 
 his object, takes a principle different from that which 
 springs from the nature of things; if the one tends to 
 servitude, the other to liberty, the one to riches, the 
 other to population, the one to peace, the other to con- 
 
 * Any branch of foreign commerce, says the Marquis d'Argenson, 
 diffuses merely a deceptive utility through the kingdom generally ; it 
 may enrich a few individuals, even a few towns, but the nation as a 
 whole gains nothing, and the ;people are none the better for it 
 
DIVISION OF THE LAWS 47 
 
 quests, we shall see the laws imperceptibly weakened and 
 the constitution impaired; and the State will be cease- 
 lessly agitated until it is destroyed or changed, and 
 invincible nature has resumed her sway. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Division of the Laws. 
 
 In order that everything may be duly regfulated and 
 the best possible form given to the commonwealth, there 
 are various relations to be considered. First, the action 
 of the whole body acting on itself, that is, the relation 
 of the whole to the whole, or of the sovereign to the 
 State ; and this relation is composed of that of the inter- 
 mediate terms, as we shall see hereafter. 
 
 The laws governing this relation bear the name of po- 
 litical laws, and are also called fundamental laws, not 
 without some reason if they are wise ones; for, if in 
 every State there is only one good method of regulating 
 it, the people which has discovered it ought to adhere 
 to it; but if the established order is bad, why should we 
 regard as fundamental laws which prevent it from being 
 good ? Besides, in any case, a nation is always at liberty 
 to change its laws, even the best ; for if it likes to injure 
 itself, who has a right to prevent it' from doing so ? 
 
 The second relation is that of the members with one 
 another, or with the body as a whole; and this relation 
 should, in respect of the first, be as small, and, in re- 
 spect of the second, as great as possible ; so that every 
 citizen may be perfectly independent of all the rest, and 
 in absolute dependence on the State. And this is always 
 effected by the same misans ; for it is only the power of 
 the State that secures the freedom of its members. It is 
 from this second relation that civil laws arise. 
 
 We may consider a third kind of relation between the 
 individual man and the law, viz, that of punishable dis- 
 obedience; and this gives rise to the establishment 
 of criminal laws, which at bottom are not so inuch a 
 
48 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 particular species of laws as tlie sanction of all the 
 others. 
 
 To these three kinds of laws is added a fourth, the 
 most important of all, which is graven neither on marble 
 nor on brass, but in the hearts of the citizens; a law 
 which creates the real constitution of the State, which 
 acquires new strength daily, which, when other laws grow 
 obsolete or pass away, revives them or supplies their 
 place, preserves a people in the spirit of their institutions, 
 and imperceptibly substitutes the force of habit for that 
 of authority. I speak of manners, customs, and above 
 all of opinion — a province unknown to our politicians, 
 but one on which the success of all the rest depends; a 
 province with which the great legislator is occupied in pri- 
 vate, while he appears to confine himself to particular 
 regulations, that are merely the arching of the vault, of 
 which manners, slower to develop, form at length the 
 immovable keystone. 
 
 Of these different classes, political laws, which consti- 
 tute the form of government, alone relate to my subject. 
 
BOOK III. 
 
 Before speaking of the different fonns of government, let us try to 
 fix the precise meaning of that word, which has not yet been very 
 clearly explained. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Government in General. 
 
 I WARN the reader that this chapter must be read care- 
 fully, and that I do not know the art of making myself 
 intelligible to those that will not be attentive. 
 
 Every free action has two caus es m-nrn-nrin^ tg prndnrp; 
 it ; the one moral, viz, the will which determines the act : 
 t he other physical, viz, the power which executes it. 
 When I walk toward an object, I must first will to go 
 to it; in the second place, my feet must carry me to it. 
 Should a paralytic wish to run, or an active man not 
 wish to do so, both will remain where they are. The 
 body politic has the same motive powers; in it, likewise, 
 force and will are distinguished, the latter under the 
 name of legislative power, the former under the name 
 of executive power. Nothing is, or ought to be, done in 
 it without their co-operation. 
 
 We have seen that the legislative power belongs to the 
 people, and can belong to it alone. On the other hand, 
 it is easy to see from the principles already established, 
 that the executive power cannot belong to the people 
 generally as legislative or sovereign, because that power 
 is exerted only in particular acts, which are not within 
 the province of the law, nor consequently within that of 
 the sovereign, all the acts of which must be laws. 
 
 The public force, then, requires a suitable agent to con- 
 centrate it and put it in action according to the directions 
 of the general will, to serve as a means of communication 
 4 (49) 
 
so THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 between the State and the sovereign, to effect in some 
 manner in the public person what the union of soul and 
 ^ body effects in a man. This is, in the State, the function 
 of the government, improperly confounded witlf the sov- 
 ereign of which it is only the minister.* 
 
 What, then, is the government ? An intermediate body 
 established between the subjects and the sovereign for 
 their mutual correspondence, charged with the execution 
 of the laws and with the maintenance of liberty both 
 civil and political. 
 
 The members of this body are called magistrates or 
 KINGS, that is, GOVERNORS ; and the body as a whole bears 
 the name of PRiNCEf. Those therefore who maintain that 
 the act by which a people submits to its chiefs is not a 
 contract are quite right. It is absolutely nothing but a 
 commission, an employment, in which, as simple ofiBcers 
 of the sovereign, they exercise in its name the power of 
 which it has made them depositaries, and which it can 
 limit, modify, and resume when it pleases. The aliena- 
 tion of such a right, being incompatible with the nature 
 of the social body, is contrary to the object of the asso- 
 ciation. 
 
 Consequently, I give the name government or supreme 
 administration to the legitimate exercise of the executive 
 power, and that of Prince or magistrate to the man or 
 body charged with that administration. 
 
 It is in the government that are found' the intermediate 
 powers, the relations of which constitute the relation of 
 the whole to the whole;, or of the sovereign to the State. 
 This last relation can be represented by that of the ex- 
 tremes of a continued proportion, of which the mean 
 proportional is the government. The government receives 
 from the sovereign the commands which it gives to the 
 people;^ and in order that the State may be in stable 
 equilibrium, it is necessary, everything being balanced, 
 
 *By restricting the function of the sovereign to legislation, Rousseau 
 hampers himself in treating of governments. A sharp division between 
 the legislative and the executive is impossible (cf. Austin, « Jurispru- 
 dence, » Parti. Lect. VI.).— Ed. 
 
 fit is for this reason that at Venice the title of Most Serene Prince 
 fe given to the College, even when the Doge does not attend it. 
 
GOVERNMENT IN GENERAL ^ 51 
 
 that there should be equality between the product or the 
 power of the government taken by itself, and the product 
 or the power of the citizens, who are sovereign in the 
 one aspect and subjects in the other. 
 
 Further, we could not alter any of the three terms 
 without at once destroying the proportion. If the sov- 
 ereign wishes to govern, or if the magistrate wishes to 
 legislate, or if the subjects refuse to obey, disorder suc- 
 ceeds order, force and will no longer act in concert, and 
 the State being dissolved falls into despotism or anarchy. 
 Lastly, as there is but one mean proportional between 
 each relation, there is only one good government possi- 
 ble in a State ; but as a thousand events may change the 
 relations of a people, not only may different governments 
 be good for different peoples, but for the same people 
 at different times. 
 
 To try and give an idea of the different relations that 
 may exist between these two extremes, I will take for 
 an example the number of the people, as a relation most 
 easy to express. ' 
 
 Let us suppose that the State is composed of ten 
 thousand citizens. The sovereign can only be considered 
 collectively and as a body ; but every private person, in his 
 capacity of subject, is considered as an individual ; there- 
 fore, the sovereign is to the subject as ten thousand is 
 to one, that is, each member of the State has as his share 
 only one ten-thousandth part of the sovereign authority, 
 although he is entirely subjected to it. 
 
 If the nation consists of a hundred thousand men, the 
 position of the subjects does not change, and each alike is 
 subjected to the whole authority of the laws, while his vote 
 reduced to one hundred-thousandth, has ten times less 
 influence in their enactment. The subject, then, always 
 remaining a unit, the proportional power of the sovereign 
 increases in the ratio of the number of the citizens. 
 Whence it follows that the more the State is enlarged^ 
 the more does liberty diminisn. 
 
 When I say that the proportional power increases, I 
 mean that it is farther removed from equality. There- 
 fore, the greater the ratio is in the geometrical sense, 
 the less is the ratio in the common acceptation; in the 
 
52 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 former, the ratio, considered according to quantity, is 
 measured by the exponent, and in the other, considered 
 according to identity, it is estimated by the similarity. 
 
 Now, the less the particular wills correspond with the 
 general will, that is, customs with laws, the more should 
 the repressive power be increased. The government, 
 then, in order to be effective, should be relatively stronger 
 in proportion as the people are more numerous. 
 
 On the other hand, as the aggrandizement of the State 
 gives the depositaries of the public authority more tempta- 
 tions and more opportunities to abuse their power, the 
 more force should the government have to restrain the 
 people, and the more should the sovereign have in its 
 turn to restrain the government. I do not speak here of 
 absolute force, but of the relative force of the different 
 parts of the State. 
 
 It follows from this double ratio that the continued pro- 
 portion between the sovereign, the Prince, and the people 
 is not an arbitrary idea, but a necessary consequence of 
 the nature of the body politic. It follows, further, that 
 one of the extremes, viz, the people, as subject, being 
 fixed and represented by unity, whenever the double ratio 
 increases or diminishes, the single ratio increases or dimin- 
 ishes in like manner, and consequently the middle term 
 is changed. This shows that there is no unique and ab- 
 solute constitution of government, but that there may be 
 as many governments different in nature as there are 
 States different in size. 
 
 If, for the sake of turning this system to ridicule, it 
 should be said that, in order to find this mean propor- 
 tional and form the body of the government, it is, accord- 
 ing to me, only necessary to take the square root of the 
 number of the people, I should answer that I take that 
 number here only as an example; that the ratios of which 
 I speak are not measured only by the number of men, 
 but in general by the quantity of action, which results 
 from the combination of multitudes of causes ; that, more- 
 over, if for the purpose of expressing myself in fewer 
 words, I borrow for a moment geometrical terms, I am 
 nevertheless aware that geometrical precision has no place 
 in moral quantities. 
 
GOVERNMENT IK GENERAL 
 
 53 
 
 The government is on a small scale what the body 
 politic which includes it is on a large scale. It is a moral 
 person endowed with certain faculties, active like the sover- 
 eign, passive like the State, and it can be resolved into other 
 similar relations ; from which arises as a consequence a new 
 proportion, and yet another within this, according to the 
 order of the magistracies, until we come to an indivisible 
 middle term, that is, to a single chief or supreme magis- 
 trate, who may be represented, in the middle of this pro- 
 gression, as unity between the series of fractions and that 
 of the whole numbers. 
 
 Without embarrassing ourselves with this multiplication 
 of terms, let us be content to consider the government 
 as a new body in the State, distinct from the people and 
 from the sovereign, and intermediate between the two. 
 
 There is this essential difference between those two 
 bodies, that the State exists by itself, while the govern^ 
 ment exists onIyn;hTough the sovereign. Thus the dom- 
 inant will of the Prince is, or ought to be, only the 
 general will, or the law; its force is only the public 
 force concentrated in itself; so soon as it wishes to per- 
 form of itself some absolute and independent act, the 
 connection of the whole begins to be relaxed. If, lastly, 
 the Prince should chance to have a particular will more 
 active than that of the sovereign, and if, to enforce 
 obedience to this particular will, it should employ the 
 public force which is in its hands, in such a manner that 
 there would be, so to speak, two sovereigns, the one de 
 jure and the other de facto, the social union would im- 
 mediately disappear, and the body politic would be 
 dissolved. 
 
 Further, in order that the body _^«rf the government 
 may have an existence, a leal life to distinguish it from 
 the body of the State ; in order that all its members may 
 be able to act in concert and fulfill the object for which 
 it is instituted, a particular personality is necessary to it, 
 a feeling common to its members, a force, a will of its 
 own tending to its preservation. This individual existence 
 supposes assemblies, councils, a power of deliberating 
 and resolving, rights, titles, and privileges which belong 
 to the Prince exclusively, and which render the position 
 
54 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 of the magistrate more honorable in proportion as it is 
 . more arduous. The difficulty lies in the method of dis- 
 posing, within the whole, this subordinate whole, in such 
 a way that it may not weaken the general cgpstitution 
 in strengthening its own; that its particular force, in- 
 tended for its own preservation, may always be kept 
 distinct from the public force, designed for the pres- 
 ervation of the State ; and, in a word, that it may always 
 be ready to sacriiice the government to the people, and 
 not the people to the government. 
 
 Moreover, although the artificial body of the govern- 
 ment is the work of another artificial body, and has in 
 some respects only a derivative and subordinate exist- 
 ence, that does not prevent it from acting with more or 
 less vigor or celerity, from enjoying, so to speak, more 
 or less robust health. Lastly, without directly departing 
 from the object for which it was instituted, it may 
 deviate from it more or less, according to the manner in 
 which it is constituted. ] 
 
 From all these differences arise the different relations 
 which the government must have with the body of the 
 State, so as to accord with the accidental and particular 
 relations by which the State itself is modified. For often 
 the government that is best in itself will become the 
 most vicious, unless its relations are changed so as to 
 meet the defects of the body politic to which it belongs. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Principle Which Constitutes the Different Forms 
 OF Government. 
 
 To explain the general cause of these differences, I 
 must here distinguish the Prince from the government, 
 as I before distinguished the State from the sovereign. 
 
 The body of the magistracy may be composed of a 
 greater or less number of members. We said that the 
 ratio of the sovereign to the subjects was so much greatei 
 
DIFFERENT FORMS OF GOVERNMENT 55 
 
 as the people were more numerous; and, by an evident 
 analogy, we can say the same of the government with 
 regard to the magistrates. 
 
 |_Now, the total force of the government, being always 
 that of the State, does not vary; whence it follows that 
 the more it employs this force on its own members, the 
 less remains for operating upon the whole people. 
 
 Consequently, the more numerous the magistrates are, 
 the weaker is the government. As this maxim is funda- 
 mental, let us endeavor to explain it more clearly. 
 
 We can distinguish in the person of the magistrate 
 three wills essentially different: first, the will peculiar to 
 the individual, which tends only to his personal advantage ; 
 secondly, the common will of the magistrates, which has 
 reference solely to the advantage of the Prince, and 
 which may be called the corporate will, being general in 
 relation to the government, and particular in relation to 
 the State of which the government forms part; in the 
 third place, the will of the people, or the sovereign will, 
 which is general both in relation to the State considered 
 as the whole, and in relation to the government consid- 
 ered as part of the whole. 
 
 In a perfect system of legislation the particular or in- 
 dividual will should be inoperative; the corporate will 
 proper to the goverment quite subordinate; and conse- 
 quently the general or sovereign will always dominant, 
 and the sole rule of all the rest. 
 
 On the other ha;nd, according to the natural order, 
 *hese different wills become more active in proportion as 
 they are concentrated. Thus the general will is always 
 the weakest, the corporate will has the second rank, and 
 the particular will the first of all ; so that in the govern- 
 ment each member is, firstly, himself, next a magistrate, 
 and then a citizen — a gradation directly opposed to that 
 which the social order requires. 
 
 But suppose that the whole government is in the hands 
 of a single man, then the particular will and the corpo- 
 rate will are perfectly united, and consequently the latter 
 is in the highest possible degree of intensity. Now, as 
 it is on the degree of will that the exertion of force de- 
 pends, and as the absolute power of the government 
 
S6 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 does not vary, it follows that the most active govern- 
 ment is that of a single person. 
 
 On the other hand, let us unite the government with 
 the legislative authority; let us make the sov«reign the 
 Prince, and all the citizens magistrates; then the corpo- 
 rate will, confounded with the general will, will have no 
 more activity than the latter, and will leave the particu- 
 lar will in all its force. Thus the government, always 
 with the same absolute force, will be at its minimum of 
 relative force or activity. 
 
 These relations are incontestable, and other consider- 
 ations serve still further to confirm them. We see, for 
 example, that each magistrate is more active in his body 
 than each citizen is in his, and that consequently the 
 particular will has much more influence in the acts of 
 government than in those of the sovereign; for every 
 magistrate is almost always charged with some function 
 of government, whereas each citizen, taken by himself, 
 has no function of sovereignty. Besides, the more a 
 State extends, the more is its real force increased, 
 although it does not increase in proportion to its extent; 
 but, while the State remains the same, it is useless to 
 multiply magistrates, for the government acquires no 
 greater real force, inasmuch as this force is that of the 
 State, the quantity of which is always uniform. Thus 
 the relative force or activity of the government dimin- 
 ishes without its absolute or real force being able to in- 
 crease. 
 
 It is certain, moreover, that the dispatch of business is 
 retarded in proportion as more people are charged with 
 it ; that, in laying too much stress on prudence, we leave 
 too little to fortune ; that opportunities are allowed to pass 
 by, and that owing to excessive deliberation the fruits of 
 deliberation are often lost. 
 
 I have just shown that [the government is weakened in 
 proportion to the multiplication of magistrates,- and I have 
 before demonstrated that the more numerous the people 
 are, the more ought the repressive force to be increased. 
 Whence it follows that the ratio between the magistrates 
 and the government ought to be inversely as the ratio 
 between the subjects and the sovereign; that is, the more 
 
% 
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF GOVERNMENTS S7 
 
 the State is enlarged, the more should the government 
 contract ; so that the number of chiefs should diminish in 
 proportion as the number of the people is increased^ 
 
 But I speak here only of the relative force of the gov- 
 ernment, and not of its rectitude ; for, on the other hand, 
 the more numerous the magistracy is, the more does the 
 corporate will approach the general will; whereas, under 
 a single magistrate, this same corporate will is, as I have 
 said, only a particular will. Thus, what is lost on one 
 side can be gained on the other, and the art of the legis^ 
 lator consists of knowing how to fix the point where the 
 force^nd will of the government, always in reciprocal 
 proportion, are combined in the ratio most advantageous 
 to the State. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Classification of Governments. 
 
 We have seen in the previous chapter why the differ- 
 ent kinds or forms of government are distinguished by 
 the number of members that compose them; it remains 
 to be seen in the present chapter how this division is 
 made. 
 
 The sovereign may, in the first place, commit the 
 charge of the government to the whole people, or to the 
 greater part of the people, in such a way that there may 
 be more citizens who are magistrates than simple indi- 
 vidual citizens. We call this form of government de- 
 mocracy. 
 
 l^T'iTlnay confine the government to a small number, 
 so that there may be more ordinary citizens than magis- i 
 tjrates; and this form bears the name of aristocracy. / 
 
 Lastly, it may concentrate the whole government m 
 the hands of a single magistrate from whom all the rest 
 derive their power. This third form is the most com- 
 mon, and is called monarchy, or royal government. 
 
 We should remark that all these forms, or at least the 
 first two, admit of degrees, and may indeed have a con- 
 siderable range; for democracy may embrace the whole 
 people, or be limited tp a half. Aristocracy, in its turn, may 
 
58 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 restrict itself from a half of the people to the smallest 
 number indeterminately. Royalty even is susceptible of 
 some division. Sparta by its constitution alwav^ had two 
 kings ; and in the Roman Empire there were as many as 
 eight Emperors at once without its being possible to say 
 that the Empire was divided. Thus there is a point at 
 which each form of government blends with the next; 
 and we see that, under three denominations only, the 
 government is really susceptible of as many different 
 forms as the State has citizens. 
 
 What is more, this same government being in certain 
 respects capable of subdivision into other parts, one ad- 
 ministered in one way, another in another, there may 
 result from combinations of these three forms a multi- 
 tude of mixed forms, each of which can be multiplied by 
 all the simple forms. 
 
 In all ages there has been much discussion about the 
 best form of government, without consideration of the 
 fact that each of them is the best in certain cases, and 
 the worst in others. 
 
 If, in the different States, the number of the supreme 
 magistrates should be in inverse ratio to that of the cit- 
 izens, it follows that, in general, democratic government 
 is suitable to small States, aristocracy to those of mod- 
 erate size, and monarchy to large ones. This rule fol- 
 lows immediately from the principle. But how is it 
 possible to estimate the multitude of circumstances which 
 may furnish exceptions ? 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Democracy.* 
 
 He that makes the law knows better than any one how 
 it should be executed and interpreted. It would seem, 
 then, that there could be no better constitution than one 
 in which the executive power is united with the legisla- 
 tive; but it is that very circumstance which makes a 
 
 * Plato treated democracy as a debased form of commonwealth, 
 characterized by an excessive freedom tending to degenerate into 
 license ("Republic" VIII.).— Ed. 
 
DEMOCRACY 59 
 
 democratic government inadequate in certain respects, 
 because things which ought to be distinguished are not, 
 and because the Prince and the sovereign, being the same 
 person, only form as it were a government without gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 It is not expedient that he who makes the laws should 
 execute them, nor that the body of the people should 
 divert its attention from general considerations in order to 
 bestow it on particular objects. Nothing is more danger- 
 ous than the influence of private interests on public affairs ; 
 and the abuse of the laws by the government is a less 
 evil than the /corruption .of the legislator, i which is the 
 infallible result of the ^pursuit of private interests. For 
 when the State is changed in its substance all reform 
 becomes impossible. A people which would never abuse 
 the government would likewise never abuse its independ- 
 ence ; a people which always governed well would not need 
 to be governed. 
 
 Taking the term in its strict sense, there never has 
 existed, and never will exist, any true democracy. It is 
 contrary to the natural order that the majority should 
 govern and that the minority should be governed. It is 
 impossible to imagine that the people should remain in 
 perpetual assembly to attend to public affairs, and it is 
 easily apparent that commissions could not be established 
 for that purpose without the form of administration being 
 changed. 
 
 In fact, I think I can lay down as a principle that Avhen 
 the functions of government are shared among s&veral 
 magistracies, the least numerous acquire, sooner or later, 
 the greatest authority, if only on account of the facility 
 in transacting busine^Vhich naturally leads them on to 
 that. .— -— -^ 
 
 Moreover, how many things difficult to combine does 
 not this government presuppose ! First, a very small State, 
 in which the people may be readily assembled, and in 
 which every citizen can easily know all the rest ; secondly, 
 f great simplicity of manners, which prevents a multiplicity 
 ^of affairs and thorny discussions;] next, considerable 
 equality in rank and fortune, without which equality Jn 
 'rights and authority could not long subsist ; lastly, little 
 
6o THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 or no luxury, for luxury is either the effect of wealth or 
 renders it necessary; it corrupts both the rich and the 
 poor, the former by possession, the latter by covetous- 
 ness; it betrays the country to effeminacy ane^vanity; it 
 deprives the State of all its citizens in order to subject 
 them one to another, and all to opinion. 
 
 That is why a famous author has assigned virtue as the 
 principle of a republic, for all these conditions could not 
 subsist without virtue; but through not making the 
 necessary distinctions, this brilliant genius has often 
 lacked precision and sometimes clearness, and has not 
 seen that the sovereign authority being everywhere the 
 same, the same principle ought to have a place in every 
 well-constituted State, in a greater or less degree, it is 
 true, according to the form of government. 
 ^ Let us add that there is no government so subject to 
 civil wars and internal agitation as the democratic or 
 popular, because there is none which tends so strongly 
 and so constantly to change its form, none which de- 
 \ mands more vigilance and courage to be maintained in 
 i its own form. It is especially in this constitution that 
 the citizen should arm himself with strength and stead- 
 fastness, and say every day of his life from the bottom 
 of his heart what a virtuous Palatine said in the Diet of 
 Poland: Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum serv- 
 itium. 
 
 If there were a nation of gods, it would be governed 
 democratically. So perfect a government is unsuited to 
 men. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Aristocracy. 
 
 We have here two moral persons quite distinct, viz, 
 the government and the sovereign ; and consequently two 
 general wills, the one having reference to all the citizens, 
 the other only to the members of the adininistration. 
 rThus, although the government can regulate its internal 
 policy as it pleases, it can never speak to the people except 
 
 \y 
 
ARISTOCRACY -6i 
 
 in the name of the sovereign, that is, in the nanae of the ; 
 people themselves. This must never he forgotten. 
 
 The earliest societies were aristocratically governed. 
 The heads of families deliberated among themselves 
 about public affairs. The young men yielded readily to 
 the authority of experience. Hence the names priests, 
 ELDERS, SENATE, GERONTES. The savages of North America 
 are still governed in this way at the present time, and 
 are very well governed. 
 
 But in proportion as the inequality due to institutions 
 prevailed over natural inequality, wealth or power* 
 was preferred to age, and aristocracy became elective. 
 Finally, the power transmitted with the father's property 
 to the children, rendering the families patrician, made 
 the government hereditary and there were senators only 
 twenty years old. 
 
 There are, then, three kinds of aristocracy — natural, 
 elective, and hereditary. The first is only suitable for' 
 simple" nations; the third is the worst of all govern- 
 ments. The second is the best ; it is aristocracy properly 
 so-called. 
 
 Besides the advantage of the distinction between the 
 two powers, aristocracy has that of the choice of its 
 members; for in a popular government all the citizens 
 are bom magistrates; but this one limits them to a 
 small number, and they become magistrates by election 
 only;t a method by which probity, intelligence, ex- 
 perience, and all other grounds of preference and public 
 esteem are so many fresh guarantees that men will be 
 wisely governed. 
 
 Further, assemblies are more easily convoked; affairs 
 are better discussed and are dispatched with greater or- 
 der and diligence; while the credit of the State is better 
 
 • It is clear that the word optimates among the ancients did not 
 mean the best, but the most powerful. 
 
 t It is very important to regulate by law the form of election of 
 magistrates; for, in leaving it to the will of the Prince, it is impos- 
 sible to avoid falling into hereditary aristocracy, as happened in the 
 republics of Venice and Berne. In consequence, the first has long 
 been a decaying State, but the second is maintained by the ex- 
 treme wisdom of its Senate ; it is a very honorable and a very dangerous 
 exception. 
 
62 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 maintained abroad by venerable senators than by an 
 unknown or despised multitude. 
 
 In a word, it is the best and most natuml order of 
 things that the wisest should govern the multitude, 
 '' when we are sure that they will govern it for its ad- 
 vantage and not for their own. We should not uselessly 
 multiply means, nor do with' twenty thousand men what 
 a hundred chosen men can do still better. But we 
 must observe that the corporate interest begins here to 
 direct the public force in a less degree according to the 
 rule of the general will, and that another inevitable pro- 
 pensity deprives the laws of a part of the executive 
 power. 
 
 With regard to special expediences, a State must not 
 be so small, nor a people so simple and upright, that 
 the execution of the laws should follow immediately upon 
 the public will as in a good democracy. Nor again must 
 a nation be so large that the chief men, who are dis- 
 persed in order to govern it, can set up as sovereigns, 
 each in his own province, and begin by making them- 
 selves independent so as at last to become masters. 
 
 But if aristocracy requires a few virtues less than pop- 
 ular government, it requires also others that are pecul- 
 iarly its own, such as moderation among the rich and 
 contentment among the poor; for a rigorous equality 
 would seem to be out of place in it, and was not even 
 observed in Sparta. 
 
 Besides, if this form of government comports with a 
 certain inequality of fortune, it is expedient in general 
 that the administration of public affairs should be in- 
 trusted to those that are best able to devote their whole 
 time to it, but not, as Aristotle maintains, that the rich 
 should always be preferred. On the contraryj/jt is im- 
 portant that an opposite choice should sometimes teach 
 the people that there are, in men's personal merits, rea- 
 sons for preference more important than wealth."^ 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 Monarchy. 
 
 We have hitherto considered the Prince as a moral and 
 collective person united by the force of the laws, and as 
 the depositary of the executive power in the State. We 
 have now to consider this power concentrated in the 
 hands of a natural person, of a real man, who alone has 
 a right to dispose of it according to the laws. He is what 
 is called a monarch or a king. 
 
 Quite the reverse of the other forms of administration, 
 in which a collective being represents an individual, in 
 this one an individual represents a collective being; so 
 that the moral unity that constitutes it is at the same 
 time a physical unity, in which all the powers that the 
 law combines in the other with so much effort are 
 Combined naturally. 
 
 Thus the will of the people, the will of the Prince, the 
 public force of the State, and the particular force of the 
 government, all obey the same motive power; all 
 the springs of the machine are in the same hand, every- 
 thing works for the same end; there are no opposite 
 movements that counteract one another, and no kind of 
 constitution can be imagined in which a more considera- 
 ble action is produced with less effort. Archimedes, 
 quietly seated on the shore, and launching without diffi- 
 culty a large vessel, represents to me a skillful monarch, 
 governing from his cabinet his vast States, and, while 
 he appears motionless, setting everything in motion. 
 
 But if there is no government which has more vigorP"\ 
 there is none in which the particular will has more sway \ 
 and more easily governs others. Everything works for , 
 the same end, it is true; but this end is not the public ) 
 welfare, and the very power of the administration turns j 
 continually to the prejudice of the State. - 
 
 Kings wish to be absolute, and from afar men cry to 
 them that the best way to become so is to make them- 
 selves beloved by their people. This maxim is very fine, 
 
 (63i 
 
64 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 and also very true in certain respects ; unfortunately it will 
 always be ridiculed in courts. Power which springs from 
 the afiEections of the people is doubtless the greatest, but 
 it is precarious and conditional; princes will never be 
 satisfied with it. The best kings wish to have the power 
 of being wicked if they please, without ceasing to be 
 masters. A political preacher will tell them in vain that, 
 the strength of the people being their own, it is their 
 greatest interest that the people should be flourishing, 
 numerous, and formidable ; they know very well that that 
 is not true. Their personal interest is, in the first place, 
 that the people should be weak and miserable, and 
 should never be able to resist them. Supposing all the 
 subjects always perfectly submissive, I admit that it would 
 then be the prince's interest that the people should be 
 powerful, in order that this power, being his own, might 
 render him formidable to his neighbors; but as this 
 interest is only secondary and subordinate, and as the 
 two suppositions are incompatible, it is natural that 
 princes should always give preference to the maxim 
 which is most immediately useful to them. It is this 
 that Samuel strongly represented to the Hebrews; it is 
 this that Machiavelli clearly demonstrated. While pre- 
 tending to give lessons to kings, he gave great ones to 
 peoples. The ** Prince '* of Machiavelli is the book of 
 republicans.* 
 
 We have found, by general considerations, that mon- 
 archy is suited only to large States; and we shall find 
 this again by examining monarchy itself. The more 
 numerous the public administrative body is, the more 
 does the ratio of the Prince to the subjects diminish 
 and approach equality, so that this ratio is unity or 
 
 * Machiavelli was an honorable man and a good citizen; but, 
 attached to the house of the Medici, he was forced, during the oppres- 
 sion of his country, to conceal his love for liberty. The mere choice 
 of his execrable hero sufficiently manifests his secret intention; and 
 the opposition between the maxims of his book the « Prince" and 
 those of his « Discourses on Titus Livius» and his "History of Flor- 
 ence,* shows that this profound politician has had hitherto only 
 superficial or corrupt readers. The court of Rome has strictly pro- 
 hibited his book; I certainly believe it, for it is that court which he 
 most clearly depicts. 
 
MONARCHY 6$ 
 
 equality, even in a democracy. This same ratio increases 
 in proportion as the government contracts, and is at its 
 maximum when the government is in the hands of a 
 single person. Then the distance between the Prince 
 and the people is too great, and the State lacks cohesion. 
 In order to unify it, then, intermediate orders, princes, 
 grandees, and nobles, are required to fill them. Now, 
 nothing at all of this kind is proper for a small State, 
 which would be ruined by all these orders. 
 
 But if it is difl&cult for a great State to be well gov- 
 erned, it is much more so for it to be well governed by 
 a single man; and every one knows what happens when 
 the king appoints deputies. 
 
 One essential and inevitable defect, which will always 
 render a monarchical government inferior to a republican 
 one, is that in the latter the public voice hardly ever 
 raises to the highest posts any but enlightened and ca- 
 pable men, who fill them honorably; whereas those who 
 succeed in monarchies are most frequently only petty 
 mischief-makers, petty knaves, petty intriguers, whose 
 petty talents, which enable them to attain high posts in 
 courts, only serve to show the public their ineptitude as 
 soon as they have attained them. The people are much 
 less mistaken about their choice than the prince is; and 
 a man of real merit is almost as rare in a royal minrs^> 
 try as a fool at the head of a republican government. 
 Therefore, when by some fortunate chance one of these 
 born rulers takes the helm of affairs in a monarchy almost 
 wrecked by such a fine set of ministers, it is quite aston- 
 ishing what resources he finds, and his accession to power 
 forms an epoch in a country. 
 
 In order that a monarchical State might be well gov- 
 erned, it would be necessary that its greatness or extent 
 should be proportioned to the abilities of him that gov- 
 erns, dt is easier to conquer than to ruleTl With a suf- 
 ficient lever, the world may be moved by" a finger; but 
 to support it the shoulders of Hercules are required. 
 However small a State may be, the prince is almost 
 always too small for it. When, on the contrary, it hap- 
 pens that the State is too small for its chief, which is 
 very rare, it is still badly governed, because the chief, 
 5 
 
66 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 always pursuing his own great designs, forgets the inter- 
 ests of the people, and renders them no less unhappy by 
 the abuse of his transcendent abilities, than an inferior 
 chief by his lack of talent. It would be necetsary, so to 
 speak, that a kingdom should be enlarged or contracted 
 in every reign, according to the capacity of the prince; 
 whereas, the talents of a senate having more definite lim- 
 its, the State may have permanent boundaries, and the 
 e.dministration prosper equally well. 
 
 The most obvious inconvenience of the government of 
 a single person is the lack of that uninterrupted succes- 
 sion which forms in the two others a continuous connec- 
 tion. One king being dead, another is necessary ; elections 
 leave dangerous intervals; they are stormy; and unless 
 the citizens are of a disinterestedness, an integrity, which 
 this government hardly admits of, intrigue and corrup- 
 tion intermingle with it. It would be hard for a man to 
 whom the State has been sold not to sell it in his turn, 
 and indemnify himself out of the helpless for the money 
 which the powerful have extorted from him. Sooner or 
 later everything becomes venal under such an adminis- 
 tration, and the peace which is then eiijoyed under a king 
 is worse than the disorder of an interregnum. 
 
 What has been done to prevent these evils ? Crowns 
 have been made hereditary in certain families; and an 
 order of succession has been established which prevents 
 any dispute on the demise of kings; that is to say, the 
 inconvenience of regencies being substituted for that of 
 elections, an appearance of tranquillity has been preferred 
 to a wise administration, and men have preferred to risk 
 having as their chiefs children, monsters, and imbeciles, 
 rather than have a dispute about the choice of good 
 kings. They have not considered that in thus exposing 
 themselves to the risk of this alternative, they put almost 
 all the chances against themselves. That was a very 
 sensible answer of Dionysius the younger, to whom his 
 father, in reproaching him with a dishonorable action, 
 said: "Have I set you the example in this?" "Ah!» 
 replied the son, "your father was not a king." 
 
 All things conspire to deprive of justice and reason a 
 man brought up to govern others. Much trouble is taken, 
 
MONARCHY 67 
 
 so it is said, to teach young princes the art of reigning; 
 this education does not appear to profit them. It would 
 be better to begin by teaching them the art of obeying. 
 The greatest kings that history has celebrated were not 
 trained to rule; that is a science which men are never 
 less masters of than after excessive study of it, and it is 
 better acquired by obeying than by ruling. Nam utilissimus 
 idem ac brevissimus bonarum malarumque rerum delectus, 
 cogitare quid aut nolueris sub alio principe, aut volueris. 
 
 A result of this want of cohesion is the instability of 
 royal government, which, being regulated sometimes ou 
 one plan, sometimes on another, according to the charac 
 ter of the reigning prince or that of the persons who 
 reign for him, cannot long pursue a fixed aim or a con- 
 sistent course of conduct, a variableness which always 
 makes the State fluctuate between maxim and maxim, 
 project and project, and which does not exist in other 
 governments, where the Prince is always the same. So 
 we see that, in general, if there is more cunning in a 
 court, there is more wisdom in a senate, and that repub- 
 lics pursue their ends by more steadfast and regular 
 methods; whereas every revolution in a royal ministry 
 produces one in the State, the maxim common to all min- 
 isters, and to almost all kings, being to reverse in every 
 respect the acts of their predecessors. 
 
 Prom this same want of cohesion is obtained the solu- 
 tion of a sophism very familiar to royal politicians; this 
 is not only to compare civil government with domestic 
 government, and the prince with the father of a family, 
 an error already refuted, but, further, to ascribe freely 
 to this magistrate all the virtues which he might have 
 occasion for, and always to suppose that the prince is 
 what he ought to be — on which supposition royal gov- 
 ernment is manifestly preferable to every other, because 
 it is incontestably the strongest, and because it only 
 lacks a corporate will more conformable to the general 
 will to be also the best. 
 
 But if, according to Plato, a king by nature is so rare 
 a personage, how many times will nature and fortune 
 conspire to crown him ? And if the royal education nec- 
 essarily corrupts those who receive it, what should be 
 
68 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 expected from a succession o£ men trained to rule ? It 
 is, then, voluntary self-deception to confuse royal govern- 
 ment with that of a good king. To see what this gov- 
 ernment is in itself, we must consider it under incapable 
 or wicked princes; for such will come to the throne, or 
 the throne will make them such. 
 
 These difficulties have not escaped our authors, but 
 they have not been embarrassed by them. The remedy, 
 they say, is to obey without murmuring; God gives bad 
 kings in his wrath, and we must endure them as chas- 
 tisements of heaven. Such talk is doubtless edifying, 
 but I am inclined to think it would be more appropriate 
 in a pulpit than in a book on politics. What should we 
 say of a physician who promises miracles, and whose 
 whole art consists in exhorting the sick man to be 
 patient? We know well that when we have a bad gov- 
 ernment it must be endured; the question is to find a 
 good one. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Mixed Governments. 
 
 Properly speaking, there is no simple government. 
 ~A single chief must have subordinate magistrates; a 
 .popular government must have a head. Thus, in the 
 partition of the executive power, there is always a grada- 
 tion from the greater number to the less, with this dif- 
 ference, that sometimes the^jnajority depends on the 
 minority, and sometimes tHe_minority_-on the majority. 
 
 Sometimes there is an equal division, either when the 
 constituent parts are in mutual dependence, as in the 
 government of England; or when the authority of each 
 part is independent, but imperfect, as in Poland. This 
 latter form is bad, because there is no unity in the gov- 
 ernment, and the State lacks cohesion. 
 
 Is a simple or mixed government the better ? A ques- 
 tion much debated among publicists, and one to which 
 the same answer must be made that I have before made 
 about every form of government. 
 
RELATIVITY OF FORMS OF GOVERNMENT 69 
 
 The simple government is the better in itself, for the 
 reason that it is simple. But when the executive power is 
 not sufficiently dependent on the legislative, that is, when 
 there is a greater proportion between the Prince and 
 the sovereign than between the people and the Prince, 
 this want of proportion must be remedied by dividing 
 the government; for then all its parts have no less au- 
 thority over the subjects, and their division renders them 
 all together less strong against the sovereign. 
 
 The same inconvenience is also provided against by 
 the establishment of intermediate magistrates, who, leav- 
 ing the government in its entirety, only serve to balance 
 the two powers and maintain their respective rights. 
 Then the government is not mixed, but temperate. 
 
 The opposite inconvenience can be remedied by similar 
 means, and, when the government is too lax, tribunals 
 may be erected to concentrate it. That is customary in 
 all democracies. In the first case the government is 
 divided in order to weaken it, and in the second in 
 order to strengthen it; for the maximum of strength and 
 also of weakness is found in simple governments, while 
 the mixed forms give a medium strength. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 That Every Form of Government is Not Fit for 
 Every Country. 
 
 Liberty, not being a fruit of all climates, is not within 
 the reach of all peoples. The more we consider this 
 principle established by Montesquieu, the more do we 
 perceive its truth; the more it is contested, the greater 
 opportunity is given to establish it by new proofs. 
 
 In all the governments of the world, the public person 
 consumes, but produces nothing. Whence, then, comes 
 the substance it consumes ? From the labor of its mem- 
 bers. It is the superfluity of individuals that supplies the 
 necessaries of the public. Hence it follows that the civiFN 
 State can subsist only so long as men's labor produces 
 more than they need. 
 
70 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 Now this excess is not the same in all countries of the 
 world. In several it is considerable, in others moderate, 
 in others nothing, in others a minus quantity. This pro- 
 portion depends on the fertility due to climaie, on the 
 kind of labor which the soil requires, on the nature of its 
 products, on the physical strength of its inhabitants, on 
 the greater or less consumption that is necessary to 
 them, and on several other like proportions of which it 
 is composed. 
 
 On the other hand, all governments are not of the same 
 nature; there are some more or less wasteful; and the 
 differences are based on this other principle, that the 
 further the public contributions are removed from their 
 source, the more burdensome they are. We must not 
 measure this burden by the amount of the imposts, but 
 by the distance they have to traverse in order to return 
 to the hands from which they have come. When this 
 circulation is prompt and well-established, it matters not 
 whether little or much is paid ; the people are always rich, 
 and the finances are always prosperous. On the other 
 hand, however little the people may contribute, if this 
 little does not revert to them, they are soon exhausted 
 by constantly giving; the State is never rich and the 
 people are always in beggary. 
 
 It follows from this that the more the distance between 
 the people and the government is increased, the more 
 burdensome do the tributes become; therefore, in a 
 democracy the people are least encumbered, in an aris- 
 tocracy they are more so, and in a monarchy they bear 
 the greatest weight. Monarchy, then, is suited only 
 to wealthy nations; aristocracy, to States moderate 
 both in wealth and size; democracy, to small and poor 
 States. 
 
 Indeed, the more we reflect on it, the more do we find 
 in this the difference between free and monarchical 
 States. In the first, everything is used for the common 
 advantage; in the others, public and private resources 
 are reciprocal, and the former are increased by the dimi- 
 nution of the latter ; lastly, instead of governing subjects 
 /Tn order to make them happy, despotism renders them 
 miserable in order to govern them. 
 
RELATIVITY OF FORMS OF GOVERNMENT 71 
 
 There are, then, in every climate natural causes by 
 which we can assign the form of government which is 
 adapted to the nature of the climate, and even say what 
 kind of inhabitants the country should have. 
 
 Unfruitful and barren places, where the produce does 
 not repay the labor, ought to remain uncultivated and 
 deserted, or should only be peopled by savages; places 
 where men's toil yields only bare necessaries ought to be 
 inhabited by barbarous nations ; in them any polity would 
 be an impossibility. Places where the excess of the 
 produce over the labor is moderate are suitable for free 
 nations; those in which abundant and fertile soil yields 
 much produce for little labor are willing to be governed,, 
 monarchically, in order that the superfluity of the sub-' 
 jects may be consumed by the luxuries of the Prince ; 
 for it is better that this excess should be absorbed by * 
 the government than squandered by private persons. 
 There are exceptions, I know; but these exceptions 
 themselves confirm the rule, in that, sooner or later, 
 they produce revolutions which restore things to their 
 natural order. 
 
 We should always distinguish general laws from the 
 particular causes which may modify their effects. If 
 the whole south should be covered with republics, and 
 the whole north with despotic States, it would not be 
 less true that, through the influence of climate, despotism 
 is suitable to warm countries, barbarism to cold countries, 
 and a good polity to intermediate regions. I see, how- 
 ever, that while the principle is admitted, its application 
 may be disputed ; it will be said that some cold countries 
 are very fertile, and some southern ones very unfruitful. 
 But this is a difficulty only for those who do not examine 
 the matter in all its relations. It is necessary, as I 
 have already said, to reckon those connected with labor, 
 resources, consumption, etc. 
 
 Let us suppose that the produce of two districts equal 
 in area is in the ratio of five to ten. If the inhabitants 
 Of the former consume four and those of the latter nine 
 parts, the surplus produce of the first will be one-fifth, 
 and that of the second one-tenth. The ratio between 
 these two surpluses being then inversely as that of the 
 
72 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 produce of each, the district which yields only five will 
 give a surplus double that of the district which pro- 
 duces ten. 
 
 But it is not a question of double produce, ar^ I do not 
 think that any one dare, in general, place the fertility of 
 cold countries even on an equality with that of warm 
 countries. Let us, however, assume this equality; let us, 
 if you will, put England in the scales with Sicily, and 
 Poland with Egypt; more to the south we shall have 
 Africa and India; more to the north we shall have 
 nothing. For this equality in produce what a difference 
 in the cultivation! In Sicily it is only necessary to 
 scratch the soil; in England what care is needed to till 
 it! But where more exertion is required to yield the 
 same produce, the surplus must necessarily be very small. 
 
 Consider, besides this, that the same number of men 
 consume much less in warm countries. The climate 
 demands that people should be temperate in order to be 
 healthy; Europeans who want to live as at home all die 
 of dysentery and dyspepsia. "We are," says Chardin, 
 * carnivorous beasts, wolves, in comparison with Asiatics. 
 Some attribute the temperance of the Persians to the 
 fact that their country is scantily cultivated; I believe, 
 on the contrary, that their country is not very abundant 
 in provisions because the inhabitants need very little. If 
 their frugality," he continues, « resulted from the poverty 
 of the country, it would be only the poor who would eat 
 little, whereas it is the people generally; and more or 
 less would be consumed in each province, according to 
 the fertility of the country, whereas the same abstem- 
 iousness is found throughout the kingdom. They pride 
 themselves greatly on their mode of living, sajdng that 
 it is only necessary to look at their complexions, to see 
 how much superior they are to those of Christians. In- 
 deed, the complexions of the Persians are smooth; they 
 have beautiful skins, delicate and clear: while the com- 
 plexions of their subjects, the Armenians, who live in 
 European fashion, are rough and blotched, and their 
 bodies are coarse and heavy." 
 
 The nearer we approach the Equator, the less do the 
 people live upon. They eat scarcely any meat; rice. 
 
RELATIVITY OF FORMS OF GOVERNMENT 73 
 
 maize, cuzcuz, millet, cassava, are their ordinary foods. 
 There are in India millions of men whose diet does not 
 cost a half -penny a day. We see even in Europe palpa- 
 ble differences in appetite between northern and south- 
 em nations. A Spaniard will live for eight days on a 
 German's dinner. In countries where men are most 
 voracious luxury is directed to matters of consumption; 
 in England it is displayed in a table loaded with meats; 
 in Italy you are regaled with sugar and iiowers. 
 
 Again, luxury in dress presents similar differences. 
 In climates where the changes of the seasons are sudden 
 and violent, garments are better and simpler; in those 
 where people dress only for ornament, splendor is more 
 sought after than utility, for clothes themselves are a 
 luxury. At Naples you will see men every day walking 
 to Posilippo with gold-embroidered coats, and no stock- 
 ings. It is the same with regard to buildings ; everything 
 is sacrificed to magnificence when there is nothing to fear 
 from injury by the atmosphere. In Paris and in London 
 people must be warmly and comfortably housed; in 
 Madrid they have superb drawing-rooms, but no windows 
 that shut, while they sleep in mere closets. 
 
 The foods are much more substantial and nutritious in 
 warm countries; this is a third difiEerence which cannot 
 fail to influence the second. Why do people eat so many 
 vegetables in Italy? Because they are good, nourishing, 
 and of excellent flavor. In France, where they are grown 
 only on water, they are not nourishing and count almost 
 for nothing on the table; they do not, however, occupy 
 less ground, and they cost at least as much labor to 
 cultivate. It is found by experience that the wheats of 
 Barbary, inferior in other respects to those of France, 
 yield much more flour, and that those of France, in 
 their turn, yield more than the wheats of the north. 
 Whence we may infer that a similar gradation is observ- 
 able generally, in the same direction, from the Equator 
 to the Pole. Now is it not a manifest disadvantage to 
 have in an equal quantity of produce a smaller quantity 
 of nutriment ? 
 
 To all these different considerations I may add one 
 which springs from, and strengthens, them; it is thai 
 
74 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 warm countries have less need of inhabitants than cold 
 countries, but would be able to maintain a greater num- 
 ber; hence a double surplus is produced, always to the 
 advantage of despotism. The greater the suSace occu- 
 pied by the same number of inhabitants, the more difficult 
 do rebellions become, because measures cannot be con- 
 certed promptly and secretly, and because it is always 
 easy for the government to discover the plans and cut 
 off communications. But the more closely packed^ a 
 numerous population is, the less power has a government _ 
 to usurp the sovereignty; the chiefs deliberate as securely 
 in their cabinets as the prince in his council, and the 
 multitude assemble in the squares as quickly as the 
 troops in their quarters. The advantage,, then, of a 
 tyrannical government lies in this, that it acts at great 
 distances. By help of the points of support which it 
 procures, its power increases with the distance, like^ that 
 .of levers.* That of the people, on the other hand, acts 
 only when concentrated ; it evaporates and disappears as it 
 extends, like the effect of powder scattered on the groun'3p 
 which takes fire only grain by grain. The least popu- 
 lous countries are thus the best adapted for tyranny; 
 wild beasts reign only in deserts. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The Marks of a Good Government. 
 
 When, then, it is asked absolutely which is the best 
 government, an insoluble and likewise indeterminate 
 question is propounded; or, if you will, it has as many 
 correct solutions as there are possible combinations in the 
 absolute and relative positions of the nations. 
 
 * This does not contradict what I said before ( Book II. chapter ix. ) 
 on the inconveniences of large States ; for there it was a question of the 
 authority of the government over its members, and here it is a question 
 of its power against its subjects. Its scattered members serve as points 
 of support to it for operating at a distance upon the people, but it has no 
 point of support for acting on its members themselves. Thus, the length 
 of the lever is the cause of its weakness in the one case, and of its 
 strength in the other. 
 
THE MARKS OF A GOOD GOVERNMENT 75 
 
 But if it were asked by what sign it can be known 
 whether a given people is well or ill governed, that 
 would be a different matter, and the question of fact 
 might be determined. ^ 
 
 It is however, not settled, because every one wishes to 
 decide it in his own way. Subjects extol the public tran- 
 quillity, citizens the liberty of individuals; the former 
 prefer security of possessions, the latter, that of persons ; 
 the former are of opinion that the best government is 
 the most severe, the latter maintain that it is the mild- 
 est; the one party wish that crimes should be punished 
 and the other that they should be prevented; the one 
 party think it well to be feared by their neighbors, the 
 other party prefer to be unacquainted with them; the 
 one party are satisfied when money circulates, the other 
 party demand that the people should have bread. 
 Even though there should be agreement on these and 
 other similar points, would further progress be made ? 
 Since moral quantities lack a precise mode of measure- 
 ment, even if people were in accord about the sign, how 
 could they be so about the valuation of it ? 
 
 For my part, I am always astonished that people fail 
 to recognize a sign so simple, or that they should have 
 the insincerity not to agree about it. What is the object 
 of political association ? It is the preservation and pros- 
 perity of its members. And what is the surest sign i 
 that they are preserved and prosperous ? It is their num- 
 ber and population. Do not, then, go and seek elsewhere 
 for this sign so much discussed. All other things being 
 equal, the government under which, without external 
 aids, without naturalizations, and without colonies, the 
 citizens increase and multiply most, is infallibly the best. 
 That under which a people diminishes and decays is the 
 worst. Statisticians, it is now your business; reckon, 
 measure, compare. * 
 
 *0n the same principle must be judged the centuries which deserve 
 preference in respect of the prosperity of the human race. Those in 
 which literature and art were seen to flourish have been too much 
 admired without the secret object of their cultivation being penetrated, 
 without their fatal consequences being considered: Idque apud im- 
 fieritos humanitas vocabatur, qttum pars servitutis esset. Shall we 
 never detect in the maxims of books the gross self-interest which 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 The Abuse of the Government and Its Tendency to 
 Degenerate. 
 
 As THE particular will acts incessantly against tlie gen- 
 
 \ eral will, so the government makes a continual effort 
 
 \ against the sovereignty. The more this effort is increased, 
 
 the more is the constitution altered ; and as there is here 
 
 no other corporate will which, by resisting that of the 
 
 Prince, may produce equilibrium with it, it must happen 
 
 sooner or later that the Prince at length oppresses the 
 
 sovereign and violates the social treaty. Therein is the 
 
 inherent and inevitable vice, which, from the birth of 
 
 the body politic, tends without intermission to destroy it, 
 
 just as old age and death at length destroy the human body. 
 
 , There are two general ways by which a government 
 
 degenerates, viz, when it contracts, or when the State is 
 
 dissolved. 
 
 makes the authors speak ? No, whatever they may say, when, notwith- 
 standing its brilliancy, a country is being depopulated, it is untrue that 
 all goes well, and it is not enough that a poet should have an income of 
 100,000 livres for his epoch to be the best of all. The apparent repose 
 and tranquillity of the chief men must be regarded less than the welfare 
 of nations as a whole, and especially that of the most populous States. 
 Hail lays waste a few cantons, but it rarely causes scarcity. Riots and 
 civil wars greatly startle the chief men ; but they do not produce the real 
 misfortunes of nations, which may even be abated, while it is being dis- 
 puted who shall tyrannize over them. It is from their permanent con- 
 dition that their real prosperity or calamities spring; when all is left 
 crushed under the yoke, it is then that everything perishes ; it is then 
 that the chief men, destroying them at their leisure, udz solttudinem 
 faciunt, pacem appellant. When the broils of the g^reat agitated the 
 kingdom of France, and the coadjutor of Paris carried a poniard in his 
 pocket to the Parlement, that did not prevent the French nation from 
 living happily and harmoniously in free and honorable ease. Greece of 
 old flourished in the midst of the most cruel wars ; blood flowed there in 
 streams and the whole country was covered with men. It seemed, said 
 ! Machiavelli, that amid murders, proscriptions and civil wars, our repub- 
 lic became more powerful; the virtues of its citizens, their manners, 
 ! their independence, were more effectual in strengthening it than all 
 [^ jts dissensions had been in weakening it. A little agitation gives energy 
 I to men's minds, and what makes the race truly prosperous is not so 
 ^ much peace as liberty. 
 (76) 
 
THE ABUSE OP THE GOVERNMENT ^^ 
 
 The government contracts when it passes from the ma- 
 jority to the minority, that is, from democracy to aris- 
 tocracy, and from aristocracy to royalty. That is its 
 natural tendency. ' , If it retrograded from the minority to 
 the majority, it might be said to relax; but this inverse 
 progress is impossible.. 
 
 In reality, the government never changes its form ex- 
 cept when its exhausted energy leaves it too weak to 
 preserve itself; and if it becomes still more relaxed as it 
 extends, its force will be annihilated, and it will no longer 
 subsist. We must therefore concentrate the energy as it 
 dwindles; otherwise the State which it sustains will fall 
 into ruin. 
 
 The dissolution of the State may occur in two ways. 
 
 Firstly, when the Prince no longer administers the State 
 in accordance with the laws and effects a usurpation of 
 the sovereign power. Then a remarkable change takes 
 place — the State, and not the government, contracts; I 
 mean that the State dissolves, and that another is formed 
 within it, which is composed only of the members of the 
 government, and which is to the rest of the people noth- 
 ing more than their master and their tjrrant. So that as 
 soon as the government usurps the sovereignty, the social 
 compact is broken, and all the ordinary citizens, right- 
 fully regaining their natural liberty, are forced, but not 
 morally bound, to obey. 
 
 The same thing occurs also when the members of the 
 government usurp separately the power which they ought 
 to exercise only collectively ; which is no less a violation 
 ^of the laws, and occasions still greater disorder. Then 
 there are, so to speak, as many Princes as magistrates; 
 and the State, not less divided than the government, 
 perishes or changes its form. J) 
 
 When the State is broken up, the abuse of the gov- 
 ernment, whatever it may be, takes the common name of 
 ANARCHY. To distinguish, democracy degenerates intq^ 
 OCHLOCRACY, aristocracy into oligarchy]"" I should add 
 that royalty degenerates into tyranny ; but this last word 
 is equivocal and requires explanation. 
 
 In the vulgar sense a tyrant is a king who governs with 
 violence and without regard to justice and the laws. In 
 
78 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 the strict sense, a tyrant is a private person who arro- 
 gates to himself the royal authority without having a 
 right to it. It is in this sense that the Greeks under- 
 stood the word tyrant; they bestowed it indifferently on 
 good and bad princes whose authority was not legitimate. 
 Thus TYRANT and usurper are two words perfectly syn- 
 onymous. 
 
 To give different names to different things, I call the 
 usurj)er of royal authority a tyrant, and the usurper of 
 sovereign power a despot. The tyrant is he who, con- 
 trary to the laws, takes upon himself to govern according 
 to the laws; the despot is he who sets himself above the 
 laws themselves. (Thus the tyrant cannot be a despot, 
 but the despot is always a tyrant.' 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 The Dissolution of the Body Politic. 
 
 Such is the natural and inevitable tendency of the best 
 constituted governments. If Sparta and Rome have per- 
 ished, what State can hope to endure for ever ? If we 
 wish to form a durable constitution, let us, then, not 
 dream of making it eternal. In order to succeed we must 
 not attempt the impossible, nor flatter ourselves that we 
 are giving to the work of men a stability which human 
 things do not admit of. 
 
 The body politic, as well as the human body, begins 
 to die from its birth, and bears in itself the causes of its 
 own destruction. But both may have a constitution more 
 or less robust, and fitted to preserve them a longer or shorter 
 time. The constitution of man is the work of nature; 
 that of the State is the work of art. It does not rest 
 with men to prolong their lives ; it does rest with them 
 to prolong that of the State as far as possible, by giving 
 it the best constitution practicable. The best constituted 
 will come to an end, but not so soon as another, unless 
 some unforeseen accident brings about its premature de- 
 struction. 
 
HOW SOVEREIGN AUTHORITY IS MAINTAINED 79 
 
 The principle of political life is in the sovereign author- 
 ity. The legislative power is the heart of the State ; the 
 ^executive .power is its brain, giving movement to all the 
 parts. The brain may be paralyzed and yet the individ- 
 "ual may live. A man remains an imbecile and lives ; but 
 so soon as the heart ceases its functions, the animal dies. 
 
 It is not by laws that the State subsists, but by the" 
 legislative power. The law of yesterday is not binding 
 to-day; but tacit consent is presumed from silence, and 
 the sovereign is supposed to confirm continually the laws 
 which it does not abrogate when able to do so. What- 
 ever it has once declared that it wills, it wills always, 
 unless the declaration is revoked. 
 
 Why, then, do people show so much respect for ancient 
 laws ? It is on account of their antiquity. We must 
 believe that it is only the excellence of the ancient laws 
 which has enabled them to be so long preserved; unless 
 the sovereign has recognized them as constantly salutary, 
 it would have revoked them a thousand times. That is 
 why, far from being weakened, the laws are ever acquir- 
 ing fresh vigor in every well-constituted State; the prej- 
 udice in favor of antiquity renders them more vener- 
 able every day; while, wherever laws are weakened as 
 they grow old, this fact proves that there is no longer 
 any legislative power, and that the State no longer lives. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 How THE Sovereign Authority is Maintained. 
 
 The sovereign, having no other force than the legisla- 
 tive power, acts only through _the laws ; and the laws be- 
 ing nothing but authentic acts of the general w^', the 
 sovereign "can act only when the people are assembled. 
 The people assembled, it will be said: what a chimera! 
 It is a chimera to-day; but it was not so two thousand 
 years ago. Have men changed their nature ? 
 
 The limits of the possible in moral things are less nar- 
 row than we think ; it is our weaknesses, our vices, our 
 prejudices, that contract them. Sordid souls do not believe 
 
8o THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 in great men ; vile slaves smile with a mocking air at the 
 
 word LIBERTY. 
 
 From what has been done let us consider wl^t can be 
 done. I shall not speak of the ancient republics of Greece ; 
 but the Roman Republic was, it seems to me, a great 
 State, and the city of Rome a great city. The last cen- 
 sus in Rome showed that there were 400,000 citizens bear- 
 ing arms, and the last enumeration of the Empire showed 
 more than 4,000,000 citizens, without reckoning subjects, 
 foreigners, women, children, and slaves. 
 
 What a difficulty, we might suppose, there would be in 
 assembling frequently the enormous population of the 
 capital and its environs. Yet few weeks passed without 
 the Roman people being assembled, even several times. 
 Not only did they exercise the rights of sovereignty, but 
 a part of the functions of government. They discussed 
 certain affairs and judged certain causes, and in the pub- 
 lic assembly the whole people were almost as often mag- 
 istrates as citizens. 
 
 By going back to the early times of nations, we should 
 find that the majority of the ancient governments, even 
 monarchical ones, like those of the Macedonians and the 
 Franks, had similar councils. Be that as it may, this 
 single incontestable fact solves all difficulties ; inference 
 from the actual to the possible appears to me sound. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 How THE Sovereign Authority is Maintained — 
 (Continued). 
 
 It is not sufficient that the assembled people should have 
 once fixed the constitution of the State by giving their 
 sanction to a body of laws; it is not sufficient that they 
 should have established a perpetual government, or that 
 they should have once for all provided for the election 
 of magistrates. Besides the extraordinary assemblies 
 which unforeseen events may require, it is necessary 
 that there should be fixed and periodical ones which 
 nothing can abolish or prorogue; so that, on the 
 
HOW SOVEREIGN AUTHORITY IS MAINTAINED 8i 
 
 appointed day, the people are rightfully convoked by the 
 law, without needing for that purpose any formal sum- 
 mons. 
 
 But, excepting these assemblies which are lawful by 
 their date alone, every assembly of the people that has 
 not been convoked by the magistrates appointed for that 
 duty and according to the prescribed forms, ought to be 
 regarded as unlawful and all that is done in it as invalid, 
 because even the order to assemble ought to emanate 
 irom thelaw. 
 
 As for the more or less frequent meetings of the law- 
 ful assemblies, they depend on so many considerations 
 that no precise rules can be given about them. Only it 
 may be said generally that the more force a government 
 has the more frequently should the sovereign display 
 itself. 
 
 This, I shall be told, may be good for a single city; 
 but what is to be done when the State comprises many 
 cities ? Will the sovereign authority be divided ? Or 
 must it be concentrated in a single city and render sub- 
 ject all the rest. 
 
 I answer that neither alternative is necessary. In the 
 first place, the sovereign authority is simple and un- 
 divided, and we cannot divide it without destroying it. 
 In the second place, a city, no more than a nation, can 
 be lawfully subject to another, because the essence of the 
 body politic consists in the union of obedience and liberty, 
 and these words, subject ^nd sovereign, are correlatives, 
 Jhe notion underlying them being expressed in the one 
 word citizenT" " 
 
 I answer, further, that it is always an evil to combine 
 several towns into a single State, and, in desiring to 
 effect such a union, we must not flatter ourselves that 
 we shall avoid the natural inconveniences of it. The 
 abuses of great States cannot be brought as an objection 
 against a man who only desires small ones. But how 
 can small States be endowed with sufi&cient force to 
 resist great ones ? Just in the same way as when the 
 Greek towns of old resisted the Great King, and as more 
 recently Holland and Switzerland have resisted the House 
 of Austriat 
 
82 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 If, however, the State cannot be reduced to proper 
 limits, one resource still remains; it is not to allow any 
 capital, but to make the government sit alternately in 
 each town, and also to assemble in them by %ms the 
 estates of the country. 
 
 People the territory uniformly, extend the same rights 
 everywhere, spread everywhere abundance and life; in 
 this way the State will become at once the strongest and 
 the best governed that may be possible. Remember that 
 the walls of the towns are formed solely of the remains 
 of houses in the country. For every palace that I see 
 rising in the capital, I seem to see a whole rural district 
 laid in ruins. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 How THE Sovereign Authority is Maintained — 
 (Continued.) 
 
 So soon as the people are lawfully assembled as a sov- 
 ereign body, the whole jurisdiction of the government 
 ceases, the executive power is suspended, and the per- 
 son of the meanest citizen is as sacred and inviol- 
 able as that of the first magistrate, because where 
 the represented are, there is no longer any repre- 
 sentative. Most of the tumults that arose in Rome in the 
 comitia proceeded from ignorance or neglect of this rule. 
 The consuls were then only presidents of the people and 
 the tribunes simple orators; the Senate had no power at 
 all. 
 
 These intervals of suspension, in which the Prince 
 recognizes or ought to recognize the presence of a supe- 
 rior, have always been dreaded by that power; and these 
 assemblies of the people, which are the shield of the body 
 politic and the curb of the government, have in all ages 
 been the terror of the chief men; hence such men are 
 never wanting in solicitude, objections, obstacles, and 
 promises, in the endeavor to make the citizens disgusted 
 with the assemblies. When the latter are avaricious, cow- 
 ardly, pusillanimous, and more desirous of repose than of 
 
DEPUTIES OR REPRESENTATIVES 83 
 
 freedom, they do not long hold out against the repeated 
 efforts of the government ; and thus, as the resisting force 
 constantly increases, the sovereign authority at last dis- 
 appears, and most of the States decay and perish before 
 their time. 
 
 But between the sovereign authority and the arbitrary 
 government there is sometimes introduced an intermedi- 
 ate power of which I must speak. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 Deputies or Representatives. 
 
 So SOON as the service of the State ceases to be the a 
 principal business of the citizens, and they prefer to ren- ) 
 der aid with their purses rather than their persons, the f 
 State is already on the brink of ruin. Is it necessary tov' 
 march to battle, they pay troops and remain at home; 
 is it necessary to go tp the council, they^^jgfit , dgputigs— 
 ajid remain at home. /As a result of indolence and wealth, 
 they at length have Kildiers to • enslave their country and 
 representatives to sjell it. 
 
 It is the bustle of commerce and of the arts, it is the 
 greedy pursuit of /gain, it is effeminacy and love of com- 
 forts, that commute personal services for money. Men 
 sacrifice a portion of their profit in order to increase it 
 at their ease. Give money and soon you will have chains. 
 That word finance is a slave's word: it is unknown 
 among citizens. In a country that is really free, the 
 citizens do everything with their hands and nothing with 
 money: far from paying for exemption from their duties, 
 they would pay to perform them themselves. I am far 
 removed from ordinary ideas; I believe that statute labor 
 ( les corvdes ) is less repugnant to liberty than taxation is. 
 (^The better constituted a State is, the more do public 
 affairs outweigh private ones in the minds of the citi- 
 zens. J^fhere is, indeed, a much smaller number of private 
 affairs, because the amount of the general prosperity fur- 
 nishes a more considerable portion to that of each indi- -; 
 
84 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 vidual, and less remains to be sought by individual 
 exertions. In a well-conducted city-state everyone hastens 
 to the assemblies : while under a bad government no one 
 cares to move a step in order to attend them, because no 
 one takes an intierest in the proceedings, since it is fore- 
 seen that the general will will not prevail; and so at last 
 private concerns become all-absorbing. Good laws pave 
 the way for better ones; bad laws lead to worse ones. 
 As soon as any one says of the affairs of the State, " Of 
 what importance are they to me ? " we must consider that 
 the State is lost. 
 
 The decline of patriotism, the active pursuit of private 
 interests, the vast size of States, conquests, and the 
 abuses of government, have suggested the plan of dep- 
 uties or representatives of the people in the assemblies 
 of the nation. It is this which in certain countries they 
 dare to call the third estate. Thus the private interest 
 of two orders is put in the first and second rank, the 
 public interest only in the third. 
 
 Sovereignty cannot be represented for the same reason 
 that it cannot be alienated; it consists essentially in the 
 general will, and the will cannot be represented ; it is the 
 same or it is different; there is no medium. The deputies 
 of the people, then, are not and cannot be its represent- 
 atives; they are only its commissioners and can conclude^ 
 nothing definitely. 'Every law which the people in per- 
 son have not ratified is invalid ; it is not a law. The Eng- 
 lish nation thinks that it is free, but is greatly mistaken, 
 for it is so only during the election of members of Par- 
 liament; as soon as they are elected, it is enslaved and 
 counts for nothing. The use which it makes of the brief 
 moments of freedom renders the loss of liberty well- 
 deserved. 
 
 The idea of representatives is modem; it comes to us 
 from feudal government, that absurd and iniquitous gov- 
 ernment, under which mankind is degraded and the name 
 of man dishonored. In the republics, and even in the 
 monarchies, of antiquity, the people never had repre- 
 sentatives; they did not know the word. It is very 
 singular that in Rome, where the tribunes were so sacred, 
 it was not even imagined that they could usurp the func- 
 
DEPUTIES OR REPRESENTATIVES 85 
 
 tions of the people, and in the midst of so great a mul- 
 titude, they never attempted to pass of their own accord 
 a single plebiscitum. We may judge, however, of the 
 embarrassment which the crowd sometimes caused from 
 what occurred in the time of the Gracchi, when a part 
 of the citizens gave their votes on the house-tops. But 
 where right and liberty are all in all, inconveniences are 
 nothing. In that wise nation everything was estimated 
 at a true value; it allowed the lictors to do what the 
 tribunes had not dared to do, and was not afraid that 
 the lictors would want to represent it. 
 
 To explain, however, in what manner the tribunes some- 
 times represented it, it is sufficient to understand how 
 the government represents the sovereign. The law being 
 nothing but the declaration of the general will, it is 
 clear that in their legislative capacity the people cannot 
 be represented; but they can and should be represented 
 in the executive power, which is only force applied to 
 law. This shows that very few nations would, upon care- 
 ful examination, be found to have laws. Be that as it 
 may, it is certain that the tribunes, having no share in 
 the executive power, could never represent the Roman 
 people by right of their office, but only by encroaching 
 on the rights of the Senate. 
 
 Among the greeks, whatever the people had to do, 
 they did themselves; they were constantly assembled in 
 the public place. They lived in a mild clima.te and they 
 were not avaricious; slaves performed' the manual labor; 
 the people's great business was" liberty. i?3ot having the 
 same advantages, how are you to preserve the same 
 rights ? Your more rigorous climates give you more wants ; * 
 for six months in a year the public place is untenable, 
 and your hoarse voices cannot be heard in the open air. 
 You care more for gain than for liberty, and you fear 
 slavery far less than you do misery. 
 
 What! is liberty maintained only with the help of 
 slavery ? Perhaps ; extremes meet. Everything which is 
 not according to nature has its inconveniences, and civil 
 
 * To adopt in cold countries the effeminacy and luxuriousness of Ori- 
 entals is to be willing to assume their chains, and to submit to them 
 even more necessarily than they do. 
 
86 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 society more than all the rest. There are circumstances 
 so unfortunate that people can preserve their freedom 
 only at the expense of that of others, and the citizen 
 cannot be completely free except when the s^ve is en- 
 slaved to the utmost. Such was the position of Sparta. 
 As for you, modern nations, you have no slaves, but you 
 are slaves; you pay for their feedom with your own. In 
 vain do you boast of this preference; I iind in it more 
 Df cowardice than of humanity. 
 
 I do not mean by all this that slaves are necessary 
 and that the right of slavery is lawful, since I have 
 proved the contrary; I only mention the reasons why 
 modern nations who believe themselves free have rep- 
 resentatives, and why ancient nations had none. Be that 
 as it may, as soon as a nation appoints representatives, 
 it is no longer free; it no longer exists. 
 
 After very careful consideration I do not see that 
 it is possible henceforward for the sovereign to pre- 
 serve among us the exercise of its rights unless the 
 State is very small. But if it is very small, will 
 it not be subjugated ? No ; I shall show hereafter 
 how the external power of a great nation can be 
 combined with the convenient polity and good order 
 a small State. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 That the Institution of the Government is Not 
 A Contract. 
 
 The legislative power being once well established, the 
 question is to establish also the executive power ; for this 
 latter, which operates only by particular acts, not being 
 of the essence of the other, is naturally separated from 
 it. If it were possible that the sovereign, considered as 
 such, should have the executive power, law and fact 
 would be so confounded that it could no longer be known 
 what is law and what is not; and the body politic, thus 
 perverted, would soon become a prey to the violence 
 against which it was instituted. 
 
INSTITUTION OF THE GOVERNMENT 87 
 
 The citizens hehig^all equal by the jocial contract, all 
 can prescribe what all ought to do, while no one has a 
 right to demand that another should do what he will not 
 do himself. Now, it is properly this right, indispensable 
 to make the body politic live and move, which the sov- 
 ereign gives to the Prince in establishing the govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Several have pretended that the instrument in this 
 establishment is a contract between the people and the 
 chiefs whom they set over themselves — a contract by 
 which it is stipulated between the two parties on what 
 conditions the one binds itself to rule, the other to obey. 
 It will be agreed, I am sure, that this is a strange method 
 of contracting. But let us see whether such a position 
 is tenable. 
 
 First, the supreme authority can no more be modified 
 than alienated; to limit it is to destroy it. It is absurd 
 and contradictory that the sovereign should acknowledge 
 a superior; to bind itself to obey a master is to regain 
 full liberty. 
 
 Further, it is evident that this contract of the people 
 with such or such persons is a particular act; whence it 
 follows that the contract cannot be a law nor an act of 
 sovereignty, and that consequently it is unlawful. 
 
 Moreover, we see that the contracting parties them- 
 selves would be under the law of nature alone, and 
 without any security for the performance of their recip- 
 rocal engagements, which is in every way repugnant to 
 the civil state. He who possesses the power being always 
 capable of executing it, we might as well give the name 
 contract to the act of a man who should say to another: 
 " I give you all my property, on condition that you re- 
 store me what you please.* 
 
 There is but one contract in the State — that of asso- 
 ciation ; and this of itself excludes any other. No public 
 contract can be conceived which would not be a viola- 
 tion of the first. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 The Institution of the Government. 
 
 Un^der what general notion, then, must be included 
 the act by which the government is instituted ? I shall 
 observe first that this act is complex, or composed of 
 two others, viz, the establishment of the law and the 
 execution of the law. 
 
 By the first, the sovereign determines that there shall 
 be a governing body established in such or such a form ; 
 and it is clear that this act is a law. 
 
 By the second, the people nominate the chiefs who will 
 be intrusted with the government when established. 
 Now, this nomination being a particular act, is not a 
 second law, but only a consequence of the first, and a 
 function of the government. 
 
 The difficulty is to understand how there can be an act 
 of government before the government exists, and how 
 the people, who are only sovereign or subjects, can, in 
 certain circumstances, become the Prince or the magis- 
 trates. 
 
 Here, however, is disclosed one of those astonishing 
 properties of the body politic, by which it reconciles 
 operations apparently contradictory; for this is effected 
 by a sudden conversion of sovereignty into democracy in 
 such a manner that, without any perceptible change, and 
 merely by a new relation of all to all, the citizens, hav- 
 ing become magistrates, pass from general acts to par- 
 ticular acts, and from the law to the execution of it. 
 
 This change of relation is not a subtlety of speculation 
 without example in practice; it occurs every day in the 
 iParliament of England, in which the Lower House on 
 certain occasions resolves itself into Grand Committee in 
 order to discuss business better, and thus becomes a 
 simple commission instead of the sovereign court that it 
 was the moment before. In this way it afterward re- 
 ports to itself, as the House of Commons, what it has 
 just decided in Grand Committee. 
 (88i 
 
PREVENTION OF USURPATIONS 89 
 
 Such is the advantage peculiar to a democratic govern- 
 ment, that it can be established in fact by a simple act 
 of the general will; and after this, the provisional gov- 
 ernment remains in power, should that be the form 
 adopted, or establishes in the name of the sovereign the 
 government prescribed by the law; and thus everything 
 is according to rule. It is impossible to institute the 
 government in any other way that is legitimate without 
 renouncing the principles heretofore established. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Means of Preventing Usurpations of the Gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 From these explanations it follows, in confirmation of 
 chapter XVI., that the act which institutes the govern- 
 ment is not a contract, but a law; that the depositaries 
 of the executive power are not the masters of the people, 
 but its officers; that the people can appoint them and 
 dismiss them at pleasure ; that for them it is not a ques- 
 tion of contracting, but of obeying; and that in under- 
 taking the functions which the State imposes on them, 
 they simply fulfill their duty as citizens, without having 
 in any way a right to discuss the conditions. 
 
 When, therefore, it happens that the people institute 
 a hereditary government, whether monarchical in a fam- 
 ily or aristocratic in one order of citizens, it is not an 
 engagement that they make, but a provisional form which 
 they give to the administration, until they please to reg- 
 ulate it difiEerently. 
 
 It is true that such changes are always dangerous, and 
 that the established government must never be touched 
 except when it becomes incompatible with the public 
 good; but this circumspection is a maxim of policy, not 
 a rule of right ; and the State is no more bound to leave 
 the civil authority to its chief men than the military 
 authority to its generals. 
 
 Moveover it is true that in such a case all the formali- 
 ties requisite to distinguish a regular and lawful act from 
 
90 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 a seditious tmnult, and the will of a whole people from 
 the clamors of a faction, cannot be too carefully ob- 
 served. It is especially in this case that onl^^ such con- 
 cession should be made as cannot in strict justice be 
 refused; and from this obligation also the Prince derives 
 a great advantage in preserving its power in spite of the 
 people, without there being able to say that it has 
 usurped the power; for while appearing to exercise noth- 
 ing but its rights, it may very easily extend them, and, 
 under pretext of maintaining the public peace, obstruct 
 the assemblies designed to re-establish good order; so that 
 it takes advantage of a silence which it prevents from 
 being broken, or of irregularities which it causes to be 
 committed, so as to assume in its favor the approbation 
 of those whom fear renders silent and punish those that 
 dare to speak. It is in this way that the Decemvirs, hav- 
 ing at first been elected for one year, and then kept in 
 office for another year, attempted to retain their power in 
 perpetuity by no longer permitting the camitia to assem- 
 ble ; and it is by this easy method that all the governments 
 in the world, when once invested with the public force, 
 usurp sooner or later the sovereign authority. 
 
 The periodical assemblies of which I have spoken before 
 are fitted to prevent or postpone this evil, especially when 
 they need no formal convocation; for then the Prince 
 cannot interfere with them, without openly proclaim- 
 ing itself a violator of the laws and an enemy of the 
 State. 
 
 These assemblies, which have as their object the mainte- 
 nance of the social treaty, ought always to be opened 
 with two propositions, which no one should be able to 
 suppress, and which should pass separately by vote. 
 
 The first: "Whether it pleases the sovereign to main- 
 tain the present form of government." 
 
 The second: "Whether it pleases the people to leave the 
 administration to those at present intrusted with it.» 
 
 I presuppose here what I believe that I have proved, 
 viz, that there is in the State no fundamental law which 
 cannot be revoked, not even the social compact ; for if all 
 the citizens assembled in order to break this compact by 
 a solemn agreement, no one can doubt that it would be 
 
PREVENTION OF USURPATIONS 91 
 
 quite legitimately broken. Grotius even thinks that each 
 man can renounce the State of which he is a member, and 
 regain his natural freedom and his property by quitting 
 the country.* Now it would be absurd if all the citizens 
 combined should be unable to do what each of them can 
 do separately. 
 
 * It must be clearly understood that no one should leave in order 
 to evade his duty and relieve himself from serving his country at a 
 moment when it needs him. Flight in that case would be criminal 
 and punishable; it would no longer be retirement, but desertion. 
 
BOOK IV. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 That the General Will is Indestructible.* 
 
 So LONG as a number of men in combination are con- 
 sidered as a single body, they have but one will, which 
 relates to the common preservation and to the general 
 well-being. In such a case all the forces of the State 
 are vigorous and simple, and its principles are clear and 
 luminous; it has no confused and conflicting interests; 
 the common good is everywhere plainly manife§t-.,4nd 
 only good sense is required to perceive it. ^ Peace, union, 
 and equality^ are foes to political subtleties.) Upright and 
 simple-minded' men are hard to deceive b.ecause of their slm^ 
 plicity ; allurements and refined pretexts do not impose upon 
 them ; they are not even cunning enough to be dupes. 
 When, in the happiest nation in the world, we see troops 
 of peasants regulating the affairs of the State under an 
 oak and always acting wisely, can we refrain from 
 despising the refinements of other nations, who make 
 themselves illustrious and wretched with so mucH art 
 and mystery? 
 
 A State thus governed needs very few laws; and in 
 so far as it becomes necessary to promulgate new ones, 
 this necessity is universally recognized. The first man 
 to propose them only gives expression to what all have 
 previously felt, and neither factions nor eloquence will 
 be needed to pass into law what every one has already 
 resolved to do, so soon as he is sure that the rest will 
 act as he does. 
 
 What deceives reasoners is that, seeing only States 
 that are ill-constituted from the beginning, they are 
 impressed with the impossibility of maintaining such a 
 
 *This chapter appears to belong more properly to Book II.— Eb. 
 (9a) 
 
THAT GENERAL WILL IS INDESTRUCTIBLE 93 
 
 policy in those States ; they laugh to think of all the fol- 
 lies to which a cnnning knave, an insinuating speaker, 
 can persuade the people of Paris or London. They know 
 not that Cromwell would have been put in irons by the 
 people of Berne, and the Duke of Beaufort imprisoned 
 by the Genevese. 
 
 But when the social bond begins to be relaxed and the 
 State weakened, when private interests begin to make 
 themselves felt and small associations to exercise an 
 influence on the State, the common interest is injuri- 
 ously affected and finds adversaries ; unanimity no longer 
 reigns in the voting; the general will is no longer the 
 will of all; opposition and disputes arise, and the best 
 counsel does not pass uncontested. 
 
 Lastly, when the State, on the verge of ruin, no longer 
 subsists except in a vain and illusory form, when the 
 social bond is broken in all hearts, when the basest in- 
 terest shelters itself impudently under the sacred name 
 of the public welfare, the general will becomes dumb; 
 all, under the guidance of secret motives, no more ex- 
 press their opinions as citizens than if the State had 
 never existed; and, under the name of laws, they deceit- 
 fully pass unjust decrees which have only private interest 
 as their end. 
 
 Does it follow from this that the general will is de- 
 stroyed or corrupted ? No ; it is always constant, unalter- 
 able, and pure ; but it is subordinated to others which get 
 the better of it. Each, detaching his own interest from 
 the common interest, sees clearly that he cannot com- 
 pletely separate it ; but his share in the injury done to the 
 State appears to him as nothing in comparison with the 
 exclusive advantage which he aims at appropriating to 
 himself. This particular advantage being excepted, he 
 desires the general welfare for his own interests quite 
 as strongly as any other. Even in selling his vote for 
 money, he does not extinguish in himself the general 
 will, but eludes it. The fault that he commits is to change 
 the state of the question, and to answer something 
 different from what he was asked ; so that, instead of say- 
 ing by a vote : « It is beneficial to the State, » he says : « It 
 is beneficial to a certain man or a certain party that such 
 
94 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 or such a motion should pass." Thus the law of public 
 order in assemblies is not so much to maintain in them 
 the general will as to insure that it shall alw^s be con- 
 sulted and always respond. 
 
 I might in this place make many reflections on the 
 simple right of voting in every act of sovereignty — a right 
 which nothing can take away from the citizens — and on 
 that of speaking, proposing, dividing, and discussing, 
 which the government is always very careful to leave to 
 its members only ; but this important matter would require 
 a separate treatise, and I cannot say everything in 
 this one. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Voting. 
 
 We see from the previous chapter that the manner in 
 which public affairs are managed may give a sufficiently 
 trustworthy indication of the character and health of the 
 body politic. The more that harmony reigns in the as- 
 semblies, that is, the more the voting approaches unan- 
 imity, the more also is the general will predominant ; but 
 long discussions, dissensions, and uproar proclaim the as- 
 cendency of private interests and the decline of the State. 
 
 This is not so clearly apparent when two or more or- 
 ders enter into its constitution, as, in Rome, the patri- 
 cians and plebeians, whose quarrels often disturbed the 
 comitia, even in the palmiest days of the Republic; but 
 this exception is more apparent than real, for, at that 
 time, by a vice inherent in the body politic, there were, 
 so to speak, two States in one; what is not true of the 
 two together is true of each separately. And, indeed, 
 even in the most stormy times, the plebiscita of the peo- 
 ple, when the Senate did not interfere with them, always 
 passed peaceably and by a large majority of votes; the 
 citizens having but one interest, the people had but 
 one will. 
 
 At the other extremity of the circle unanimity re- 
 turns; that is, when the citizens, fallen into slavery, 
 have no longer either liberty or will. Then fear and 
 
VOTING 95 
 
 flattery change votes into acclamations; men no longer 
 deliberate, but adore or curse. Such was the disgrace- 
 ful mode of speaking in the Senate under the Em- 
 perors. Sometimes it was done with ridiculous precautions. 
 Tacitus observes that under Otho the senators, in over- 
 whelming Vitellius with execrations, affected to make 
 at the same time a frightful noise, in order that, if 
 he happened to become master, he might not know 
 what each of them had said. 
 
 Prom these different considerations are deduced the 
 principles by which we should regulate the method of 
 counting votes and of comparing opinions, according 
 as the general will is more or less easy to ascertain 
 and the State more or less degenerate. 
 
 There is but one law which by its na,ture requires unan- 
 imous consent, that is, the social compact; for civil asso- 
 ciation is the most voluntary act in the world; every 
 man being born free and master of himself, no one can, 
 under any pretext whatever, enslave him without his 
 assent. To decide that the son of a slave is born a slave 
 is to decide that he is not bom a man. 
 
 If, then, at the time of the social compact, there are 
 opponents of it, their opposition does not invalidate the 
 contract, but only prevents them from being included in 
 it; they are foreigners among citizens. When the State 
 is established, consent lies in residence; to dwell in the 
 territory is to submit to the sovereignty.* 
 
 Excepting this original contract, the vote of the ma- 
 jority always binds all the rest, this being a result of 
 the contract itself. But it will be asked how a man can 
 be free and yet forced to conform to wills which are not 
 his own. How are opponents free and yet subject to 
 laws they have not consented to ? 
 
 I reply that the question is wrongly put. The citizen 
 consents to all the laws, even to those which are passed 
 in spite of him, and even to those which punish him 
 when he dares to violate any of them. The unvarjdng 
 
 * This must always be understood to relate to a free State ; for other- 
 wise family, property, want of an asylum, necessity, or violence, may 
 detain an inhabitant in a country against his will ; and then his residence 
 alone no longer supposes his consent to the contractor to the violation of it 
 
96 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 will of all the members of the State is the general will; 
 it is through that that they are citizens and free. When 
 a law is proposed in the assembly of the peop]||, what is 
 asked of them is not exactly whether they approve the 
 proposition or reject it, but whether it is conformable or 
 not to the general will, which is their own; each one in 
 giving his vote expresses his opinion thereupon; and 
 from the counting of the votes is obtained the declaration 
 of the general will. When, therefore, the opinion opposed 
 to my own prevails, that simply shows that I was mis- 
 taken, and that what I considered to be the general will 
 was not so. Had my private opinion prevailed, I should 
 have done something other than I wished; and in that 
 case I should not have been free. 
 
 This supposes, it is true, that all the marks of the gen- 
 eral will are still in the majority; when they cease to be 
 so, whatever side we take, there is no longer any liberty. 
 
 In showing before how particular wills were sub- 
 stituted for general wills in public resolutions, I have 
 sufficiently indicated the means practicable for preventing 
 this abuse; I will speak of it again hereafter. With re- 
 gard to the proportional number of votes for declaring 
 this will, I have also laid down the principles according 
 to which it may be determined. The difference of a 
 single vote destroys unanimity; but between unanimity 
 and equality there are many unequal divisions, at each 
 of which this number can be fixed according to the con- 
 dition and requirements of the body politic. 
 
 Two general principles may serve to regulate these pro- 
 portions: the one, that the more important and weighty 
 the resolutions, the nearer should the opinion which pre- 
 vails approach unanimity; the other, that the greater 
 the despatch requisite in the matter under discussion, the 
 more should we restrict the prescribed difference in the 
 division of opinions; in resolutions which must be come 
 to immediately the majority of a single vote should suf- 
 fice. The first of these principles appears more suitable 
 to laws, the second to affairs. Be that as it may, it is 
 by their combination that are established the best pro- 
 portions which can be assigned for the decision of a 
 majority. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 Elections. 
 
 With regard to the elections of the Prince and the 
 magistrates, which are, as I have said, complex acts, 
 there are two modes of procedure, viz, choice and lot. 
 Both have been employed in different republics, and a very 
 complicated mixture of the two is seen even now in the 
 election of the Doge of Venice. 
 
 " Election by lot, " says Montesquieu, « is of the nature 
 of democracy. " I agree, but how is it so ? " The lot, " 
 he continues, "is a mode of election which mortifies no 
 one; it leaves every citizen a reasonable hope of serving 
 his country." But these are not the reasons. 
 
 If we are mindful that the election of the chiefs is a 
 function of government and not of sovereignty, we shall 
 see why the method of election by lot is more in the 
 nature of democracy, in which the administration is by so 
 much the better as its acts are less multiplied. 
 
 In every true democracy, the magistracy is not a boon 
 but an onerous charge, which cannot fairly be imposed 
 on one individual rather than on another. The law alone 
 can impose this burden on the person upon whom the 
 lot falls. For then, the conditions being equal for all, 
 and the choice not being dependent on any human will, 
 there is no particular application to alter the universality 
 of the law. 
 
 In an aristocracy the Prince chooses the Prince, the 
 government is maintained by itself, and voting is rightly 
 established. 
 
 The instance of the election of the Doge of Venice, far 
 from destroying this distinction, confirms it; this com- 
 posite form is suitable in a mixed government. For it is 
 an error to take the government of Venice as a true 
 aristocracy. If the people have no share in the govern- 
 ment, the nobles themselves are numerous. A multitude 
 of poor Barnabotes never come near any magistracy and 
 have for their nobility only the empty title of Excel- 
 7 <97) 
 
pg THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 lency and the right to attend the Great Council. This 
 Great Council being as numerous as our General Council 
 at Geneva, its illustrious members have no more privi- 
 leges than our simple citizens {citoyens). It i? certain 
 that, setting aside the extreme disparity of the two Re- 
 publics, the burgesses (/« bourgeoisie) of Geneva exactly 
 correspond to the Venetian order of patricians; our 
 natives {natifs) and residents {habitants) represent the 
 citizens and people of Venice; our peasants {pay sans) 
 represent the subjects of the mainland; in short, in what- 
 ever way we consider this Republic apart from its size, 
 its government is no more aristocratic than ours. The 
 whole difference is that, having no chief for life, we have 
 not the same need for election by lot. 
 
 Elections by lot would have few drawbacks in a true 
 democracy, in which, all being equal, as well in charac- 
 ter and ability as in sentiments and fortune, the choice 
 would become almost indifferent. But I have already 
 said that there is no true democracy. 
 
 When choice and lot are combined, the first should be 
 employed to fill the posts that require peculiar talents, 
 such as military appointments; the other is suitable for 
 those in which good sense, justice and integrity are suf- 
 ficient, such as judicial offices, because, in a well-consti- 
 tuted State, these qualities are common to all the 
 citizens. 
 
 Neither lot nor voting has any place in a monarchical 
 government. The monarch being by right sole Prince 
 and sole magistrate, the choice of his lieutenants belongs 
 to him alone. When the Abb6 de Saint-Pierre proposed ' 
 to multiply the councils of the King of France and to 
 elect the members of them by ballot, he did not see that 
 he was proposing to change the form of government. 
 
 It would remain for me to speak of the method for re- 
 cording and collecting votes in the assembly of the peo- 
 ple ; but perhaps the history of the Roman policy in that 
 respect will explain more clearly all the principles which 
 I might be able to establish. It is not unworthy of a 
 judicious reader to see in some detail how public and 
 private affairs were dealt with in a council of 200,000 
 men. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 The Roman Comitia. 
 
 We have no very trustworthy records of the early times 
 of Rome; there is even great probability that most of 
 the things which have been handed down are fables, and 
 in general, the most instructive part of the annals of 
 nations, which is the history of their institution, is the 
 most defective. Experience every day teaches us from 
 what causes spring the revolutions of empires ; but, as na- 
 ticns are no longer in process of formation, we have 
 scarcely anything but conjectures to explain how they 
 have been formed. 
 
 The customs which are found established at least tes- 
 tify that these customs had a beginning. Of the tradi- 
 tions that go back to these origins, those which the 
 greatest authorities countenance, and which the strongest 
 reasons confirm, ought to pass as the most undoubted. 
 These are the principles which I have tried to follow in 
 inquiring- how the freest and most powerful nation in 
 the world exercised its supreme power. 
 
 After the foundation of Rome, the growing republic, 
 that is, the army of the founder, composed of Albans, Sa- 
 bines, and foreigners, was divided into three classes, which, 
 from this division, took the name of tribes. Each of 
 these tribes was subdivided into ten curice, and each curia 
 into decurim, at the head of which were placed curiones 
 and decuriones. 
 
 Besides this, a body of one hundred horsemen or 
 knights, called a centuria, was drawn from each tribe, 
 whence we see that these divisions, not very necessary 
 in a town, were at first only military. But it seems that 
 an instinct of greatness induced the little town of Rome 
 from the first to adopt a polity suitable to the capital of 
 the ;world. 
 
 From this first division an inconvenience soon resulted ; 
 the tribe of the Albans and that of the Sabines remain- 
 ing always in the same condition, while that of the 
 
 (99) 
 
loo THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 foreigners increased continually through perpetual acces- 
 sions, the last soon outnumbered the two others. The 
 remedy which Servius found for this dangeroi^ abuse 
 was to change the mode of division, and for the division 
 by races, which he abolished, to substitute another de- 
 rived from the districts of the city occupied by each tribe. 
 Instead of three tribes be made four, each of which 
 occupied one of the hills of Rome and bore its name. 
 Thus, in remedying the existing inequality, he also pre- 
 vented it for the future ; and in order that this might be 
 a division, not only of localities, but of men, he prohib- 
 ited the inhabitants of one quarter from removing into 
 another, which prevented the races from being mingled. 
 
 He also doubled the three old centuricz of cavalry and 
 added twelve others to them, but still under the old 
 names — a simple and judicious means by which he 
 effected a distinction between the body of knights and 
 that of the people, without making the latter murmur. 
 
 To these four urban tribes Servius added fifteen others, 
 called rural tribes, because they were formed of inhabit- 
 ants of the country, divided into so many cantons. After- 
 ward as many new ones were formed; and the Roman 
 people were at length divided into thirty-five tribes, a 
 number which remained fixed until the close of the 
 Republic. 
 
 From this distinction between the urban and the rural 
 tribes resulted an effect worthy of notice, because there 
 is no other instance of it, and because Rome owed to it 
 both the preservation of her manners and the growth of 
 her empire. It might be supposed that the urban tribes 
 soon arrogated to themselves the power and the honors, 
 and were ready to disparage the rural tribes. It was 
 quite the reverse. We know the taste of the old Romans 
 for a country life. This taste they derived from their 
 wise founder, who united with liberty rural and military 
 works, and relegated, so to speak, to the towns arts, 
 trades, intrigue, wealth, and slavery. 
 
 Thus every eminent man that Rome had being a dweller 
 in the fields and a tiller of the soil, it was customary to 
 seek in the country only for the defenders of the Republic. 
 This condition, being that of the worthiest patricians, 
 
THE ROMAN COMITIA loi 
 
 was honored by every one; the simple and laborious life 
 of villagers was preferred to the lax and indolent life of 
 the burgesses of Rome ; and many who would have been 
 only wretched proletarians in the city became as laborers 
 in the fields, respected citizens. It is not without reason, 
 said Varro, that our high-minded ancestors established in 
 the village the nursery of those hardy and valiant men 
 who defended them in time of war and sustained them 
 in time of peace. Pliny says positively that the rural 
 tribes were honored because of the men that composed 
 them, while the worthless whom it was desired to dis- 
 grace were transferred as a mark of ignominy into the 
 urban tribes. The Sabine, Appius Claudius, having come 
 to settle in Rome, was there loaded with honors and 
 enrolled in a rural tribe, which afterward took the name 
 of his family. Lastly, all the freedmen entered the urban 
 tribes, never the rural; and during the whole of the 
 Republic there is not a single example of any of these 
 freedmen attaining a magistracy, although they had be- 
 come citizens. 
 
 This maxim was excellent, but was pushed so far that 
 at length a change, and certainly an abuse, in govern- 
 ment, resulted from it. 
 
 Firsts the censors, after having long arrogated the right 
 of transferring citizens arbitrarily from one tribe to 
 another, allowed the majority to be enrolled in whichever 
 they pleased — a permission which certainly was in no 
 way advantageous, and took away one of the great re- 
 sources of the censorship. Further, since the great and 
 powerful all enrolled themselves in the rural tribes, while 
 the freedmen who had become citizens remained with 
 the populace in the urban ones, the tribes in general had 
 no longer any district or territory, but all were so 
 intermingled that it was impossible to distinguish the 
 members of each except by the registers; so that the 
 idea of the word tribe passed thus from the real to 
 the personal, or rather became almost a chimera. 
 
 Moreover, it came about that the urban tribes, being 
 close at hand, were often the most powerful in the 
 comitia, and sold the State to those who stooped to buy 
 the votes of the mob of which they were composed. 
 
I02 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 With regard to the curiae, the founde;- having formed 
 ten in each tribe, the whole Roman people, at that time 
 inclosed in the walls of the city, consisted of thirty 
 curim, each of which had its temples, its gods,* its offi- 
 cers, its priests, and its festivals called compitalia, 
 resembling the paganalia which the rural tribes had after- 
 ward. 
 
 In the new division of Servius, the number thirty being 
 incapable of equal distribution into four tribes, he was 
 unwilling to touch them ; and the curiae, being independ- 
 ent of the tribes, became another division of the inhabit- 
 ants of Rome. But there was no question of curice either 
 in the rural tribes or in the people composing them, 
 because the tribes having become a purely civil institu- 
 tion, and another mode of levying troops having been 
 introduced, the military divisions of Romulus were found 
 superfluous. Thus, although every citizen was enrolled 
 in a tribe, it was far from being the case that each was 
 enrolled in a curia. 
 
 Servius made yet a third division, which had no 
 relation to the two preceding, but became by its effects 
 the most important of all. He distributed the whole 
 Roman people into six classes, which he distinguished, 
 not by the place of residence, nor by the men, but by 
 property; so that the first classes were filled with rich 
 men, the last with poor men, and the intermediate ones 
 with those who enjoyed a moderate fortune. These six 
 classes were subdivided into one hundred and ninety- 
 three other bodies called centuria, and these bodies were 
 so distributed that the first class alone comprised more 
 than a half, and the last formed only one. It thus hap- 
 pened that the class least numerous in men had most 
 centuricB, and that the last entire class was counted as 
 only one subdivision, although it alone contained more 
 than a half of the inhabitants of Rome. 
 
 In order that the people might not so clearly discern 
 the consequences of this last form, Servius aifected to 
 give it a military aspect. He introduced in the second 
 class two centuries of armorers, and two of makers of 
 instruments of war in the fourth; in each class, except 
 the last, he distinguished the young and the old, that is 
 
THE ROMAN COMITIA 103 
 
 to say, those who were obliged to bear arms, and those 
 who were exempted by law on account of age — a dis- 
 tinction which, more than that of property, gave rise to 
 the necessity of frequently repeating the census or enu- 
 meration ; finally he required that the assembly should be 
 held in the Campus Martius, and that all who were 
 qualified for service by age should gather there with 
 their arms. 
 
 The reason why he did not follow in the last class this 
 same division into seniors and juniors is, that the honor 
 of bearing arms for their country was not granted to 
 the populace of which it was composed ; it was necessary 
 to have homes in order to obtain the right of defending 
 them; and out of those innumerable troops of beggars 
 with which the armies of kings nowadays glitter, there 
 is perhaps not one but would have been driven with 
 scorn from a Roman cohort when soldiers were defend- 
 ers of liberty. 
 
 Yet again, there was in the last class a distinction 
 between the proletarii and those who were called capite 
 censi. The former not altogether destitute, at least sup- 
 plied citizens to the State, sometimes even soldiers in 
 pressing need. As for those who had nothing at all and 
 could only be counted by heads, they were regarded as 
 altogether unimportant, and Marius was the first who 
 condescended to enroll them. 
 
 Without deciding here whether this third enumeration 
 was good or bad in itself, I think I may affirm that 
 nothing but the simple manners of the early Romans — 
 their disinterestedness, their taste for agriculture, their 
 contempt for commerce and for the ardent pursuit of 
 gain — could have rendered it practicable. In what mod- 
 em nation would rapacious greed, restlessness of spirit, 
 intrigue, continual changes of residence, and the perpetual 
 revolutions of fortune have allowed such an institution 
 to endure for twenty years without the whole State being 
 subverted ? It is, indeed, necessary to observe carefully 
 that morality and the censorship, more powerful than 
 this institution, corrected its imperfections in Rome, and 
 that many a rich man was relegated to the class of the 
 poor for making too much display of his wealth. 
 
I04 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 From all this we may easily understand why mention 
 is scarcely ever made of more than five classes, although 
 there were really six. The sixth, which furnished neither 
 soldiers to the army, nor voters to the Camplk Martius* 
 and which was almost useless in the Republic, rarely 
 counted as anything. 
 
 Such were the different divisions of the Roman people. 
 Let us see now what effect they produced in the as- 
 semblies. These assemblies, lawfully convened, were 
 called comitia; they were usually held in the Forum of 
 Rome or in the Campus Martius, and were distinguished 
 as comitia curiata, comitia centuriata, and comitia tributa, 
 in accordance with that one of the three forms by 
 which they were regulated. The comitia curiata were 
 founded by Romulus, the comitia centuriata by Servius, 
 and the comitia tributa by the tribunes of the people. 
 No law received sanction, no magistrate was elected, ex- 
 cept in the comitia; and as there was no citizen who was 
 not enrolled in a curia, in a centuria, or in a tribe, it 
 follows that no citizen was excluded from the right of 
 voting, and that the Roman people were truly sovereign 
 de jure and de facto. 
 
 In order that the comitia might be lawfully assembled, 
 and that what was done in them might have the force of 
 law, three conditions were necessary; the first, that the 
 body or magistrate which convoked them should be in- 
 vested with the necessary authority for that purpose ; the 
 second, that the assembly should be held on one of the 
 days permitted by law; the third, that the auguries 
 should be favorable. 
 
 The reason for the first regulation need not be ex- 
 plained; the second is a matter of police; thus it was not 
 permitted to hold the comitia on feast days and market 
 days, when the country people, coming to Rome on 
 business, had no leisure to pass the day in the place of 
 assembly. By the third, the Senate kept in check a 
 proud and turbulent people, and seasonably tempered the 
 
 *I say, «to the Campus Martius, '» because it was there that the 
 iomitia centuriata assembled; in the two other forms the people 
 assembled in the Forum or elsewhere ; and then the capite censi had 
 as much influence and authority as the chief citizens. 
 
THE ROMAN COMITIA 105 
 
 ardor of sfeditious tribunes; but the latter found more 
 than one means of freeing themselves from this con- 
 straint. 
 
 Laws and the election of chiefs were not the only- 
 points submitted for the decision of the comitia; the 
 Roman people having usurped the most important func- 
 tions of government, the fate of Europe may be said to 
 have been determined in their assemblies. This variety 
 of subjects gave scope for the different forms which 
 these assemblies took according to the matters which had 
 to be decided. 
 
 To judge of these different forms, it is suflEicient to 
 compare them. Romulus, in instituting the curia, desired 
 to restrain the Senate by means of the people, and the 
 people by means of the Senate, while ruling equally over 
 all. He therefore gave the people by this form all the 
 authority of numbers in order to balance that of power 
 and wealth, which he left to the patricians. But, accord- 
 ing to the spirit of a monarchy, he left still more advaU' 
 tage to the patricians through the influence of their clients 
 in securing a plurality of votes. This admirable institu- 
 tion of patrons and clients was a masterpiece of policy 
 and humanity, without which the patrician order, so op- 
 posed to the spirit of a republic, could not have sub- 
 sisted. Rome alone has had the honor of giving to the 
 world such a fine institution, from which there never re- 
 sulted any abuse, and which, notwithstanding, has never 
 been followed. 
 
 Since the form of the assembly of the curice subsisted 
 under the kings down to Servius, and since the reign of 
 the last Tarquin is not considered legitimate, the royal 
 laws were on this account generally distinguished by the 
 name of leges curiatce. 
 
 Under the Republic the assembly of the curice, always 
 limited to the four urban tribes, and containing only the 
 Roman populace, did not correspond either with the Sen- 
 ate, which was at the head of the patricians, or with the 
 tribunes, who, although plebeians, were at the head of 
 the middle-class citizens. It therefore fell into disrepute ; 
 and its degradation was such that its thirty assembled 
 lictors did what the comitia curiata ought to have done. 
 
io6 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 The comitia centuriata was so favorable to the aristoc- 
 racy that we do not at first see why the Senate did not 
 always prevail in the comitia which bore ^hat name, 
 and by which the consuls, censors, and other curule 
 magistrates were elected. Indeed, of the one hundred 
 and ninety-three centurice which formed the six classes 
 of the whole Roman people, the first class comprising 
 ninety-eight, and the votes being counted only by centuria, 
 this first class alone outnumbered in votes all the others. 
 When all these centurice were in agreement, the record- 
 ing of votes was even discontinued; what the minority 
 had decided passed for a decision of the multitude; and 
 we may say that in the comitia centuriata affairs were 
 regulated rather by the majority of crowns {/cus) than 
 of votes. 
 
 But this excessive power was moderated in two ways: 
 first, the tribunes usually, and a great number of plebeians 
 always, being in the class of the rich, balanced the in- 
 fluence of the patricians in this first class. The second 
 means consisted in this, that instead of making the 
 centurice vote according to their order, which would 
 have caused the first class to begin always, one of them* 
 was drawn by lot and proceeded alone to the election; 
 after which all the centurice, being summoned on another 
 day according to their rank, renewed the election and 
 usually confirmed it. Thus the power of example was 
 taken away from- rank to be given to lot, according to 
 the principle of democracy. 
 . From this practice resulted yet another advantage; the 
 citizens from the country had time, between the two 
 elections, to gain information about the merits of the 
 candidate provisionally chosen, and so record their votes 
 with knowledge of the case. But, under pretense of 
 dispatch, this practice came to be abolished and the two 
 elections took place on the same day. 
 
 The comitia tributa were properly the council of the 
 Roman people. They were convoked only by the tribunes ; 
 in them the tribunes were elected and passed their 
 
 * This centuria, tlras chosen by lot, was called prcerogattva, be- 
 cause its suffrage was demanded first; hence came the word /rers^a 
 tive. 
 
THE ROMAN COMITIA 107 
 
 plebiscita. Not only had the Senate no status in them — 
 it had not even a right to attend; and, being compelled 
 to obey laws on which they could not vote, the senators 
 were, in this respect, less free than the meanest citizenfi. 
 This injustice was altogether impolitic, and alone sufficed 
 to invalidate the decrees of a body to which all the 
 citizens were not admitted. If all the patricians had 
 taken part in these comitia according to the rights which 
 they had as citizens, having become in that case simple 
 individuals, they would have scarcely influenced a form in 
 which votes were counted by the head, and in which 
 the meanest proletarian had as much power as the Chief 
 of the Senate. 
 
 We see, then, that besides the order which resulted 
 from these different divisions for the collection of the 
 votes of so great a people, these divisions were not 
 reduced to forms immaterial in themselves, but that each 
 had results corresponding with the purposes for which it 
 was chosen. 
 
 Without entering upon this in greater detail, it follows 
 from the preceding explanations that the comitia tributa 
 were more favorable to popular government, and the 
 comitia centuriata to aristocracy. With regard to the com- 
 itia curiata, in which the Roman populace alone formed 
 the majority, as they served only to favor tyranny and 
 evil designs, they deserved to fall into discredit, the se- 
 ditious themselves refraining from a means which would 
 too plainly reveal their projects. It is certain that the 
 full majesty of the Roman people was found only in the 
 comitia centuriata, which were alone complete, seeing 
 that the rural tribes were absent from the comitia curiata 
 and the Senate and the patricians from the comitia tributa. 
 
 The mode of collecting the votes among the early Ro- 
 mans was as simple as their manners, although still less 
 simple than in Sparta. Each gave his vote with a loud 
 voice, and a recording officer duly registered it; a ma- 
 jority of votes in each tribe determined the suffrage of 
 the tribe; a majority of votes among the tribes deter- 
 mined the suffrage of the people; and so with the curice 
 centurice. This was a good practice so long as probity 
 prevailed among the citizens and every one "was ashamed 
 
io8 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 to record his vote publicly for an unjust measure or an 
 unworthy man; but when the people were corrupted and 
 votes were bought, it was expedient that thev should be 
 given secretly in order to restrain purchasers by distrust 
 and give knaves an opportunity of not being traitors. 
 
 I know that Cicero blames this change and attributes 
 to it in part the fall of the Republic. But although I 
 feel the weight which Cicero's authority ought to have 
 in this matter, I cannot adopt his opinion; on the con- 
 trary, I think that through not making sufficient changes 
 of this kind, the downfall of the State was hastened. 
 As the regimen of healthy persons is unfit for invalids, 
 so we should not desire to govern a corrupt people by 
 the laws which suit a good nation. Nothing supports 
 this maxim better than the duration of the republic of 
 Venice, only the semblance of which now exists, solely 
 because its laws are suitable to none but worthless men. 
 
 Tablets, therefore, were distributed to the citizens by 
 means of which each could vote without his decision 
 being known; new formalities were also established for 
 the collection of tablets, the counting of votes, the com- 
 parison of numbers, etc. ; but this did not prevent 
 suspicions as to the fidelity of the officers charged with 
 these duties. At length edicts were framed, the multitude 
 of which proves their uselessness. 
 
 Toward the closing years, they were often compelled 
 to resort to extraordinary expedients in order to supply 
 the defects of the laws. Sometimes prodigies were 
 feigned; but this method, which might impose on the 
 people, did not impose on those who governed them. 
 Sometimes an assembly was hastily summoned before 
 the candidates had had time to canvass. Sometimes a 
 whole sitting was consumed in talking when it was seen 
 that the people having been won over were ready to 
 pass a bad resolution. But at last ambition evaded 
 everything; and it seems incredible that in the midst of 
 so many abuses, this great nation, by favor of its ancient 
 institutions, did not cease to elect magistrates, to pass 
 laws, to judge causes, and to dispatch public and private 
 affairs with almost as much facility as the Senate itself 
 could have done. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 The Tribuneship. 
 
 When an exact relation cannot be established among 
 the constituent parts of the State, or when indestructible 
 causes are incessantly changing their relations, a special 
 magistracy is instituted, which is not incorporated with 
 the others, but which replaces each term in its true re- 
 lation, forming a connection or middle term either 
 between the Prince and the people, or between the 
 Prince and the sovereign, or if necessary between both 
 at once. 
 
 This body, which I shall call the tribuneship, is the 
 guardian of the laws and of the legislative power. It 
 sometimes serves to protect the sovereign against the 
 government, as the tribunes of the people did in Rome; 
 sometimes to support the government against the people, 
 as the Council of Ten now does in Venice; and some- 
 times to maintain an equilibrium among all parts, as the 
 ephors did in Sparta. 
 
 The tribuneship is not a constituent part of the State, 
 and should have no share in the legislative or in the 
 executive power; but it is in this very circumstance 
 that its own power is greatest; for, while unable to do 
 anything, it can prevent everything. It is more sacred 
 and more venerated, as defender of the laws, than the 
 Prince that executes them and the sovereign that enacts 
 them. This was very clearly seen in Rome, when those 
 proud patricians, who always despised the people as a 
 whole, were forced to bow before a simple officer of 
 the people, who had neither auspices nor jurisdiction. 
 
 The tribuneship, wisely moderated, is the strongest sup- 
 port of a good constitution; but if its power be ever so 
 little in excess, it overthrows everything. Weakness is 
 not natural to it; and provided it has some power, it is 
 never less than it should be. 
 
 It degenerates into tyranny when it usurps the execu- 
 tive power, of which it is only the moderator, and when 
 
 /109) 
 
no THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 it wishes to make the laws which it should only defend 
 The enormous power of the ephors, which was without 
 danger so long as Sparta preserved her n^ality, accel- 
 erated the corruption when it had begun. The blood of 
 Agis, slain by these tyrants, was avenged by .his succes- 
 sor; but the crime and the punishment of the ephors 
 alike hastened the fall of the republic, and, after Cleom- 
 enes, Sparta was no longer of any account. Rome, 
 again, perished in the same way; and the excessive power 
 of the tribunes, usurped by degrees, served at last, with 
 the aid of laws framed on behalf of liberty, as a shield 
 for the emperors who destroyed her. As for the Council 
 of Ten in Venice, it is a tribunal of blood, horrible both 
 to the patricians and to the people; and, far from reso- 
 lutely defending the laws, it has only served since their 
 degradation for striking secret blows which men dare not 
 remark. 
 
 The tribuneship, like the government, is weakened by 
 the multiplication of its members. When the tribunes of 
 the Roman people, at first two in number and afterward 
 five, wished to double this number, the Senate allowed 
 them to do so, being quite sure of controlling some by 
 means of others, which did not fail to happen. 
 
 The best means of preventing the usurpations of such 
 a formidable body, a means of which no government has 
 hitherto availed itself, would be, not to make this body 
 permanent, but to fix intervals during which it should 
 remain suspended. These intervals, which should not be 
 long enough to allow abuses time to become estab- 
 lished, can be fixed by law in such a manner that it may 
 be easy to shorten them in case of need by means of ex- 
 traordinary commissions. 
 
 This method appears to me free from objection, be- 
 cause, as I have said, the tribuneship, forming no part 
 of the constitution, can be removed without detriment; 
 and it seems to me efficacious, because a magistrate 
 newly established does not start with the power that his 
 predecessor had, but with that which the law gives him. 
 
CMAMER Vr. 
 The Dictatorship. 
 
 The inflexibility of the laws, which prevents them front 
 being adapted to emergencies, may in certain cases ren- 
 der them pernicious, and thereby cause the ruin of the 
 State in a time of crisis. The order and tardiness of 
 the forms require a space of time which circumstances 
 sometimes do not allow. A thousand cases may arise for 
 which the legislator has not provided, and to perceive 
 that everything cannot be foreseen is a very needful kind 
 of foresight. 
 
 We must therefore not desire to establish political in- 
 stitutions so firmly as to take away the power of suspend- 
 ing their effects. Even Sparta allowed her laws to sleep. 
 
 But only the greatest dangers can outweigh that of 
 changing the public order, and the sacred power of the 
 laws should never be interfered with except when the 
 safety of the country is at stake. In these rare and 
 obvious cases, the public security is provided for by a 
 special act, which intrusts the care of it to the most 
 worthy man. This commission can be conferred in two 
 ways, according to the nature of the danger. 
 
 If an increase in the activity of the government suffices 
 to remedy this evil, we may concentrate it in one or two 
 of its members ; in that, case it is not the authority of the 
 laws which is changed but only the form of their admin- 
 istration. But if the danger is such that the formal proc- 
 ess of law is an obstacle to our security, a supreme head 
 is nominated, who may silence all the laws and suspend 
 for a moment the sovereign authority. In such a case 
 the general will is not doubtful, and it is clear that the 
 primary intention of the people is that the State should 
 not perish. In this way the suspension of the legislative 
 power does not involve its abolition ; the magistrate who 
 silences it can make it speak; he dominates it without 
 having power to represent it; he can do everything but 
 make laws. 
 
 The first method was employed by the Roman Senate 
 
 (III) 
 
112 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 when it charged the consuls, by a consecrated formula, 
 to provide for the safety of the Republic. The second 
 was adopted when one of the two consuls nominated a 
 dictator,* a usage of which Alba had furnished the prec- 
 edent to Rome. 
 
 At the beginning of the Republic they very often had 
 recourse to the dictatorship, because the State had not 
 yet a sufficiently iirm foundation to be able to maintain 
 itself by the vigor of its constitution alone. 
 
 Public morality rendering superfluous at that time 
 many precautions that would have been necessary at 
 another time, there was no fear either that a dictator 
 would abuse his authority or that he would attempt to 
 retain it beyond the term. On the contrary, it seemed 
 that so great a power must be a burden to him who was 
 invested with it, such haste did he make to divest him- 
 self of it, as if to take the place of the laws were an 
 office too arduous and too dangerous. 
 
 Therefore it is the danger, not its abuse, but of its 
 degradation, that makes me blame the indiscreet use of 
 this supreme magistracy in early times ; for while it was 
 freely used at elections, at dedications, and in purely 
 formal matters, there was reason to fear that it would 
 become less formidable in case of need, and that the 
 people would grow accustomed to regard as an empty 
 title that which was only employed in empty ceremonies. 
 
 Toward the close of the Republic, the Romans, hav- 
 ing become more circumspect, used the dictatorship spar- 
 ingly with as little reason as they had formerly been 
 prodigal of it. It was easy to see that their fear was 
 ill-founded; that the weakness of the capital then con- 
 stituted its security against the magistrates whom it had 
 within it; that a dictator could, in certain cases, defend 
 the public liberty without ever being able to assail it ; and 
 that the chains of Rome would not be forged in Rome 
 itself, but in her armies. The slight resistance which 
 Marius made against Sylla, and Pompey against Csesar, 
 showed clearly what might be looked for from the authority 
 within against the force without. 
 
 *This nomination was made by night and in secret as if they were 
 nshamed to set a man above the laws. 
 
THE DICTATORSHIP 113 
 
 This error caused them to commit great mistakes; such, 
 for example, was that of not appointing a dictator in the 
 Catiline affair; for as it was only a question of the in- 
 terior of the city, or at most of some province of Italy, 
 a dictator, with the unlimited authority that the laws 
 gave him, would have easily broken up the conspiracy, 
 which was suppressed only by a combination of happy 
 accidents such as human prudence could not have fore- 
 seen. 
 
 Instead of that the Senate was content to intrust all 
 its power to the consuls ; whence it happened that Cicero, 
 in order to act effectively, was constrained to exceed his 
 authority in a material point, and that although the fi.rst 
 transports of joy caused his conduct to be approved, he was 
 afterward justly called to afcount for the blood of citizens 
 shed contrary to the laws a reproach which could not 
 have been brought against a dictator. But the consul's 
 eloquence won over everybody ; and he himself, although 
 a Roman, preferred his own glory to his country's good, 
 and sought not so much the most certain and legitimate 
 means of saving the State as the way to secure the whole 
 credit of this affair.* Therefore he was justly honored as 
 the liberator of Rome and justly punished as a violator of 
 the laws. However brilliant his recall may have been, 
 it was certainly a pardon. 
 
 Moreover, in whatever way this important commission 
 may be conferred, it is important to fix its duration at a 
 very short term which can never be prolonged. In the 
 crises which cause it to be established, the State is soon 
 destroyed or saved; and, the urgent need having passed 
 away, the dictatorship becomes tyrannical or useless. In 
 Rome the dictators held office for six months only, and 
 the majority abdicated before the end of this term. Had 
 the term been longer, they would perhaps have been 
 tempted to prolong it still further, as the Decemvirs did 
 their term of one year. The dictator only had time to 
 provide for the necessity which had led to his election; 
 he had no time to think of other projects. 
 
 * He could not be satisfied about this in proposing a dictator ; he dared 
 not nominate himself, and could not feel sure that his colleague would 
 nominate him. 
 8 
 
CHAPTER VII. ^ 
 
 The Censorship. 
 
 Just as the declaration of the general will is made by 
 the law, the declaration of public opinion is made 
 by the censorship. Public opinion is a kind of law of 
 which the censor is minister, and which he only applies 
 to particular cases in the manner of the Prince. 
 
 The censorial tribunal, then, far from being the arbiter 
 of the opinion of the people, only declares it, and so 
 soon as it departs from this position, its decisioiis are 
 fruitless and ineffectual. 
 
 It is useless to distinguish the character of a nation 
 from the objects of its esteem, for all these things de- 
 pend on the same principle and are necessarily inter- 
 mixed. In all the nations of the world it is not nature 
 but opinion which decides the choice of their pleasures. 
 Reform men's opinions and their manners will be purified 
 of themselves. People always like what is becoming or 
 what they judge to be so; but it is in this judgment that 
 they make mistakes ; the question, then, is to guide their 
 judgment. He who judges of manners judges of honor; 
 and he who judges of honor takes his law from opinion. 
 
 The opinions of a nation spring from its constitution. 
 Although the law does not regulate morality, it is legis- 
 lation that gives it birth, and when legislation becomes 
 impaired, morality degenerates; but then the judgment 
 of the censors will not do what the power of the laws 
 has failed to do. 
 
 It follows from this that the censorship may be useful 
 to preserve morality, never to restore it. Institute cen- 
 sors while the laws are vigorous ; so soon as they have 
 lost their power all is over. Nothing that is lawful has 
 any force when the laws cease to have any. 
 
 The censorship supports morality by preventing opinions 
 
 from being corrupted, by preserving their integrity 
 
 through wise applications, sometimes even by fixing 
 
 them when they are still uncertain. The use of seconds 
 
 ("41 
 
CIVIL RELIGION 115 
 
 in duels, carried to a mad extreme in the kingdom of 
 France, was abolished by these simple words in an edict 
 of the king: «As for those who have the cowardice to 
 appoint seconds." This judgment, anticipating that of 
 the public, immediately decided it. But when the same 
 edicts wanted to declare that it was also cowardice to 
 fight a duel, which is very true, but contrary to common 
 opinion, the public ridiculed this decision, on which its 
 judgment was already formed. 
 
 I have said elsewhere * that as public opinion is not 
 subject to constraint, there should be no vestige of this 
 in the tribunal established to represent it. We cannot 
 admire too much the art with which this force, wholly 
 lost among the modems, was set in operation among 
 the Romans and still better among the Lacedaemonians. 
 
 A man of bad character having brought forward a good 
 measure in the Council of Sparta, the ephors, without 
 regarding him, caused the same measure to be proposed 
 by a virtuous citizen. What an honor for the one, what 
 a stigma for the other, without praise or blame being 
 given to either! Certain drunkards from Samos defiled 
 the tribunal of the ephors; on the morrow a public edict 
 granted permission to the Samians to be filthy. A real 
 punishment would have been less severe than such im- 
 punity. When Sparta pronounced what was or was not 
 honorable, Greece made no appeal from her decisions. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 Civil Religion. 
 
 Men had at first no kings except the gods and no gov- 
 ernment but a theocracy. They reasoned like Caligula, 
 and at that time they reasoned rightly. A long period 
 is needed to change men's sentiments and ideas in order 
 that they may resolve to take a fellow-man as a master 
 and flatter themselves that all will be well. 
 
 *I merely indicate in this chapter what I have treated at greater 
 length in the Letter to M. d' Alembert. 
 
ii6 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 From the single circumstance that a god was placed at 
 the head of every political society, it followed that there 
 were as many gods as nations. Two nations foreign to 
 each other, and almost always hostile, coulff not long 
 acknowledge the same master; two armies engaged in 
 battle with each other could not obey the same leader. 
 Thus from national divisions resulted polytheism, and, 
 from this, theological and civil intolerance, which are by 
 nature the same, as will be shown hereafter. 
 
 The fancy of the Greeks that they recognized their own 
 gods among barbarous nations aross from their re- 
 garding themselves as the natural sovereigns of those 
 nations. But in our days that is a very ridiculous kind 
 of erudition which turns on the identity of the gods of 
 different nations, as if Moloch, Saturn, and Chronos could 
 be the same god! As if the Baal of the Phcenicians, the 
 Zeus of the Greeks, and the Jupiter of the Latins could 
 be the same! As if there could be anything in 
 common among imaginary beings bearing different 
 names ! 
 
 But if it is asked why under paganism, when every 
 State had its worship and its gods, there were no wars 
 of religion, I answer that it was for ■ the same reason that 
 each State, having its peculiar form of worship as well 
 as its own government, did not distinguish its gods from 
 its laws. Political warfare was also religious ; the depart- 
 ments of the gods were, so to speak, fixed by the limits 
 of the nations. The god of one nation had no right over 
 other nations. The gods of the pagans were not jealous 
 gods; they shared among them the empire of the world; 
 even Moses and the Hebrew nation sometimes counte- 
 nanced this idea by speaking of the god of Israel. It is 
 true that they regarded as naught the gods of the Canaan- 
 ites, proscribed nations, devoted to destruction, whose 
 country they were to occupy; but see how they spoke of 
 the divinities of the neighboring nations whom they were 
 forbidden to attack: «The possession of what belongs 
 to Chamos your god, » said Jephthah to the Ammonites, 
 « is it not lawfully your due ? By the same title we posv 
 sess the lands which our conquering god has acquired. " 
 In this, it seems to me, there was a well-recognized par- 
 
CIVIL RELIGION 117 
 
 ity between the rights of Chamos and those of the god 
 of Israel. 
 
 But when the Jews, subjected to the kings of Babylon, 
 and afterward to the kings of Syria, obstinately refused 
 to acknowledge any other god than their own, this re- 
 fusal being regarded as a rebellion against the conqueror, 
 drew upon them the persecutions which we read of in 
 their history, and of which no other instance appears 
 before Christianity. 
 
 Every religion, then, being exclusively attached to the 
 laws of the State which prescribed it, there was no other 
 way of converting a nation than to subdue it, and no 
 other missionaries than conquerors ; and the obligation to 
 change their form of worship being the law imposed on 
 the vanquished, it was necessary to begin by conquering 
 before speaking of conversions. Far from men fighting 
 for the gods, it was, as in Homer, the gods who fought 
 for men; each sued for victory from his own god and 
 paid for it with new altars. The Romans , before attack- 
 ing a place, summoned its gods to abandon it ; and when 
 they left to the Tarentines their exasperated gods, it was 
 because they then regarded these gods as subjected to 
 their own and forced to pay them homage. They left 
 the vanquished their gods as they left them their laws. 
 A crown for the Capitoline Jupiter was often the only 
 tribute that they imposed. 
 
 At last, the Romans having extended their worship 
 and their laws with their empire, and having themselves 
 often adopted those of the vanquished, the nations of this 
 vast empire, since the right of citizenship was granted 
 to all, found insensibly that they had multitudes of gods 
 and religions, almost the same everywhere; and this is 
 why paganism was at length known in the world as only 
 a single religion. 
 
 It was in these circumstances that Jesus came to estab- 
 lish on earth a spiritual kingdom, which, separating the 
 religious from the political system, destroyed the unity 
 of the State, and caused th^ intestine divisions which 
 have never ceased to agitate Christian nations. Now this 
 new idea of a kingdom in the other world having never 
 been able to enter the minds of the pagans, they always 
 
ri8 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 regarded Christians as actual rebels, who, under cover of 
 a hypocritical submission, only sought an opportunity to 
 make themselves independent and supreme, and to usurp 
 by cunning the authority which, in their weafiiess, they 
 pretend to respect. This was the cause of persecutions. 
 
 What the pagans had feared came to pass. Then every- 
 thing changed its aspect; the humble Christians altered 
 their tone, and soon this pretended kingdom of the other 
 world became, under a visible chief, the most violent 
 despotism in this world. 
 
 As, however, there have always been a Prince and civil 
 laws, a perpetual conflict of jurisdiction has resulted from 
 this double power, which has rendered any good polity 
 impossible in Christian States; and no one has ever suc- 
 ceeded in understanding whether he was bound to obey 
 the ruler' or the priest. 
 
 Many nations, however, even in Europe or on its out- 
 skirts, wished to preserve or to re-establish the ancient 
 system, but without success; the spirit of Christianity 
 prevailed over everything. The sacred worship always 
 retained or regained its independence of the sovereign, 
 and without any necessary connection with the body of 
 the State. Mohammed had very sound views; he thor- 
 oughly unified his political system; and so long as his 
 form of government subsisted under his successors, the 
 caliphs, the government was quite undivided and in that 
 respect good. But the Arabs having become flourishing, 
 learned, polished, effeminate, and indolent, were subju- 
 gated by the barbarians, and then the division between 
 the two powers began again. Although it may be less 
 apparent among the Mohammedans than among the 
 Christians, the division nevertheless exists, especially in 
 the sect of Ali; and there are States, such as Persia, in 
 which it is still seen. 
 
 Among us, the kings of England have established them- 
 selves as heads of the church, and the Tsars have done 
 the same; but by means of this title they have made 
 themselves its ministers racier than its rulers ; they have 
 acquired not so much the right of changing it as the 
 power of maintaining it; they are not its legislators but 
 only its princes. Wherever the clergy form a corpora- 
 
CIVIL RELIGION 119 
 
 tion,* they are masters and legislators in their own 
 country. There are, then, two powers, two sovereigns, 
 in England and in Russia, just as elsewhere. 
 
 Of all Christian authors, the philosopher Hobbes is the 
 only one who has clearly seen the evil and its remedy, 
 and who has dared to propose a reunion of the heads of 
 the eagle and the complete restoration of political unity, 
 without which no State or government will ever be well 
 constituted. But he ought to have seen that the domi- 
 neering spirit of Christianity was incompatible with his 
 system, and that the interest of the priest would always 
 be stronger than that of the State. It is not so much 
 what is horrible and false in his political theory as what 
 is just and true that has rendered it odious. 
 
 I believe that by developing historical facts from this 
 point of view, the opposite opinions of Bayle and War- 
 burton might easily be refuted. The former of these 
 maintains that no religion is useful to the body politic ; the 
 latter, on the other hand, asserts that Christianity is its 
 strongest support. To the first it might be proved that no 
 State was ever founded without religion serving as its 
 basis, and to the second, that the Christian law is more 
 injurious than useful to a firm constitution of the State. 
 In order to succeed in making myself understood, I need 
 only give a little more precision to the exceedingly vague 
 ideas about religion in its relation to my subject. 
 
 Religion, considered with reference to society, which 
 is either general or particular, may also be divided into 
 two kinds, viz, the religion of the man and that of the 
 citizen. The first, without temples, without altars, with- 
 out rites, limited to the purely internal worship of the 
 supreme God and to the eternal duties of morality, is the 
 pure and simple religion of the Gospel, the true theism, 
 
 * It must, indeed, be remarked that it is not so much the formal as- 
 semblies, like those in France, that bind the clergy into one body, as 
 the communion of churches. Communion and excommunication are the 
 social pact of the clergy, a pact by means of which they will always be 
 the masters of nations and kings. All priests who are of the same 
 communion are fellow citizens, though they are as far asunder as the 
 poles. This invention is a master-piece of policy. There was nothing 
 similar among pagan priests; therefore they never formed a body of 
 clergy. 
 
I20 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 and what may be called the natural divine law. The 
 other, inscribed in a single country, gives to it its gods, 
 its peculiar and tutelary patrons. It has its dogmas, its 
 rites, its external worship prescribed by the*aws; out- 
 side the single nation which observes it, everything is 
 for it infidel, foreign, and barbarous ; it extends the duties 
 and rights of men only as far as its altars. Such were 
 all the religions of early nations, to which may be given 
 the name of the divine law, civil or positive. 
 
 There is a third and more extravagant kind of religion, 
 which, giving to men two sets of laws, two chiefs, two 
 countries, imposes on them contradictory duties, and pre- 
 vents them from being at once devout men and citizens. 
 Such is the religion of the Lamas, such is that of the 
 Japanese, such is Roman Christianity. This may be 
 called the religion of the priest. There results from 
 it a kind of mixed and unsocial law which has no name. 
 
 Considered politically, these three kinds of religion all 
 have their defects." The third is so evidently bad that 
 it would be a waste of time to stop and prove this. 
 Whatever destroys social unity is good for nothing; all 
 institutions which put a man in contradiction with him- 
 self are worthless. 
 
 The second is good so far as it combines divine wor- 
 ship with love for the laws, and, by making their coun- 
 try the object of the citizens' adoration, teaches them 
 that to serve the State is to serve the guardian deity. 
 It is a kind of theocracy, in which there ought to be no 
 pontiff but the Prince, no other priests than the magis- 
 trates. Then to die for one's country is to suffer martyr- 
 dom, to violate the laws is to be impious, and to subject 
 a guilty man to public execration is to devote him to the 
 wrath of the gods : Sacer esto. 
 
 But it is evil in so far as being based on error and 
 falsehood, it deceives men, renders them credulous and 
 superstitious, and obscures the true worship of the Deity 
 with vain ceremonial. It is evil, again, when, becoming 
 exclusive and tyrannical, it makes a nation sanguinary and 
 intolerant, so that it thirsts after nothing but murder 
 and massacre, and believes that it is performing a holy 
 action in killing whosoever does not acknowledge its 
 
CIVIL RELIGION 121 
 
 gods. This puts such a nation in a natural state of war 
 with all others, which is very prejudicial to its own safety. 
 
 There remains, then, the religion of man or Christian- 
 ity, not that of to-day, but that of the Gospel, which is 
 quite different. By this holy, sublime, and pure religion, 
 men, children of the same God, all recognize one another 
 as brethren, and the social bond which unites them is 
 not dissolved even at death. 
 
 But this religion, having no particular relation with the 
 body politic, leaves to the laws only the force that they 
 derive from themselves, without adding to them any 
 other; and thereby one of the great bonds of the partic- 
 ular society remains ineffective. What is more, far from 
 attaching the hearts of citizens to the State, it detaches 
 them from it and from all earthly things. I know of 
 nothing more contrary to the social spirit. 
 
 We are told that a nation of true Christians would 
 form the most perfect society conceivable. In this 
 supposition I see only one great difficulty — that a so- 
 ciety of true Christians would be no longer a society of 
 men. 
 
 I say even that this supposed society, with all its per- 
 fection, would be neither the strongest nor the most 
 durable; by virtue of its perfection it would lack cohe- 
 sion; its perfection, indeed, would be its destroying 
 vice. 
 
 Each man would perform his duty; the people would 
 be obedient to the laws, the chief men would be just 
 and moderate, and the magistrates upright and incor- 
 ruptible; the soldiers would despise death; there would 
 be neither vanity nor luxury. All this is very good; but 
 let us look further. 
 
 Christianity is an entirely spiritual religion, concerned 
 solely with heavenly things; the Christian's country is 
 not of this world. He does his duty, it is true; but he 
 does it with a profound indifference as to the good or ill 
 success of his endeavors. Provided that he has nothing 
 to reproach himself with, it matters little to him whether 
 all goes well or ill here below. If the State, is flourish- 
 ing, he scarcely dares to enjoy the public felicity; he 
 fears to take a pride in the glory of his country. If the 
 
122 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 State declines, he blesses the hand of God which lies 
 heavy on his people. 
 
 In order that the society might be peaceable and har- 
 mony maintained, it would be necessary for all citizens 
 without exception to be equally good Christians; but if 
 unfortunately there happens to be in it a single ambitious 
 man, a single hypocrite, a Catiline or a Cromwell for 
 example, such a man will certainly obtain an advantage 
 over his pious compatriots. Christian charity does not 
 suffer men readily to think ill of their neighbors. As 
 soon as a man has found by cunning the art of imposing 
 on them and securing to himself a share in the public 
 authority, he is invested with dignity ; God wills that he 
 should be reverenced. Soon he exercises dominion; God 
 wills that he should be obeyed. The depositary of this 
 power abuses it; this is the rod with which God pun- 
 ishes his children. They would have scruples about 
 driving out the usurper; it would be necessary to disturb 
 the public peace, to employ violence, to shed blood; all 
 this ill accords with the meekness of the Christian, and, 
 after all, does it matter whether they are free or en- 
 slaved in this vale of woes ? The essential thing is to 
 reach paradise, and resignation is but one means the 
 more toward that. 
 
 Some foreign war comes on ; the citizens march to battle 
 without anxiety; none of them think of flight. They do 
 their duty, but without an ardent desire for victory; they 
 know better how to die than to conquer. What matters 
 it whether they are the victors or the vanquished ? Does 
 not Providence know better than they what is needful 
 for them ? Conceive what an advantage a bold, impetu- 
 ous, enthusiastic enemy can derive from this stoical in- 
 difference! Set against them those noble peoples who 
 are consumed with a burning love of glory and of coun- 
 try. Suppose your Christian republic opposed to Sparta 
 or Rome; the pious Christians will be beaten, crushed, 
 destroyed, before they have time to collect themselves, 
 or they will owe their safety only to the contempt which 
 the enemy may conceive for them. To my mind that 
 was a noble oath of the soldiers of Fabius ; they did not 
 swear to die or to conquer, they swore to retvirn as con- 
 
CIVIL RELIGION 123 
 
 querors, and kept their oath. Never would Christians 
 have done such a thing; they would have believed that 
 they were tempting God. 
 
 But I am mistaken in speaking of a Christian repub- 
 lic; each of these two words excludes the other. Chris- 
 tianity preaches only servitude and dependence. Its spirit 
 is too favorable to tyranny for the latter not to profit by 
 it always. True Christians are made to be slaves; they 
 know it and are hardly aroused by it. This' short life 
 has too little value in their eyes. 
 
 Christian troops are excellent, we are told. I deny it; 
 let them show me any that are such. For my part, I know 
 of no Christian troops. The crusades will be cited. With- 
 out disputing the valor of the crusaders, I shall observe 
 that, far from being Christians, they were soldiers of the 
 priest, citizens of the Church; they fought for their 
 spiritual country, which the Church had somehow ren- 
 dered temporal. Properly regarded, this brings us back 
 to paganism; as the Gospel does not establish a national 
 religion, any sacred war is impossible among Christians. 
 
 Under the pagan emperors Christian soldiers were 
 brave; all Christian authors afSrm it, and I believe it. 
 There was a rivalry of honor against the pagan troops. 
 As soon as the emperors became Christians, this rivalry 
 no longer subsisted; and when the cross had driven out 
 the eagle, all the Roman valor disappeared. 
 
 But, setting aside political considerations, let us return 
 to the subject of right and determine principles on this 
 important point. The right which the social pact gives 
 to the sovereign over its subjects does not, as I have 
 said, pass the limits of public utility.* Subjects, then, 
 owe no account of their opinions to the sovereign except 
 so far as those opinions are of moment to the community. 
 Now it is very important for the State that every citizen 
 
 *«In the commonwealth," says the Marquis d'Argenson, "each 
 is perfectly free in what does not injure others." That is the un- 
 alterable limit; it cannot be more accurately placed. I could not 
 deny myself the pleasure of sometimes quoting this manuscript, 
 although it is not known to the public, in order to do honor to the 
 memory of an illustrious and honorable man, who preserved even in 
 office the heart of a true citizen, and just and sound opinions about the 
 government of his country. 
 
124 THE SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 should have a religion which may make him delight in 
 his duties ; but the dogmas of this religion concern neither 
 the State nor its members, except so far as ^ey affect 
 morality and the duties which he who professes it is 
 bound to perform toward others. Each may have, in ad- 
 dition, such opinions as he pleases, without its being the 
 business of the sovereign to know them; for, as he has 
 no jurisdiction in the other world, the destiny of his 
 subjects in the life to come, whatever it may be, is 
 not his affair, provided they are good citizens in this 
 life. 
 
 There is, however, a purely civil profession of faith, 
 the articles of which it is the duty of the sovereign to 
 determine, not exactly as dogmas of religion, but as 
 sentiments of sociability, without which it is impossible 
 to be a good citizen or a faithful subject. Without 
 having power to compel any one to believe them, the 
 sovereign may banish from the State whoever does not 
 believe them; it may banish him not as impious, but as 
 unsociable, as incapable of sincerely loving law and 
 justice and of sacrificing at need his life to his duty. 
 But if any one, after publicly acknowledging these 
 dogmas, behaves like an unbeliever in them, he should 
 be punished with death; he has committed the greatest 
 of crimes, he has lied before the laws. 
 
 The dogmas of civil religion ought to be simple, few 
 in number, stated with precision, and without explana- 
 tions or commentaries. The existence of the Deity, 
 powerful, wise, beneficent, prescient, and bountiful, the 
 life to come, the happiness of the just, the punishment 
 of the wicked, the sanctity of the social contract and of the 
 laws ; these are the positive dogmas. As for the negative 
 dogmas, I limit them to one only, that is, intolerance ; it 
 belongs to the creeds which we have excluded. 
 
 Those who distinguish civil intolerance from theological 
 intolerance are in my opinion, mistaken. These two 
 kinds of intolerance are inseparable. It is impossible to 
 live at peace with people whom we believe to be damned; 
 to love them would be to hate God who punishes them. 
 It is absolutely necessary to reclaim them or to punish 
 them. Wherever theological intolerance is allowed, it 
 
CIVIL RELIGION 125 
 
 cannot but have some effect in civil life ;* and as soon as 
 it has any, the sovereign is no longer sovereign even in 
 secular affairs; from that time the priests are the real 
 masters; the kings are only their officers. 
 
 Now that there is,. and can be, no longer any exclusive 
 national religion, we should tolerate all those which tol- 
 erate others, so far as their dogmas have nothing contrary 
 to the duties of a citizen. But whosoever dares to say: 
 "Outside the Church no salvation," ought to be driven 
 from the State, unless the State be the Church and the 
 Prince be the pontiff. Such a dogma is proper only in a 
 theocratic government ; in any other it is pernicious. The 
 reason for which Henry IV. is said to have embraced 
 the Romish religion ought to have made any honorable 
 man renounce it, and especially any prince who knew 
 how to reason. 
 
 * Marriage, for example, being a civil contract, has civil conse- 
 quences, without which it is even impossible for society to subsist. 
 Let us, then, suppose that a clergy should succeed in arrogating to 
 itself the sole right to perform this act, a right which it must neces- 
 sarily usurp in every intolerant religion; then, is it not clear that in 
 taking the opportunity to strengthen the Church's authority, it will 
 render ineffectual that of the Prince, which will no longer have any 
 subjects except those which the clergy are pleased to g^ve it? Hav- 
 ing the option of marrying or not marrying people, according as they 
 hold or do not hold such or such a doctrine, according as they admit 
 or reject such or such a formulary, according as they are more or less 
 devoted to it, is it not clear that by behaving prudently and keeping 
 firm, the Church alone will dispose of inheritances, offices, citizens, 
 and the State itself, which cannot subsist when only composed of 
 bastards? But, it will be said, men wUl appeal as against abuses; 
 they will summon, issue decrees, and seize on the temporalities. 
 What a pity ! The clergy, however little they may have, I do not say 
 of courage, but of good sense, will let this be done and go their way ; 
 they will quietly permit appealing, adjourning, decreeing, seizing, and 
 will end by remaining masters. It is not, it seems to me, a great 
 sacrifice to abandon a part, when one is sure of getting possession of 
 the whole. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 After laying down the principles of political right and 
 attempting to establish the State on its foundations, it 
 would remain to strengthen it in its external relations; 
 which would comprise the law of nations, commerce, the 
 right of war and conquests, public rights, alliances, nego- 
 tiations, treaties, etc. But all this forms a new subject 
 too vast for my limited scope. I ought always to have 
 confined myself to a narrower sphere. 
 
 (126) 
 
SIR THOMAS MORE'S 
 UTOPIA. 
 
UTOPIA. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 Henry VIII., the unconquered King of England, a 
 prince adorned with all the virtues that become a great 
 monarch, having some differences of no small consequence 
 with Charles, the most serene prince of Castile, sent me 
 into Flanders, as his ambassador, for treating and com- 
 posing matters between them. I was colleague and com- 
 panion to that incomparable man Cuthbert Tonstal, whom 
 the king with such universal applause lately made Mas- 
 ter of the Rolls; but of whom I will say nothing; not 
 because I fear that the testimony of a friend will be sus- 
 pected, but rather because his learning and virtues are 
 too great for me to do them justice, and so well known, 
 that they need not my commendations unless I would, 
 according to the proverb, * Show the sun with a lanthorn. " 
 Those that were appointed by the prince to treat with us 
 met us at Bruges, according to agreement; they were all 
 worthy men. The Margrave of Bruges was their head, 
 and the chief man among them; but he that was es- 
 teemed the wisest, and that spoke for the rest, was 
 George Temse, the Provost of Casselsee; both art and 
 nature had concurred to make him eloquent; he was 
 very learned in the law ; and as he had a great capacity, 
 so by a long practice in affairs he was very dextrous at 
 unraveling them. After we had several times met with- 
 out coming to an agreement, they went to Brussels for 
 some days to know the prince's pleasure. And since our 
 business would admit it, I went to Antwerp. While I 
 was there, among many that visited me, there was one 
 that was more acceptable to me than any other, Peter 
 Giles, born at Antwerp, who is a man of great honor, 
 and of a good rank in his town, though less than he de- 
 serves; tor I do not know if there be anywhere to be 
 9 (129) 
 
I30 UTOPIA 
 
 found a more learned and a better bred young man : for 
 as he is both a very worthy and a very knowing person, 
 so he is so civil to all men, so particularly kmd to his 
 friends, and so full of candor and affection, that there is 
 not perhaps above one or two anywhere to be found that 
 is in all respects so perfect a friend. He is extraordi- 
 narily modest, there is no artifice in him; and yet no 
 man has more of a prudent simplicity; his conversation 
 was so pleasant and so innocently cheerful, that his com- 
 pany in a great measure lessened any longings to go 
 back to my country, and to my wife and children, which 
 an absence of four months had quickened very much. 
 One day as I was returning home from Mass at St. 
 Mary's, which is the chief church, and the most fre- 
 quented of any in Antwerp, I saw him by accident talk- 
 ing with a stranger, who seemed past the flower of his 
 age; his face was tanned, he had a long beard, and his 
 cloak was hanging carelessly about him, so that by 
 his looks and habit I concluded he was a seaman. As 
 soon as Peter saw me, he came and saluted me; and as 
 I was returning his civility, he took me aside, and point- 
 ing to him with whom he had been discoursing, he said, 
 «Do you see that man? I was just thinking to bring 
 him to you. " I answered, " He should have been very 
 welcome on your account.'* "And on his own too," re- 
 plied he, "if you knew the man, for there is none alive 
 that can give so copious an account of unknown nations 
 and countries as he can do ; which I know you very much 
 desire. " Then said I, " I did not guess amiss; for at first 
 sight I took him for a seaman. " " But you are much 
 mistaken," said he, "for he has not sailed as a seaman, 
 but as a traveler, or rather a philosopher. This Raphael, 
 who from his family carries the name of Hythloday, is 
 not ignorant of the Latin tongue, but is eminently 
 learned in the Greek, having applied himself more par- 
 ticularly to that than to the former, because he had given 
 himself much to philosophy, in which he knew that the 
 Romans have left us nothing that is valuable, except what 
 is to be found in Seneca and Cicero. He is a Portuguese 
 by birth, and was so desirous of seeing the world, that he 
 divided his estate among his brothers, run the same hazard 
 
UTOPIA 131 
 
 as Americus Vespucius, and bore a share in three of his 
 four voyages, that are now published; only he did not 
 return with him in his last, but obtained leave of him 
 almost by force, that he might be one of those twenty- 
 four who were left at the farthest place at which they 
 touched, in their last voyage to New Castile. The leav- 
 ing him thus did not a little gratify one that was more 
 fond of traveling than of returning home, to be buried 
 in his own country; for he used often to say, that the 
 way to heaven was the same from all places; and he 
 that had no grave, had the heaven still over him. Yet 
 this disposition of mind had cost him dear, if God 
 had not been very gracious to him; for after he, with 
 five Castilians, had traveled over many countries, at 
 last, by strange good fortune, he got to Ceylon, and from 
 thence to Calicut, where he very happily found some 
 Portuguese ships; and, beyond all men's expectations, 
 returned to his native country." When Peter had said 
 this to me, I thanked him for his kindness, in intending 
 to give me the acquaintance of a man whose conver- 
 sation he knew would be so acceptable; and upon that 
 Raphael and I embraced each other. After those civili- 
 ties were past which are usual with strangers upon their 
 first meeting, we all went to my house, and entering 
 into the garden, sat down on a green bank, and enter- 
 tained one another in discourse. He told us, that when 
 Vespucius had sailed away, he and his companions that 
 stayed behind in New Castile, by degrees insinuated 
 themselves into the affections of the people of the 
 country, meeting often with them, and treating them 
 gently ; and at lagt they not only lived among them with- 
 out danger, but conversed familiarly with them ; and got 
 so far into the heart of a prince, whose name and 
 country I have forgot, that he both furnished them plen- 
 tifully with all things necessary, and also with the conven- 
 iences of traveling ; both boats when they went by water, 
 and wagons when they traveled over land: he sent with 
 them a very faithful guide, who was to introduce and 
 recommend them to such other princes as they had a 
 mind to see; and after many days' journey, they came 
 to towns, and cities, and to commonwealths, that were 
 
132 UTOPIA 
 
 both happily governed and well peopled. Under the equa- 
 tor, and as far on both sides of it as the sun moves, 
 there lay vast deserts that were parched with the per- 
 petual heat of the sun; the soil was withered* all things 
 looked dismally, and all places were either quite unin- 
 habited, or abounded with wild beasts and serpents, and 
 some few men, that were neither less wild nor less cruel 
 than the beasts themselves. But as they went farther 
 a new scene opened, all things grew milder, the air 
 less burning, the soil more verdant, and even the beasts 
 were less wild ; and at last there were nations, towns, and 
 cities, that had not only mutual commerce among them- 
 selves, and with their neighbors, but traded both by 
 sea and land, to very remote countries. There they 
 found the conveniences of seeing many countries on all 
 hands, for no ship went any voyage into which he and 
 his companions were not very welcome. The first vessels 
 that they saw were flat-bottomed, their sails were made 
 of reeds and wicker woven close together, only some 
 were of leather; but afterward they found ships made 
 with round keels, and canvas sails, and in all respects like 
 our ships; and the seamen understood both astronomy 
 and navigation. He got wonderfully into their favor 
 by showing them the use of the needle, of which till 
 then they were utterly ignorant. They sailed before with 
 great caution, and only in summer time, but now they 
 count all seasons alike, trusting wholly to the loadstone 
 in which they are perhaps more secure than safe; so that 
 there is reason to fear that this discovery, which was 
 thought would prove so much to their advantage, may 
 by their imprudence become an occasion of much mis- 
 chief to them. But it were too long to dwell on all that 
 he told us he had observed in every place; it would be 
 too great a digression from our present purpose; what- 
 ever is necessary to be told, concerning those wise and 
 prudent institutions which he observed among civilized 
 nations, may perhaps be related by us on a more proper 
 occasion, We asked him many questions concerning all 
 these things, to which he answered very willingly; only 
 we made no inquiries after monsters, than which nothing 
 is more common; for everywhere one may hear of rav- 
 
UTOPIA 133 
 
 enous dogs and wolves, and cruel man-eaters; but it is 
 not so easy to find states that are well and wisely gov- 
 erned. 
 
 As he told us of many things that were amiss in those 
 new-discovered countries, so he reckoned up not a few. 
 things from which patterns might be taken for correct- 
 ing the errors of these nations among whom we live; of 
 which an account may be given, as I have already 
 promised, at some other time; for at present I intend 
 only to relate those particulars that he told us of the 
 manners and laws of the Utopians; but I will begin 
 with the occasion that led us to speak of that common- 
 wealth. After Raphael had discoursed with great judg- 
 ment on the many errors that were both among us and 
 these nations; had treated of the wise institutions both 
 here and there, and had spoken as distinctly of the cus- 
 toms and government of every nation through which he 
 had passed, as if he had spent his whole life in it ; Peter 
 being struck with admiration, said, ® I wonder, Raphael, 
 how it comes that you enter into no king's service, for I 
 am sure there are none to whom you would not be very 
 acceptable: for your learning and knowledge, both of 
 men and things, is such, that you would not only enter- 
 tain them very pleasantly, but be of great use to them, 
 by the examples you could set before them, and the 
 advices you could give them; and by this means you 
 would both serve your own interest, and be of great use 
 to all your friends. " " As for my friends, " answered he, 
 " I need not be much concerned, having already done for 
 them all that was incumbent on me ; for when I was not 
 only in good health, but fresh and young, I distributed 
 that among my kindred and friends which other people 
 do not part with till they are old and sick; when they 
 then unwillingly give that which they can enjoy no longer 
 themselves. I think my friends ought to rest contented 
 with this, and not to expect that for their sakes I should 
 enslave myself to any king whatsoever." *' Soft and fair," 
 said Peter, " I do not mean that you should be a slave to 
 any king, but only that you should assist them, and be 
 useful to them. " " The change of the word, " said he, " does 
 not alter the matter." "But term it as you will," replied 
 
134 UTOPIA 
 
 Peter, * I do not see any other way in which you can be 
 so useful, both in private to your friends, and to the 
 public, and by which you can make your own condition 
 happier. " " Happier ! " answered Raphael, " i^hat to be 
 compassed in a way so abhorrent to my genius ? Now 
 I live as I will, to which I believe few courtiers 
 can pretend. And there are so many that court the 
 favor of great men, that there will be no great loss 
 if they are not troubled either with me or with others 
 of my temper. " Upon this, said I, " I perceive, Raphael, 
 that you neither desire wealth nor greatness ; and indeed 
 I value and admire such a man much more than I 
 do any of the great men in the world. Yet I think 
 you would do what would well become so generous 
 and philosophical a soul as yours is, if you would apply 
 your time and thoughts to public affairs, even though 
 you may happen to find it a little uneasy to yourself: 
 and this you can never do with so much advantage, as 
 by being taken into the counsel of some great prince, 
 and putting him on noble and worthy actions, which I 
 know you would do if you were in such a post; for the 
 springs both of good and evil flow from the prince, over 
 a whole nation, as from a lasting fountain. So much 
 learning as you have, even without practice in affairs, 
 or so great a practice as you have had, without any 
 other learning, would render you a very fit counselor to 
 any king whatsoever." "You are doubly mistaken," said 
 he, "Mr. More, both in your opinion of me, and in the 
 judgment you make of things: for as I have not that 
 capacity that you fancy I have ; so, if I had it, the public 
 would not be one jot the better, when I had sacrificed 
 my quiet to it. , For most princes apply themselves 
 more to affairs of war than to the useful arts of peace; 
 and in these I neither have any knowledge, nor do I 
 miich desire it : they are generally more set on acquiring 
 new kingdoms, right or wrong, than on governing well 
 those they possess. And among the ministers of princes, 
 there are none that are not so wise as to need no assist- 
 ance, or at least that do not think themselves so wise, 
 that they imagine they need none ; and if they court any, 
 it is only those for whom the prince has much personal 
 
UTOPIA 1 35 
 
 favor, whom by their fawnings and flatteries they en- 
 deavor to fix to their own interests ; and indeed Nature has 
 so made us, that we all love to be flattered, and to please 
 ourselves with our own notions. The old crow loves his 
 young, and the ape her cubs. Now if in such a court, 
 made up of persons who envy all others, and only admire 
 themselves, a person should but propose anything that he 
 had either read in history, or observed in his travels, the 
 rest would think that the reputation of their wisdom 
 would sink, and that their interest would be much de- 
 pressed, if they could not run it down: and if all other 
 things failed, then they would fly to this, that such or 
 such things pleased our ancestors, and it were well for 
 us if we could but match them. They would set up their 
 rest on such an answer, as a sufiicient confutation of all 
 that could be said; as if it were a great misfortune, that 
 any should be found wiser than his ancestors ; but though 
 they willingly let go all the good things that were among 
 those of former ages, yet if better things are proposed 
 they cover themselves obstinately with this excuse of 
 reverence to past times. I have met with these proud, 
 morose, and absurd judgments of things in many places, 
 particularly once in England." "Was you ever there?'* 
 said I. "Yes, I was," answered he, "and stayed some 
 months there, not long after the rebellion in the west 
 was suppressed with a great slaughter of the poor people 
 that were engaged in it. 
 
 "I was then much obliged to that reverend prelate, 
 John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal, and 
 Chancellor of England ; a man, " said he, " Peter (for Mr. 
 More knows well what he was), that was not less ven- 
 erable for his wisdom and virtues, than for the high 
 character he bore. He was of a middle stature, not broken 
 with age; his looks begot reverence rather than fear; his 
 conversation was easy, but serious and grave; he some- 
 times took pleasure to try the force of those that came 
 as suitors to him upon business, by speaking sharply, 
 though decently to them, and by that he discovered their 
 spirit and presence of mind, with which he was much 
 delighted, when it did not grow up to impudence, as 
 bearing a great resemblance to his own temper; and he 
 
136 UTOPIA 
 
 looked on such persons as the fittest men for affairs. He 
 spoke both gracefully and weightily; he was eminently 
 skilled in the law, had a vast understanding, and a pro- 
 digious memory ; and those excellent talents '^ith which 
 Nature had furnished him, were improved by study and 
 experience. When I was in England the king depended 
 much on his counsels, and the government seemed to be 
 chiefly supported by him ; for from his youth he had been 
 all along practiced in affairs ; and having passed through 
 many traverses of fortune, he had with great cost ac- 
 quired a vast stock of wisdom, which is not soon lost 
 when it is purchased so dear. One day when I was din- 
 ing with him there happened to be at table one of 
 the English lawyers, who took occasion to run out in a 
 high commendation of the severe execution of justice 
 upon thieves, who, as he said, were then hanged so fast, 
 that there were sometimes twenty on one gibbet; and 
 upon that he said he could not wonder enough how it 
 came to pass, that since so few escaped, there were yet 
 so many thieves left who were still robbing in all places. 
 Upon this, I who took the boldness to speak freely be- 
 fore the Cardinal, said, there was no reason to wonder 
 at the matter, since this way of punishing thieves was 
 neither just in itself nor good for the public ; for as the 
 severity was too great, so the remedy was not effectual; 
 simple theft not being so great a crime that it ought to 
 cost a man his life, no punishment how severe soever 
 being able to restrain those from robbing who can find 
 out no other way of livelihood. < In this, ' said I, * not 
 only you in England, but a great part of the world imitate 
 some ill masters that are readier to chastise their scholars 
 than to teach them. There are dreadful punishments 
 enacted against thieves, but it were much better to make 
 such good provisions by which every man might be put 
 in a method how to live, and so be preserved from the 
 fatal necessity of stealing and of dying for it.' 'There 
 has been care enough taken for that,> said he, 'there are 
 many handicrafts, and there is husbandry, by which they 
 may make a shift to live unless they have a greater mind 
 to follow ill courses.' <That will not serve your turn,* 
 said I, 'for many lose their limbs in civil or foreign 
 
UTOPIA 137 
 
 wars, as lately in the Cornish rebellion, and some time 
 ago in your wars with France, who being thus mutilated 
 in the service of their king and country, can no more 
 follow their old trades, and are too old to learn new ones ; 
 but since wars are only accidental things, and have 
 intervals, let us consider those things that fall out every 
 day. There is a great number of noblemen among you, 
 that are themselves as idle as drones, that subsist on other 
 men's labor, on the labor of their tenants, whom, to 
 raise their revenues, they pare to the quick. This indeed 
 -is the only instance of their frugalitjr, for in all other 
 things they are prodigal, even to the beggaring of 
 themselves; but besides this, they carry about with 
 them a great number of idle fellows, who never learned 
 any art by which they may gain their living; and 
 these, as soon as either their lord dies, or they them- 
 selves fall sick, are turned out of doors; for your lords 
 are readier to feed idle people, than to take care of 
 the sick; and often the heir is not able to keep to- 
 gether so great a family as his predecessor did. Now 
 when the stomachs of those that are thus turned 
 out of doors, grow keen, they rob no less keenly; 
 and what else can they do ? for when, by wandering 
 about, they have worn out both their health and their 
 clothes, and are' tattered, and look ghastly, men of qual- 
 ity will not entertain them, and poor men dare not do it; 
 knowing that one who has been bred up in idleness and 
 pleasure, and who was used to walk about with his sword 
 and buckler, despising all the neighborhood with an inso- 
 lent scorn, as far below him, is not fit for the spade and 
 mattock: nor will he serve a poor man for so small a 
 hire, and in so low a diet as he can afford to give him.' 
 To this he answered, * This sort of men ought to be 
 particularly cherished, for in them consists the force of 
 the armies for which we have occasion; since their birth 
 inspires them with a nobler sense of honor, than is to 
 be found among tradesmen or plowmen.' 'You may 
 as well say,* replied I, Hhat you must cherish thieves 
 on the account of wars, for you will never want the one, 
 as long as you have the other; and as robbers prove 
 sometimes gallant soldiers, so soldiers often prove brave 
 
138 UTOPIA 
 
 robbers; so near an alliance there is between those 
 two sorts of life. But this bad custom, so common 
 among you, of keeping many servants, is not peculiar 
 to this nation. In France there is yet a mcSe pestifer- 
 ous sort of people, for the whole country is full of sol- 
 diers, still kept up in time of peace; if such a state of a 
 nation can be called a peace; and these are kept in pay 
 upon the same account that you plead for those idle 
 retainers about noblemen; this being a maxim of those 
 pretended statesmen that it is necessary for the public 
 safety, to have a good body of veteran soldiers ever 
 in readiness. They think raw men are not to be de- 
 pended on, and they sometimes seek occasions for mak- 
 ing war, that they may train up their soldiers in the art 
 of cutting throats; or as Sallust observed, for keeping 
 their hands in use, that they may not grow dull by too 
 long an intermission. But France has learned to its cost, 
 how dangerous it is to feed such beasts. The fate of the 
 Romans, Carthaginians, and Syrians, and many other 
 nations and cities, which were both overturned and quite 
 ruined by those standing armies, should make others 
 wiser: and the folly of this maxim of the French, 
 appears plainly even from this, that their trained soldiers 
 often find your raw men prove too hard for them; of 
 which I will not say much, lest you may think I flatter 
 the English. Every day's experience shows, that the 
 mechanics in the towns, or the clowns in the country, are 
 not afraid of fighting with those idle gentlemen, if they 
 are not disabled by some misfortune in their body, or dis- 
 pirited by extreme want, so that you need not fear that 
 those well-shaped and strong men ( for it is only such that 
 noblemen love to keep about them, till they spoil them) 
 who now grow feeble with ease, and are softened with 
 their effeminate manner of life, would be less fit for 
 action if they were well bred and well employed. And 
 it seems very unreasonable, that for the prospect of a war, 
 which you need never have but when you please, you 
 should maintain so many idle men, as will always disturb 
 you in time of peace, which is ever to be more considered 
 than war. But I do not think that this necessity. of steal- 
 ing arises only from hence; there is another cause of it 
 
UTOPIA 139 
 
 I 
 more peculiar to England.* . 'What is that?' said the Car- 
 dinal. * The increase of pasture, ' said I, * by which your 
 sheep, which are naturally mild, and easily kept in order, 
 may be said now to devour men, and unpeople, not only 
 villages, but towns ; for wherever it is found that the sheep 
 of any soil yield a softer and richer wool than ordinary, 
 there the nobility and gentry, and even those holy men, 
 the abbots, not contented with the old rents which their 
 farms yielded, nor thinking it enough that they, living at 
 their ease, do no good to the public, resolve to do it hurt 
 instead of good. They stop the course of agriculture, 
 destrojdng houses and towns, reserving only the churches, 
 and inclose grounds that they may lodge their sheep in 
 them. As if forests and parks had swallowed up too 
 little of the land, those worthy countrymen turn the 
 best inhabited places in solitudes ; for when an insatiable 
 wretch, who is a plague to his country, resolves to in- 
 close many thousand acres of ground, the owners, as well 
 as tenants, are turned out of their possessions, by tricks, 
 or by main force, or being wearied out with ill usage, 
 they are forced to sell them. By which means those 
 miserable people, both men and women, married and 
 unmarried, old and young, with their poor but numerous 
 families (since country business requires many hands), 
 are all forced to change their seats, not knowing whither 
 to go ; and they must sell almost for nothing their house- 
 hold stuff, which could not bring them much money, 
 even though they might stay for a buyer. When that 
 little money is at an end, for it will be soon spent, what 
 is left for them to do, but either to steal and so to be 
 hanged (God knows how justly), or to go about and beg ? 
 And if they do- this, they are put in prison as idle vaga- 
 bonds; while they would willingly work, but can find 
 none that will hire them; for there is no more occasion 
 for country labor, to which they have been bred, when 
 there is no arable ground left. One shepherd can look 
 after a flock, which will stock an extent of ground that 
 would require many hands, if it were to be plowed and 
 reaped. This likewise in many places raises the price 
 of com. The price of wool is also so risen, that the poor 
 people who were wont to make cloth are no more able 
 
I40 UTOPIA 
 
 to buy it; and this likewise makes many of them idle. 
 For since the increase of pasture, God has punished the 
 avarice of the owners, by a rot among the s^jpep, which 
 has destroyed vast numbers of them ; to us it might have 
 seemed more just had it fell on the owners themselves. 
 But suppose the sheep should increase ever so much, 
 their price is not like to fall; since though they cannot 
 be called a monopoly, because they are not engrossed by 
 one person, yet they are in so few hands, and these are 
 so rich, that as they are not pressed to sell them sooner 
 than they have a mind to, so they never do it till they 
 have raised the price as high as possible. And on the 
 same account it is that the other kinds of cattle are so 
 dear, because many villages being pulled down, and all 
 country labor being much neglected, there are none who 
 make it their business to breed them. The rich do not 
 breed cattle as they do sheep, but buy them lean, and 
 at low prices ; and after they have fattened them on their 
 grounds, sell them again at high rates. And I do not 
 think that all the inconveniences this will produce are 
 yet observed; for as they sell the cattle dear, so if they 
 are consumed faster than the breeding countries from 
 which they are brought can afford them, then the stock 
 must decrease, and this must needs end in great scarcity; 
 and by these means this your island, which seemed as to 
 this particular the happiest in the world, will suffer much 
 by the cursed avarice of a few persons ; besides this, the 
 rising of corn makes all people lessen their families as 
 much as they can ; and what can those who are dismissed 
 by them do, but either beg or rob ? And to this last, a 
 man of a great mind is much sooner drawn than to the 
 former. Luxury likewise breaks in apace upon you, to set 
 forward your poverty and misery; there is an excessive 
 vanity in apparel, and great cost in diet; and that not 
 only in noblemen's families, but even among tradesmen, 
 among the farmers themselves, and among all ranks of 
 persons. You have also many infamous houses, and be- 
 sides those that are known, the taverns and alehouses 
 are no better; add to these, dice, cards, tables, foot-ball, 
 tennis, and quoits, in which money runs fast away; and 
 those that are initiated into them, must in the conclusion 
 
UTOPIA 141 
 
 betake themselves to robbing for a supply. Banish these 
 plagfues, and give orders that those who have dispeopled 
 so much soil, may either rebuild the villages they have 
 pulled down, or let out their grounds to such as will do 
 it ; restrain those engrossings of the rich, that are as bad 
 almost as monopolies; leave fewer occasions to idleness; 
 let agriculture be set up again, and the manufacture of 
 the wool be regulated, that so there may be work found 
 for those companies of idle people whom want forces to 
 be thieves, or who now being idle vagabonds, or useless 
 servants^ will certainly grow thieves at last. If you do 
 not find a remedy to these evils, it is a vain thing to 
 boast of your severity in punishing theft, which though 
 it may have the appearance of justice, yet in itself is 
 neither just nor convenient. For if you suffer your peo- 
 ple to be ill educated, and their manners to be corrupted 
 from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes 
 to which their first education disposed them, what else 
 is to be concluded from this, but that you first make 
 thieves and then punish them ?* 
 
 "While I was talking thus, the counselor who was 
 present had prepared an answer, and had resolved to 
 resume all I had said, according to the formality of a 
 debate, in which things are generally repeated more 
 faithfully than they are answered; as if the chief trial 
 to be made were of men's memories. 'You have talked 
 prettily for a stranger, » said he, * having heard of many 
 things among us which you have not been able to con- 
 sider well; but I will make the whole matter plain to 
 you, and will first repeat in order all that you have 
 said, then I will show how much your ignorance of our 
 affairs has misled you, and will in the last place answer 
 all your arguments. And that I may begin where I 
 
 promised, there were four things , * Hold your peace,' 
 
 said the Cardinal, *this will take up too much time; 
 therefore we will at present ease you of the trouble of 
 answering, and reserve it to our next meeting, which 
 shall be to-morrow, if Raphael's affairs and yours can 
 admit of it. But, Raphael,' said he to me, <I would 
 gladly know upon what reason it is that you think theft 
 ought not to be punished by death? Would you give 
 
142 UTOPIA 
 
 way to it? Or do you propose any other punishment 
 that will be more useful to the public ? For since death 
 does not restrain theft, if men thought their lives would 
 be safe, what fear or force could restrain ill men ? On 
 the contrary, they would look on the mitigation of the 
 punishment as an invitation to commit more crimes.* I 
 answered, * It seems to me a very unjust thing to take 
 away a man's life for a little money; for nothing in the 
 world can be of equal value with a man's life; and if it 
 is said, that it is not for the money that one suffers, but 
 for his breaking the law, I must say, extreme justice is 
 an extreme injury; for we ought not to approve of these 
 terrible laws that make the smallest offenses capital, nor 
 of that opinion of the Stoics, that makes all crimes 
 equal, as if there were no difference to be made between 
 the killing a man and the taking his purse, between 
 which, if we examine things impartially, there is no 
 likeness nor proportion, God has commanded us not to 
 kill, and shall we kill so easily for a little money? But 
 if one shall say, that by the law we are only forbid to 
 kill any, except when the laws of the land allow of it; 
 upon the same grounds, laws may be made in some 
 cases to allow of adultery and perjury: for God having 
 taken from us the right of disposing, either of oui own 
 or of other people's lives, if it is pretended that the 
 mutual consent of man in making laws can authorize 
 man-slaughter in cases in which God has given us no 
 example, that it frees people from the obligation of the 
 divine law, and so makes murder a lawful action; what 
 is this, but to give a preference to human laws before 
 the divine? And if this is once admitted, by the same 
 rule men may in all other things put what restrictions 
 they please upon the laws' of God. If by the Mosaical 
 law, though it was rough and severe, as being a yoke 
 laid on an obstinate and servile nation, men were only 
 fined, and not put to death for theft, we cannot imagine 
 that in this new law of mercy, in which God treats us 
 with the tenderness of a father, he has given us a 
 greater license to cruelty than he did to the Jews. Upon 
 these reasons it is, that I think putting thieves to death 
 is not lawful; and it is plain and obvious that it is absurd, 
 
UTOPIA 143 
 
 and of ill consequence to the commonwealth, that a 
 thief and a murderer should be equally punished; for 
 if a robber sees that his danger is the same, if he is 
 convicted of theft as if he were guilty of murder, this 
 will naturally incite him to kill the person whom other- 
 wise he would only have robbed, since if the punishment 
 is the same, there is more security, and less danger of 
 discovery, when he that can best make it is put out of 
 the way; so that terrifying thieves too much provokes 
 them to cruelty. 
 
 « < But as to the question, what more convenient way of 
 punishment can be found ? I think it is much more easy 
 to find out that, than to invent anything that is worse; 
 why should we doubt but the way that was so long in use 
 among the old Romans, who understood so well the arts 
 of government, was very proper for their punishment? 
 They condemned such as they found guilty of great crimes, 
 to work their whole lives in quarries, or to dig in mines 
 with chains about them. But the method that I liked 
 best, was that which I observed in my travels in Persia, 
 among the Polylerits, who are a considerable and well- 
 governed people. They pay a yearly tribute to the King 
 of Persia ; but in all other respects they are a free nation, 
 and governed by their own laws. They lie far from the 
 sea, and are environed with hills ; and being contented with 
 the productions of their own country, which is very fruit- 
 ful, they have little commerce with any other nation ; and 
 as they, according to the genius of their country, have 
 no inclination to enlarge their borders; so their moun- 
 tains, and the pension they pay to the Persian, secure them 
 from all invasions. Thus they have no wars among them ; 
 they live rather conveniently than with splendor, and may 
 be rather called a happy nation, than either eminent or 
 famous ; for I do not think that they are known so much 
 as by name to any but their next neighbors. Those that 
 are found guilty of theft among them, are bound to make 
 restitution to the owner, and not as it is in other places, 
 to the prince, for they reckon that the prince has no more 
 right to the stolen goods than the thief ; but if that which 
 was stolen is no more in being, then the goods of the 
 thieves are estimated, and restitution being made out of 
 
144 UTOPIA 
 
 them ; the remainder is given to their wives and children; 
 and they themselves are condemned to serve in the pub- 
 lie works, but are neither imprisoned nor chained, unless 
 there happened to be some extraordinary circiftistances 
 in their crimes. They go about loose and free, working 
 for the public. If they are idle or backward to work, they 
 are whipped ; but if they work hard, they are well used 
 and treated without any mark of reproach, only the lists 
 of them are called always at night, and then they are 
 shut up. They suffer no other uneasiness, but this of 
 constant labor ; for as they work for the public, so they 
 are well entertained out of the public stock, which is done 
 differently in different places. In some places, whatever 
 is bestowed on them, is raised by a charitable contribu- 
 tion; and though this way may seem uncertain, yet so 
 merciful are the inclinations of that people, that they are 
 plentifully supplied by it ; but in other places, public rev- 
 enues are set aside for them; or there is a constant tax 
 of a poll-money raised for their maintenance. In some 
 places they are set to no public work, but every private 
 man that has occasion to hire workmen, goes to the 
 market-places and hires them of the public, a little lowei 
 than he would do a freeman: if they go lazily about their 
 task, he may quicken them with the whip. By this means 
 there is always some piece of work or other to be done 
 by them; and beside their livelihood, they earn somewhat 
 still to the public. They all wear a peculiar habit, of one 
 certain color, and their hair is cropped a little above their 
 ears, and a piece of one of their ears is cut off. Their 
 friends are allowed to give them either meat, drink, or 
 clothes, so they are of their proper color; but it is 
 death, both to the giver and taker, if they give them 
 money; nor is it less penal for any freeman to take money 
 from them, upon any account whatsoever: and it is also 
 death for any of these slaves (so they are called) to handle 
 arms. Those of every division of the country are dis- 
 tinguished by a peculiar mark; which it is capital for 
 them to lay aside, to go out of their bounds, or to talk 
 with a slave of another jurisdiction; and the very attempt 
 of an escape is no less penal than an escape itself; it is 
 death for any other slave to be accessory to it; and if a 
 
UTOPIA I4S 
 
 freeman engages in it he is condemned to slavery. Those 
 that discover it are rewarded ; if freemen, in money ; and 
 if slaves, with liberty, together with a pardon for being 
 accessory to it; that so they might find their account, 
 rather in repenting of their engaging in such a design, 
 than in persisting in it. 
 
 « These are their laws and rules in relation to robbery ; 
 and it is obvious that they are as advantageous as they 
 are mild and gentle ; since vice is not only destroyed, and 
 men preserved, but they are treated in such a manner as 
 to make them see the necessity of being honest, and of 
 employing the rest of their lives in repairing the injuries 
 they have formerly done to society. Nor is there any 
 hazard of their falling back to their old customs: and so 
 little do travelers apprehend mischief from them, that 
 they generally make use of them for guides, from one 
 iurisdiction to another; for there is nothing left them by 
 which they can rob, or be the better for it, since as they 
 are disarmed, so the very having of money is a sufficient 
 conviction: and as they are certainly punished if discov- 
 ered, so they cannot hope to escape ; for their habit being 
 in all the parts of it different from what is commonly 
 worn, they cannot fly away, unless they would go naked, 
 and even then their cropped ear would betray them. 
 The only danger to be feared from them, is their con- 
 spiring against the Government : but those of one division 
 and neighborhood can do nothing to any purpose, unless 
 a general conspiracy were laid among all the slaves of 
 the several jurisdictions, which cannot be done, since 
 they cannot meet or talk together; nor will any venture 
 on a design where the concealment would be so danger- 
 ous, and the discovery so profitable. None are quite 
 hopeless of recovering their freedom, since by their 
 obedience and patience, and by giving good grounds to 
 believe that they will change their manner of life for 
 the future, they may expect at last to obtain their liberty; 
 and some are every year restored to it, upon the good 
 character that is given of them. When I had related all 
 this, I added, that I did not see why such a method 
 might not be followed with more advantage, than could 
 ever be expected from that severe justice which the 
 
146 UTOPIA 
 
 counselor magnified so much. To this lie answered, that 
 it could never take place in England, without endanger- 
 ing the whole nation. As he said this, he ^ook his 
 head, made some grimaces, and held his peace, while all 
 the company seemed of his opinion, except the Cardinal, 
 who said that it was not easy to form a judgment of its 
 success, since it was a method that never yet had been 
 tried. * But if, * said he, * when the sentence of death 
 was passed upon a thief, the prince would reprieve him 
 for a while, and make the experiment upon him, denying 
 him the privilege of a sanctuary; and then if it had a 
 good effect upon him, it might take place ; and if it did 
 not succeed, the worst would be to execute the sentence 
 on the condemned persons at last. And I do not see,' 
 added he, 'why it would be either unjust. Inconvenient, 
 or at all dangerous, to admit of such a delay: in my 
 opinion, the vagabonds ought to be treated in the same 
 manner; against whom, though we have made many laws, 
 yet we have not been able to gain our end. * When the 
 Cardinal had done, they all commended the motion, 
 though they had despised it when it came from me ; but 
 more particularly commended what related to the vaga- 
 bonds, because it was his own observation. 
 
 " I do not know whether it be worth while to tell what 
 followed, for it was very ridiculous ; but I shall venture at 
 it, for as it is not foreign to this matter, so some good 
 use may be made of it. There was a jester standing by, 
 that counterfeited the fool so naturally, that he seemed 
 to be really one. The jests which he offered were so 
 cold and dull, that we laughed more at him than at them ; 
 yet sometimes he said, as it were by chance, things that 
 were not unpleasant; so as to justify the old proverb, 
 * That he who throws the dice often, will sometimes have 
 a lucky hit.* When one of the company had said, that 
 I had taken care of the thieves, and the Cardinal had 
 taken care of the vagabonds, so that there remained 
 nothing but that some public provision might be made 
 for the poor, whom sickness or old age had disabled 
 from labor. ' Leave that to me, * said the fool, <and I 
 shall take care of them; for there is no sort of people 
 whose sight I abhor more, having been so often vexed 
 
UTOPIA 147 
 
 with them, and with their sad complaints; but as dole- 
 fully soever as they have told their tale, they could never 
 prevail so far as to draw one penny from me : for either 
 I had no mind to give them anything, or when I had a 
 mind to do it, I had nothing to give them : and they now 
 know me so well, that they will not lose their labor, but 
 let me pass without giving me any trouble, because they 
 hope for nothing, no more, in faith, than if I were a 
 priest: but I would have a law made, for sending all 
 these beggars to monasteries, the men to the Benedictines 
 to be made lay -brothers, and the women to be nuns.' 
 The Cardinal smiled, and approved of it in jest; but the 
 rest liked it in earnest. There was a divine present, who 
 though he was a grave, morose man, yet he was so 
 pleased with this reflection that was made on the priests 
 and the monks, that he began to play with the fool, and 
 said to him, * This will not deliver you from all beggars, 
 except you take care of us friars.' * That is done already,* 
 answered the fool, *for the Cardinal has provided for you, 
 by what he proposed for restraining vagabonds, and set- 
 ting them to work, for I know no vagabonds like you.* 
 This was well entertained by the whole company, who 
 looking at the Cardinal, perceived that he wa not ill- 
 pleased at it; only the friar himself was vexed, as m*y 
 be easily imagined, and fell into such a passion, that he 
 could not forbear railing at the fool, and calling him 
 knave, slanderer, backbiter, and son of perdition, and 
 then cited some dreadful threatenings out of the Script- 
 ures against him. Now the jester thought he was in his 
 element, and laid about him freely. 'Good friar,* said 
 he, < be not angry, for it is written, « In patience pos- 
 sess your soul.'** The friar answered (for I shall give 
 you his own words), *I am not angry, you hangman; at 
 least I do not sin in it, for the Psalmist says, " Be ye 
 angry, and sin not. " * Upon this the Cardinal admonished 
 him gently, and wished him to govern his passions. *No, 
 my lord,* said he, *I speak not but from a good zeal, 
 which I ought to have; for holy men have had a good 
 zeal, as it is said, *' The zeal of thy house hath eaten me 
 up ; " and we sing in our church, that those who mocked 
 Elisha as he went up to the house of God, felt the effects 
 
148 UTOPIA 
 
 of his zeal; which that mocker, that rogue, that scoun- 
 drel, will perhaps feel.* 'You do this perhaps with a 
 good intention,' said the Cardinal; 'but in my opinion, 
 it were wiser in you, and perhaps better for you, not to 
 engage in so ridiculous a contest with a fool. ' * No, my 
 lord, ' answered he, ' that were not wisely done ; for Sol- 
 omon, the wisest of men, said, " Answer a fool accord- 
 ing to his folly ; " which I now do, and show him the 
 ditch into which he will fall, if he is not aware of it; 
 for if the many mockers of Elisha, who was but one bald 
 man, felt the effect of his zeal, what will become of one 
 mocker of so many friars, among whom there are so 
 many bald men ? We have likewise a Bull, by which all 
 that jeer us are excommunicated.* When the Cardinal 
 saw that there was no end of this matter, he made a 
 sign to the fool to withdraw, turned the discourse another 
 way; and soon after rose from the table, and dismissing 
 us, went to hear causes. 
 
 "Thus, Mr. More, I have run out into a tedious story, 
 of the length of which I had been ashamed, if, as you 
 earnestly begged it of me, I had not observed you to 
 hearken to it, as if you had no mind to lose any part of 
 it. I might have contracted it, but I resolved to give it 
 you at large, that you might observe how those that 
 despised what I had proposed, no sooner perceived that 
 the Cardinal did not dislike it, but presently approved of 
 it, fawned so on him, and flattered him to such a degree, 
 that they in good earnest applauded those things that he 
 only liked in jest. And from hence you may gather, how 
 little courtiers would value either me or my counsels." 
 
 To this I answered, « You have done me a great kind- 
 ness in this relation; for as everything has been related 
 by you, both wisely and pleasantly, so you have made me 
 imagine that I was in my own country, and grown young 
 again, by recalling that good Cardinal to my thoughts, in 
 whose family I was bred from my childhood: and though 
 you are upon other accounts very dear to me, yet you 
 are the dearer, because you honor his memory so much ; 
 but after all this I cannot change my opinion; for I still 
 think that if you could overcome that aversion which you 
 have to the Courts of Princes, you might, by the advice 
 
UTOPIA 149 
 
 which it is in your power to give, do a great deal of good 
 to mankind; and this is the chief design that every good 
 man ought to propose to himself in living : for your friend 
 Plato thinks that nations will be happy, when either phi- 
 losophers become kings, or kings become philosophers; 
 it is no wonder if we are so far from that happiness, 
 while philosophers will not think it their duty to assist 
 kings with their councils. » "They are not so base- 
 minded," said he, "but that they would willingly do it: 
 many of them have already done it by their books, if 
 those that are in power would but hearken to their good 
 advice. But Plato judged right, that except kings them- 
 selves became philosophers, they who from their child- 
 hood are corrupted with false notions, would never fall 
 in entirely with the councils of philosophers, and this he 
 himself found to be true in the person of Dionysius. 
 
 " Do not you think, that if I were about any king, pro- 
 posing good laws to him, and endeavoring to root out all 
 the cursed seeds of evil that I found in him, I should 
 either be turned out of his Court, or at least be laughed at 
 for my pains ? For instance, what could it signify if I 
 Hrere about the King of France, and were called into his 
 cabinet-council, where several wise men, in his hearing, 
 were proposing many expedients; as by what arts and 
 practices Milan may be kept; and Naples, that had so 
 oft slipped out of their hands, recovered ; how the Vene- 
 tians, and after them the rest of Italy, may be subdued ; 
 and then how Flanders, Brabant, and all Burgundy, and 
 some other kingdoms which he has swallowed already in 
 his designs, may be added to his empire. One proposes 
 a league with the Venetians, to be kept as long as he 
 finds his account in it, and that he ought to communicate 
 councils with them, and give them some share of the spoil, 
 till his success makes him need or fear them less, and 
 then it will be easily taken out of their hands. Another 
 proposes the hiring the Germans, and the securing the 
 Switzers by pension. Another proposes the gaining the 
 Emperor by money, which is omnipotent with him. An- 
 other proposes a peace with the King of Aragon, and in 
 order to cement it, the yielding up the King of Navarre's 
 pretensions. Another thinks the Prince of Castile is to 
 
ISO UTOPIA 
 
 be wrought on, by the hope of an alliance, and that some 
 of his courtiers are to be gained to the French faction by 
 pensions. The hardest point of all is what to do with Eng- 
 land : a treaty of peace is to be set on foot, and if meir alli- 
 ance is not to be depended on, yet it is to be made as 
 firm as possible; and they are to be called friends, but 
 suspected as enemies; therefore the Scots are to be kept 
 in readiness, to be let loose upon England on every occa- 
 sion; and some banished nobleman is to be supported 
 underhand (for by the league it cannot be done avowedly) 
 who has a pretension to the crown, by which means that 
 suspected prince may be kept in awe. Now when things 
 are in so great a fermentation, and so many gallant men 
 are joining councils, how to carry on the war, if so mean 
 a man as I should stand up and wish them to change 
 all their councils, to let Italy alone, and stay at home, 
 since the kingdom of France was indeed greater than 
 could be well governed by one man; that therefore he 
 ought not to think of adding others to it: and if after 
 this, I should propose to them the resolutions of the 
 Achorians, a people that lie on the southeast of Utopia, 
 who long ago engaged in war, in order to add to the 
 dominions of their prince another kingdom, to which he 
 had some pretensions by an ancient alliance. This they 
 conquered, but found that the trouble of keeping it was 
 equal to that by which it was gained; that the conquered 
 people were always either in rebellion or exposed to for- 
 eign invasions, while they were obliged to be incessantly 
 at war, either for or against them, and consequently 
 could never disband their army; that in the meantime 
 they were oppressed with taxes, their money went out of 
 the kingdom, their blood was spilt for the glory of their 
 king, without procuring the least advantage to the people, 
 who received not the smallest benefit from it even in 
 time of peace ; and that their manners being corrupted by 
 a long war, robbery and murders everywhere abounded, 
 and their laws fell into contempt; while their king, dis- 
 tracted with the care of two kingdoms, was the less able 
 to apply his mind to the interests of either. When they 
 saw this, and that there would be no end to these evils, 
 they by joint councils made an humble address to their 
 
UTOPIA 151 
 
 king, desiring him to choose which of the two kingdoms 
 he had the greatest mind to keep, since he could not 
 hold both; for they were too great a people to be gov- 
 erned by a divided king, since no man would willingly 
 have a groom that should be in common between him and 
 another. Upon which the good prince was forced to quit 
 his new kingdom to one of his friends (who was not long 
 after dethroned), and to be contented with his old one. 
 To this I would add, that after all those warlike attempts, 
 the vast confusions, and the consumption both of treas- 
 ure and of people that must follow them ; perhaps upon 
 some misfortune, they might be forced to throw up all 
 at last; therefore it seemed much more eligible that the 
 king should improve his ancient kingdom all he could, 
 and make it flourish as much as possible ; that he should 
 love his people, and be beloved of them ; that he should 
 live among them, govern them gently, and let other 
 kingdoms alone, since that which had fallen to his share 
 Was big enough, if not too big for him. Pray how do 
 you think would such a speech as this be heard?" ''I 
 confess," said I, "I think not very well. " 
 
 *But what," said he, "if I should sort with another 
 kind of ministers, whose chief contrivances and consul- 
 tations were, by what art the prince's treasures might be 
 increased. Where one proposes raising the value of 
 specie when the king's debts are large, and lowering it 
 when his revenues were to come in, that so he might 
 both pay much with a little, and in a little receive a 
 great deal ; another proposes a pretense of a war, that 
 money might be raised in order to carry it on, and that 
 a peace be concluded as soon as that was dSne ; and this 
 with such appearances of religion as might work on the 
 people, and make them impute it to the piety of their 
 prince, and to his tehdemess for the lives of his sub- 
 jects. A third offers some old musty laws, that have 
 been antiquated by a long disuse ; and which, as they had 
 been forgotten by all the subjects, so they had been also 
 broken by them; and proposes the levying the penalties 
 of these laws, that as it would bring in a vast treasure, 
 so there might be a very good pretense for it, since it 
 would look like the executing a law, and the doing of 
 
152 UTOPIA 
 
 justice. A fourth proposes the prohibiting of many things 
 under severe penalties, especially such as were against 
 the interest of the people, and then the dispensing with 
 these prohibitions upon great compositions, to those who 
 might find their advantage in breaking them. This would 
 serve two ends, both of them acceptable to many; for as 
 those whose avarice led them to transgress would be se- 
 verely fined, so the selling licenses dear would look as if 
 a prince were tender of his people, and would not easily, 
 or at low rates, dispense with anything that might be 
 against the public good. Another proposes that the judges 
 must be made sure, that they may declare always in 
 favor of the prerogative, that they must be often sent for 
 to Court, that the king may hear them argue those points 
 in which he is concerned; since how unjust soever any 
 of his pretensions may be, yet still some one ot other 
 of them, either out of contradiction to others, or the 
 pride of singularity, or to make their court, would find 
 out some pretense or other to give the king a fair coloi 
 to carry the point : for if the judges but differ in opinion, 
 the clearest thing in the world is made by that means 
 disputable, and truth being once brought in question, the 
 king may then take advantage to expound the law for 
 his own profit; while the judges that stand out will be 
 brought over, either out of fear or modesty; and they 
 being thus gained, all of them may be sent to the bench 
 to give sentence boldly, as the king would have it; for 
 fair pretenses will never be wanting when sentence is to 
 be given in the prince's favor. It will either be said 
 that equity lies of his side, or some words in the law 
 will be found sounding that way, or some forced sense 
 will be put on them; and when all other things fail, the 
 king's undoubted prerogative will be pretended, as that 
 which is above all law; and to which a religious judge 
 ought to have a special regard. Thus all consent to that 
 maxim of Crassus, that a prince cannot have treasure 
 enough, since he must maintain his armies out of it : that 
 a king, even though he would, can do nothing unjustly; 
 that all property is in him, not excepting the very per- 
 sons of his subjects: and that no man has any other 
 property, but that which the king out of his goodness 
 
UTOPIA 153 
 
 thinks fit to leave him. And they think it is the prince's 
 interest, that there be as little of this left as may be, as if 
 it were his advantage that his people should have neither 
 riches nor liberty; since these things make them less 
 easy and less willing to submit to a cruel and unjust 
 government ; whereas necessity and poverty blunts them, 
 makes them patient, beats them down, and breaks 
 that height of spirit, that might otherwise dispose 
 them to rebel. Now what if after all these propositions 
 were made, I should rise up and assert, that such councils 
 were both unbecoming a king, and mischievous to him: 
 and that not only his honor but his safety consisted more 
 in his people's wealth, than in his own; if I should show 
 that they choose a king for their own sake, and not for 
 his; that by his care and endeavors they may be both 
 easy and safe; and that therefore a prince ought to take 
 more care of his people's happiness than of his own, as 
 a shepherd is to take more care of his flock than of himself 
 It is also certain, that they are much mistaken that think 
 that the poverty of a nation is a means of the public 
 safety. Who quarrel more than beggars ? Who does 
 more earnestly long for a change, than he that is uneasy 
 in his present circumstances ? And who run to create 
 confusions with so desperate a boldness, as those who 
 have nothing to lose, hope to gain by them ? If a king 
 should fall under such contempt or envy, that he could 
 not keep his subjects in their duty, but by oppression 
 and ill usage, and by rendering them poor and miserable, 
 it were certainly better for him to quit his kingdom, 
 than to retain it by such methods, as makes him while 
 he keeps the name of authority, lose the majesty due to 
 it. Nor is it so becoming the dignity of a king to reign 
 over beggars, as over rich and happy subjects. And 
 therefore Fabricius, a man of a noble and exalted temper, 
 said, he would rather govern rich men, than be rich 
 himself; since for one man to abound in wealth and 
 pleasure, when all about him are mourning and groan- 
 ing, is to be a gaoler and not a king. He is an unskill- 
 ful physician, that cannot cure one disease without 
 casting his patient into another: so he that can iind no 
 other way for correcting the errors of his people, but by 
 
154 UTOPIA 
 
 taking from them the conveniences of life, shows that he 
 knows not what it is to govern a free nation. He him- 
 self ought rather to shake off his sloth, or to lay down 
 his pride ; for the contempt or hatred thar his people 
 have for him, takes its rise from the vices in himself. 
 Let him live upon what belongs to him, without wrong- 
 ing others, and accommodate his expense to his revenue. 
 Let him punish crimes, and by his wise conduct let him 
 endeavor to prevent them, rather than be severe when 
 he has suffered them to be too common: let him not 
 rashly revive laws that are abrogated by disuse, especially 
 if they have been long forgotten, and never wanted; and 
 let him never take any penalty for the breach of them, 
 to which a judge would not give way in a private man, 
 but would look on him as a crafty and unjust person for 
 pretending to it. To these things I would add, that law 
 among the Macarians, a people that lie not far from Utopia, 
 by which their king, on the day on which he begins to 
 reign, is tied by an oath confirmed by solemn sacrifices, 
 never to have at once above a thousand pounds of gold 
 in his treasures, or so much silver as is equal to that in 
 value. This law, they tell us, was made by an excellent 
 king, who had more regard to the riches of his country 
 than to his own wealth; and therefore provided against 
 the heaping up of so much treasure, as might impoverish 
 the people. He thought that moderate sum might be 
 sufficient for any accident ; if either the king had occasion 
 for it against rebels, or the kingdom against the invasion 
 of an enemy; but that it was not enough to encourage 
 a prince to invade other men's rights, a circumstance 
 that was the chief cause of his making that law. He 
 also thought that it was a good provision for that free 
 circulation of money, so necessary for the course of 
 commerce and exchange ; and when a king must distribute 
 all those extraordinary accessions that increase treasure 
 beyond the due pitch, it makes him less disposed to 
 oppress his subjects. Such a king as this will be the 
 terror of ill men, and will be beloved by all the good. 
 « If, I say, I should talk of these or such like things, 
 to men that had taken their bias another way, how deaf 
 would they be to all I could say?** *<No doubt, very 
 
UTOPIA 155 
 
 deaf, * answered I ; and no wonder, for one is never to offer 
 at propositions or advice that we are certain will not be 
 entertained. Discourses so much out of the road could 
 not avail anything, nor have any effect on men whose 
 minds were prepossessed with different sentiments. This 
 philosophical way of speculation is not unpleasant among 
 friends in a free conversation, but there is no room for 
 it in the Courts of Princes where great affairs are car- 
 ried on by authority. » « That is what I was saying, » 
 replied he, "that there is no room for philosophy in the 
 Courts of Princes. » « Yes, there is, » said I, « but not 
 for this speculative philosophy that makes everything to 
 be alike fitting at all times: but there is another philos- 
 ophy that is more pliable, that knows its proper scene, 
 accommodates itself to it, and teaches a man with pro- 
 propriety and decency to act that part which has fallen 
 to his share. If when one of Plautus's comedies is upon 
 the stage and a company of servants are acting their 
 parts, you should come out in the garb of a philosopher, 
 and repeat out of * Octavia's discourse of Seneca's to Nero,' 
 would it not be better for you to say nothing than by 
 mixing things of such different natures to make an im- 
 pertinent tragi-comedy ? For you spoil and corrupt the 
 play that is in hand when you mix with it things of an 
 opposite nature, even though they are much better. 
 Therefore go through with the play that is acting the 
 best you can, and do not confound it because another 
 that is pleasanter comes into your thoughts. It is even 
 so in a commonwealth, and in the councils of princes ; if 
 ill opinions cannot be quite rooted out, and you cannot 
 cure some received vice according to your wishes, you 
 must not therefore abandon the commonwealth, for the 
 same reasons you should not forsake the ship in a storm 
 because you cannot command the winds. You are 
 not obliged to assault people with discourses that 
 are out of their road, when you see that their received 
 notions must prevent your making an impression upon them. 
 You ought rather to cast about and to manage things with 
 all the dexterity in your power, so that if you are not 
 able to make them go well they may be as little ill as 
 possible ; for except all men were good everything cannot 
 
156 UTOPIA 
 
 be right and that is a blessing that I do not at present 
 hope to see. According to your arguments," answered 
 he, " all that I could be able to do would b^ to preserve 
 myself from being mad while I endeavored to cure the 
 madness of others; for if I speak truth, I must repeat 
 what I have said to you; and as for lying, whether a 
 philosopher can do it or not, I cannot tell, I am sure I 
 cannot do it. But though these discourses may be un- 
 easy and ungrateful to them, I do not see why they 
 should seem foolish or extravagant: indeed if I should 
 either propose such things as Plato has contrived in his 
 commonwealth, or as the Utopians practice in theirs, 
 though they might seem better, as certainly they are, 
 yet they are so different from our establishment, which 
 is founded on property, there being no such thing among 
 them, that I could not expect that it would have any- 
 effect on them; but such discourses as mine, which only 
 call past evils to mind and give warning of what may 
 follow, have nothing in them that is so absurd that they 
 may not be used at any time, for they can only be un- 
 pleasant to those who are resolved to run headlong the 
 contrary way; and if we must let alone everything as 
 absurd or extravagant which by reason of the wicked 
 lives of many may seem uncouth, we must, even among 
 Christians, give over pressing the greatest part of those 
 things that Christ hath taught us, though he has com- 
 manded us not to conceal them, but to proclaim on the 
 house-tops that which he taught in secret. The greatest 
 parts of his precepts are more opposite to the lives of 
 the men of this age than any part of my discourse has 
 been; but the preachers seemed to have learned that 
 craft to which you advise me, for they, observing that the 
 world would not willingly suit their lives to the rules 
 that Christ has given, have fitted his doctrine as if it 
 had been a leaden rule, to their lives, that so some way 
 or other they might agree with one another. But I see 
 no other effect of this compliance except it be that men 
 become more secure in their wickedness by it. And this 
 is all the success that I can have in a Court, for I must 
 always differ from the rest, and then I shall signify 
 nothing; or if I agree with them, I shall then only help 
 
UTOPIA 157 
 
 forward their madness. I do not comprehend what you 
 mean by your casting about, or by the bending and hand- 
 ling things so dexterously, that if they go not well they 
 may go as little ill as may be; for in Courts they will 
 not bear with a man's holding his peace or conniving at 
 what others do. A man must barefacedly approve of the 
 worst counsels, and consent to the blackest designs: so 
 that he would pass for a spy, or possibly for a traitor, 
 that did but coldly approve of such wicked practices ; and 
 therefore when a man is engaged in such a society, he 
 will be so far from being able to mend matters by his 
 casting about, as you call it, that he will find no occasions 
 of doing any good: the ill company will sooner corrupt 
 him, than be the better for him: or if notwithstanding 
 all their ill company, he still remains steady and innocent, 
 yet their follies and knavery will be imputed to him ; and 
 by mixing counsels with them, he must bear his share 
 of all the blame that belongs wholly to others. 
 
 " It was no ill simile by which Plato set forth the un- 
 reasonableness of a philosopher's meddling with govern- 
 ment. If a man, says he, was to see a great company 
 run out every day into the rain, and take delight in being 
 wet; if he knew that it would be to no purpose for him 
 to go and persuade them to return to their houses, in 
 order to avoid the storm, and that all that could be ex- 
 pected by his going to speak to them would be that he 
 himself should be as wet as they, it would be best for 
 him to keep within doors ; and since he had not influence 
 enough to correct other people's folly, to take care to 
 preserve himself. 
 
 "Though to speak plainly my real sentiments, I must 
 freely own, 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 hap- 
 pily: 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. Therefore, when I reflect on the wise and 
 good constitution of the Utopians, among whom all things 
 are so well governed, and with so few laws ; where virtue 
 
iS8 UTOPIA 
 
 hath its due reward, and yet there is such an equality, 
 that every man lives in plenty ; when I compare with 
 them so many other nations that are still making new 
 laws, and yet can never bring their consntution to a 
 right regulation, where, notwithstanding, every one has his 
 property ; yet all the laws that they can invent have not 
 the power either to obtain or preserve it, or even to enable 
 men certainly to distinguish what is their own from what 
 is another's ; of which the many lawsuits that every day 
 break out and are eternally depending, give too plain a 
 demonstration ; when, I say, I balance all these things in 
 my thoughts, I grow more favorable to Plato, and do not 
 V\^onder that he resolved not to make any laws for such as 
 would not submit to a community of all things : for so wise 
 a man could not but foresee that the setting all upon a level 
 was the only way to make a nation happy, which cannot be 
 obtained so long as there is property : for when every man 
 draws to himself all that he can compass, by one title or 
 another, it must needs follow, that how plentiful soever a 
 nation may be, yet a few dividing the wealth of it among 
 themselves, the rest must fall into indigence. So that 
 there will be two sorts of people among them, who de- 
 serve that their fortunes should be interchanged; the 
 former useless, but wicked and ravenous; and the latter, 
 who by their constant industry serve the public more than 
 themselves, sincere and modest men. From whence I am 
 persuaded, that till property is taken away there can be no 
 equitable or just distribution of things, nor can the world 
 be happily governed: for as long as that is maintained, 
 the greatest and the far best part of mankind will be still 
 oppressed with a load of cares and anxieties. I confess 
 without taking it quite away, those pressures that lie on a 
 great part of mankind may be made lighter ; but they can 
 never be quite removed. For if laws were made to de- 
 termine at how great an extent in soil and at how much 
 money every man must stop, to limit the prince that he 
 might not grow too great, and to restrain the people that 
 they might not become too insolent, and that none might 
 factiously aspire to public employments; which ought 
 neither to be sold, nor made burdensome by a great ex- 
 J)ense ; since otherwise those that serve in them would be 
 
UTOPIA 159 
 
 tempted to reimburse themselves by cheats and violence, 
 and it would become necessary to find out rich men for 
 undergoing those employments which ought rather to be 
 trusted to the wise. These laws, I say, might have 
 such effects, as good diet and care might have on a 
 sick man, whose recovery is desperate: they might 
 allay and mitigate the disease, but it could never be 
 quite healed, nor the body politic be brought again to 
 a good habit, as long as property remains; and it will 
 fall out as in a complication of diseases, that by ap- 
 pl3dng a remedy to one sore, you will provoke another; 
 and that which removes the one ill symptom produces 
 others, while the strengthening one part of the body 
 weakens the rest." "On the contrary," answered I, "it 
 seems to me that men cannot live conveniently, where all 
 things are common; how can there be any plenty, where 
 every man will excuse himself from labor ? For as the 
 hope of gain doth not excite him, so the confidence that he 
 has in other men's industry may make him slothful; if 
 people come to be pinched with want, and yet cannot dis- 
 pose of anything as their own ; what can follow upon this 
 but perpetual sedition- and bloodshed, especially when the 
 reverence and authority due to magistrates falls to the 
 ground ? For I cannot imagine how that can be kept up 
 among those that are in all things equal to one another. " 
 "I do not wonder," said he, "that it appears so to you, 
 since you have no notion, or at least no right one, of 
 such a constitution; but if you had been in Utopia with 
 me, and had seen their laws and rules, as I did, for the 
 space of five years, in which I lived among them; and 
 during which time I was so delighted with them, that 
 indeed I should never have left them, if it had not been 
 to make the discovery of that new world to the Euro- 
 peans; you would then confess that you had never seen 
 a people so well constituted as they." "You will not 
 easily persuade me," said Peter, "that any nation in that 
 new world is better governed than \ those among us. For 
 as our understandings are not worse than theirs, so our 
 government, if I mistake not, being more ancient, a long 
 practice has helped us to find out many conveniences of 
 life- and some happy chances have discovered other 
 
i6o UTOPIA 
 
 things to us, which no man's understanding could ever 
 have invented." "As for the antiquity, either of their 
 government, or of ours," said he, "you canno^ass a true 
 judgment of it, unless you had read their histories; for 
 if they are to be believed, they had towns among them 
 before these parts were so much as inhabited. And as 
 for those discoveries, that have been either hit on by 
 chance, or made by ingenious men, these might have 
 happened there as well as here. I do not deny but we 
 are more ingenious than they are, but they exceed us 
 much in industry and application. They knew little con- 
 cerning us before our arrival among them; they call us 
 all by the general name of the nations that lie beyond 
 the Equinoctial Line ; for their Chronicle mentions a ship- 
 wreck that was made on their coast 1,200 years ago; and 
 that some Romans and Egyptians that were in the ship, 
 getting safe ashore, spent the rest of their days among 
 them; and such was their ingenuity, that from this sin- 
 gle opportunity they drew the advantage of learning from 
 those unlooked-for guests, and acquired all the useful 
 arts that were then among the Romans, and which were 
 known to these shipwrecked men; and by the hints that 
 they gave them, they themselves found out even some of 
 those arts which they Rould not fully explain ; so happily 
 did they improve that accident of having some of our 
 people cast upon their ?hore. But if such an accident 
 has at any time brought any from thence into Europe, 
 we have been so far from improving it, that we do not 
 so much as remember it ; as in after-times perhaps it will 
 be forgot by our people th^t I was ever there. For 
 though they from one such accident made themselves 
 masters of all the good inventions that were among us; 
 yet I believe it would be long before we should learn or 
 put in practice any of the good institutions that are 
 among them. And this is the true cause of their being 
 better governed, and living happier than we, though we 
 come not short of them in point of understanding or out- 
 ward advantages." Upon this I said to him, «I earnestly 
 beg you would describe that island very particularly to 
 us. Be not too short, but set out in order all things 
 relating to their soil, their rivers, their towns, their peo- 
 
UTOPIA i6i 
 
 pie, their manners, constitution, laws, and, in a word, 
 all that you imagine we desire to know. And you may 
 well imagine that we desire to know everything concern- 
 ing them, of which we are hitherto ignorant." "I will 
 do it very willingly," said he, "for I have digested the 
 whole matter carefully; but it will take up some time." 
 " Let us go then, " said I, " first and dine, and then we 
 shall have leisure enough." He consented. We went in 
 and dined, and after dinner came back, and sat down in 
 the same place. I ordered my servants to take care that 
 none might come and interrupt us. And both Peter and 
 I desired Raphael to be as good as his word. When he 
 saw that we were very intent upon it, he paused a little 
 to recollect himself, and began in this manner. 
 II 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 The island of Utopia is in the middle two hundred 
 miles broad, and holds almost at the same breadth over 
 a great part of it; but it grows narrower toward both 
 ends. Its figure is not unlike a crescent: between its 
 horns, the sea comes in eleven miles broad, and spreads 
 itself into a great bay, which is environed with land to 
 the compass of about five hundred miles, and is well 
 secured from winds. In this bay there is no great cur- 
 rent, the whole coast is, as it were, one continued harbor, 
 which gives all that live in the island great convenience 
 for mutual commerce; but the entry into the bay, oc- 
 casioned by rocks on the one hand, and shallows on the 
 other, is very dangerous. In the middle of it there is 
 one single rock which appears above water, and may 
 therefore be easily avoided, and on the top of it there is 
 a tower in which a garrison is kept, the other rocks lie 
 under water, and are very dangerous. The channel is 
 known only to the natives, so that if any stranger should 
 enter into the bay, without one of their pilots, he would 
 run great danger of shipwreck ; for even they themselves 
 could not pass it safe, if some marks that are on the 
 coast did not direct their way; and if these should be 
 but a little shifted, any fleet that might come against 
 them, how great soever it were, would be certainly lost. 
 On the other side of the island there are likewise many 
 harbors ; and the coast is so fortified, both by nature and 
 art, that a small number of men can hinder the descent 
 of a great army. But they report (and there remains 
 good marks of it to make it credible) that this was no 
 island at first, but a part of the continent. Utopus that 
 conquered it ( whose name it still carries, for Abraxa was 
 its first name) brought the rude and uncivilized inhab- 
 itants into such a good government, and to that measure 
 of politeness, that they now far excel all the rest of man- 
 kind; having soon subdued them, he designed to separate 
 
 (163) 
 
UTOPIA 163 
 
 them from the continent, and to bring the sea quite 
 round them. To accomplish this, he ordered a deep 
 channel to be dug fifteen miles long ; and that the natives 
 might not think he treated them like slaves, he not only 
 forced the inhabitants, but also his own soldiers, to labor 
 in carrying it on. As he set a vast number of men to 
 work, he beyond all men's expectations brought it to a 
 speedy conclusion. And his neighbors, who at first 
 laughed at the folly of the undertaking, no sooner saw 
 it brought to perfection, than they were struck with ad- 
 miration and terror. 
 
 There are fifty-four cities in the island, all large and 
 well built: the manners, customs, and laws of which are 
 the same, and they are all contrived as near in the same 
 manner as the ground on which they stand will allow. 
 The nearest lie at least twenty-four miles distant from 
 one another, and the most remote are not so far distant, 
 but that a man can go on foot in one day from it, to 
 that which lies next it. Every city sends three of their 
 wisest senators once a year to Amaurot, to consult about 
 their common concerns; for that is the chief town of the 
 island, being situated near the centre of it, so that it is 
 the most convenient place for their assemblies. The 
 jurisdiction of every city extends at least twenty miles: 
 and where the towns lie wider, they have much more 
 ground : no town desires to enlarge its bounds, for the peo- 
 ple consider themselves rather as tenants than landlords. 
 They have built over all the country, farmhouses for 
 husbandmen, which are well contrived, and are furnished 
 with all things necessary for country labor. Inhabitants 
 are sent by turns from the cities to dwell in them; no 
 country family has fewer than forty men and women in 
 it, besides two slaves. There is a master and a mistress 
 set over every family ; and over thirty families there is a 
 magistrate. Every year twenty of this family come back 
 to the town, after they have stayed two years in the 
 country; and in their room there are other twenty sent 
 from the town, that they may learn country work from 
 those that have been already one year in the country, 
 as they must teach those that come to them the next 
 from the town. By this means such as dwell in those 
 
i64 UTOPIA 
 
 country farms are never ignorant of agriculture, and so 
 commit no errors, which might otherwise be fatal, and 
 bring them under a scarcity of corn. But though there 
 is every year such a shifting of the husbandmen, to 
 prevent any man being forced against his will to follow 
 that hard course of life too long; yet many among them 
 take such pleasure in it, that they desire leave to con- 
 tinue in it many years. These husbandmen till the 
 ground, breed cattle, hew wood, and convey it to the 
 towns, either by land or water, as is most convenient. 
 They breed an infinite multitude of chickens in a. very 
 curious manner ; for the hens do not sit and hatch them, 
 but vast number of eggs are laid in a gentle and equal 
 heat, in order to be hatched, and they are no sooner out 
 of the shell, and able to stir about, but they seem to 
 consider those that feed them as their mothers, and 
 follow them as other chickens do the hen that hatched 
 them. They breed very few horses, but those they have 
 are full of mettle, and are kept only for exercising their 
 youth in the art of sitting and riding them ; for they do 
 not put them to any work, either of plowing or carriage, 
 in which they employ oxen; for though their horses are 
 stronger, yet they find oxen can hold out longer; and as 
 they are not subject to so many diseases, so they are 
 kept upon a less charge, and with less trouble ; and even 
 when they are so worn out, that they are no more fit for 
 labor, they are good meat at last. They sow no corn, 
 but that which is to be their bread; for they drink 
 either wine, cider, or perry, and often water, sometimes 
 boiled with honey or licorice, with which they abound; 
 and though they know exactly how much corn will serve 
 every town, and all that tract of country which belongs 
 to it, yet they sow much more, and breed more cattle 
 than are necessary for their consumption; and they give 
 that overplus of which they make no use to their neigh- 
 bors. When they want anjrthing in the country which 
 it does not produce, they fetch that from the town, 
 without carrying anything in exchange for it. And the 
 magistrates of the town take care to see it given them ; 
 for they meet generally in the town once a month, upon 
 a festival day. When the time of harvest comes, the 
 
UTOPIA i6s 
 
 magistrates in the country send to those in the towns, and 
 let them know how many hands they will need for reap- 
 ing the harvest ; and the number they call for being sent 
 to them, they commonly dispatch it all in one day. 
 
 Of Their Towns, Particularly of Amaurot. Y 
 
 He that knows one of their towns, knows them all, 
 they are so like one another, except where the situation 
 makes some difference. I shall therefore describe one of 
 them; and none is so proper as Amaurot; for as none is 
 more eminent, all the rest yielding in precedence to this, 
 because it is the seat of their supreme council; so there 
 was none of them better known to me, I having lived 
 five years altogether in it. 
 
 It lies upon the side of a hill, or rather a rising ground : 
 its figure is almost square, for from the one side of it, 
 which shoots up almost to the top of the hill, it runs 
 down in a descent for two miles to the river Anider ; but 
 it is a little broader the other way that runs along the 
 bank of that river. The Anider rises about eighty miles 
 above Amaurot in a small spring at first; but other 
 brooks falling into it, of which two are more consider- 
 able than the rest. As it runs by Amaurot, it is grown 
 half a mile broad; but it still grows larger and larger, 
 till after sixty miles' course below it, it is lost in the 
 ocean, between the town and the sea, and for some miles 
 above the town, it ebbs and flows every six hours, with 
 a strong current. The tide comes up for about thirty 
 miles so full, that there is nothing but salt water in the 
 river, the fresh water being driven back with its force; 
 and above that, for some miles, the water is brackish; 
 but a little higher, as it* runs by the town, it is quite 
 fresh ; and when the tide ebbs, it continues fresh all along 
 to the sea. There is a bridge cast over the river, not of 
 timber, but of fair stone, consisting of many stately 
 arches; it lies at that part of the town which is farthest 
 from the sea, so that ships without any hindralnce lie all 
 along the side of the town. There is likewise another 
 river that runs by it, which though it is not great, yet it 
 runs pleasantly, for it rises out of the same hill on which 
 
1 66 UTOPIA 
 
 the town stands, and so runs down through it, and falls 
 into the Anider. The inhabitants have fortified the 
 fountain head of this river, which springs a li^e without 
 the towns ; that so if they should happen to be besieged, 
 the enemy might not be able to stop or divert the course 
 of the water, nor poison it; from thence it is carried in 
 earthen pipes to the lower streets; and for those places 
 of the town to which the water of that small river cannot 
 be conveyed, they have great cisterns for receiving the 
 rain water, which supplies the want of the other. The 
 town is compassed with a high and thick wall, in which 
 there are many towers and forts; there is also a broad 
 and deep dry ditch, set thick with thorns, cast round 
 three sides of the town, and the river is instead of a 
 ditch on the fourth side. The streets are very convenient 
 for all carriage, and are well sheltered from the winds. 
 Their buildings are good, and are so uniform, that a whole 
 side of a street looks like one house. The streets are 
 twenty feet broad; there lie gardens behind all their 
 houses; these are large but inclosed with buildings, that 
 on all hands face the streets; so that every house has 
 both a door to the street, and a back door to the garden. 
 Their doors have all two leaves, which, as they are easily 
 opened, so they shut of their own accord ; and there being 
 no property among them, every man may freely enter 
 into any house whatsoever. At every ten years' end they 
 shift their houses by lots. They cultivate their gardens 
 with great care, so that they have both vines, fruits, 
 herbs, and flowers in them; and all is so well ordered, 
 and so finely kept, that I never saw gardens anywhere 
 that were both so fruitful and so beautiful as theirs. And 
 this humor of ordering their gardens so well, is not only 
 kept up by the pleasure they find in it, but also by an 
 emulation between the inhabitants of the several streets, 
 who vie with each other; and there is indeed ■ nothing 
 belonging to the whole town that is both more useful 
 and more pleasant. So that he who founded the town, 
 seems to have taken care of nothing more than of their 
 gardens ; for they say, the whole scheme of the town was 
 designed at first by Utopus, but he left all that belonged 
 to the ornament and improvement of it, to be added by 
 
UTOPIA 167 
 
 those that should come after him, that being too much 
 ror one man to bring to perfection. Their records, that 
 contain the history of their town and state, are preserved 
 with an exact care, and run back 1,760 years. From 
 these it appears that their houses were at first low and 
 mean, like cottages, made of any sort of timber, and were 
 built with mud walls and thatched with straw. But now 
 their houses are three stories high; the fronts of them 
 are faced either with stone, plastering, or brick; and 
 between the facings of their walls they throw in their 
 rubbish. Their roofs are fiat, and on them they lay a 
 sort of plaster, which costs very little, and yet is so tem- 
 pered that it is not apt to take fire, and yet resists the 
 weather more than lead. They have great quantities of 
 glass among them, with which they glaze their windows. 
 They use also in their windows a thin linen cloth, that 
 is so oiled or gummed that it both keeps out the wind 
 and gives free admission to the light. 
 
 Of Their Magistrates. 
 
 Thirty families choose every year a magistrate, who 
 was anciently called the Syphogrant, but is now called 
 the Philarch; atd over every ten Syphogrants, with the 
 families subject to them, there is another magistrate, who 
 was anciently called the Tranibor, but of late the Arch- 
 philarch. All the Syphogrants, who are in number 200, 
 choose the Prince out of a list of four, who are named 
 by the people of the four divisions of the city; but they 
 take an oath before they proceed to an election, that they 
 will choose him whom they think most fit for the office. 
 They give their voices secretly so that it is not known for 
 witom every one givHs~his- suffrager- The Prince is for 
 life, unless he is removed upon suspicion" of soffle~design 
 to enslave the people. The TranfBors~afe new chosen 
 every year, but yet Ihey are for the most part continued. 
 All their other magistrates are only annual. The Trani- 
 'Sora meet every third day, and oftener if necessary, and 
 consult with the Prince, either concerning the affairs of 
 the state in general, or such private differences as may 
 arise sometimes among the people; though that falls out 
 
i68 UTOPIA 
 
 but seldom. There are always two Syphogrants called 
 into the council chamber, and these are changed every 
 day. It is a fundamental rule of their government, that 
 no conclusion can be made in anything that relates to the 
 public, till it has been first debated three' several days in 
 their council. It is death for any to meet and consult 
 concerning the state, unless it be either in their ordinary 
 council, or in the assembly of the whole body of the 
 people. 
 
 These things have been so provided among ihem,- that 
 the Pirince and the Tranibors may not conspire together 
 to change the government, and enslave the people ;~ and 
 therefore when anything of great importance is set on 
 foot, it is sent to the Syphogrants; who after they have 
 communicated it to the families that belong to their divi- 
 sions, and have considered it among themselves, make 
 report to the senate ; and upon great occasions, the matter 
 is referred to the council of the whole island. One rule 
 observed in their council, is, never to debate a thing on the 
 same day in which it is first proposed; for that is always 
 referred to the next meeting, that so men may not fasMy, 
 and in the heat of discourse, engage themselves too soon, 
 which might bias them so much, that instead of consulting 
 the good of the public, they might rather study to support 
 their first opinions, and by a perverse and preposterous 
 sort of shame, hazard their country rather than endanger 
 their own reputation, or venture the being suspected to 
 have wanted foresight in the expedients that they at first 
 proposed. And therefore to prevent this, they take care 
 that they may rather be deliberate than sudden in their 
 motions. 
 
 Of Their Trades, and Manner of Life. 
 
 Agriculture is that which is so universally understood 
 among them, that no person, either man or woman, is 
 ignorant of it; they are instructed in it from their child- 
 hood, partly by what they learn at school, and partly by 
 practice; they being led out often into the fields, about 
 the town, where they not only see others at work, but are 
 likewise exercised in it themselves. Besides agriculture, 
 
UTOPIA 169 
 
 which is so common to them all, every man has some 
 peculiar trade to whic h he applies himself, such as the 
 manufacture of wool, or flax, masonry7 iniitPs work, or 
 carpenter's work; for there is no soft of trade that is in 
 |;reat esteem among them. Throughout the island they 
 wear the same sort of clothes without any other distinc- 
 tion, except what is necessary to distinguish the two 
 sexes, and the married and unmarried. The fashion 
 never alters; and as it is neither disagreeable nor un- 
 easy, so it is suited to the climate, and calculated both 
 for their summers and winters. Every family makes 
 their own clothes; but all among them, women as well 
 as men, learn one or other of the trades formerly men- 
 tioned, "^omen^oi ±he_mos£. part, deal- in wool and flax, 
 which suit best with -their— weakness, leaving the ruder 
 trades to the men. The same trade generally passes 
 down from father to son, inclinations often following 
 descent; but if any man's genius lies another way, he is 
 by adoptioii translated into a family that deals in the 
 _trade to which he is inclined; and when that is to be 
 done, care is taken not only by his father, but by the 
 magistrate, that he may be put to a discreet and good 
 man. And if after a person has learned one trade, he 
 desires to acquire another, that is also allowed, and is 
 managed in the same manner as the former. When he 
 has learned both, he follows that which he likes best, 
 unl ess the public has more occasion, for the other. 
 
 The chief, and almost the only business of the sypho- 
 grants, is to take care that no man may live idle, but 
 that every one may follow his trade diligently; yet they 
 do not wear themselves out with perpetual toil, from 
 morning to night, as if they were beasts of burden, which 
 as it is indeed a heavy slavery, so it is everywhere the 
 common course of life among all mechanics except the 
 Utopians; but they, dividing the day and night into 
 twenty-four hours, appoint six of these for work; three 
 of which are before dinner; and three after. They then 
 sup, and at eight o'clock, counting from noon, go to bed 
 and sleep eight hours. The rest of their time besides 
 that taken up in work, eating and sleeping, is left to every 
 man's discretion ; yet they are not to abuse that interval 
 
no UTOPIA 
 
 to luxury and idleness, but must employ it in some proper 
 exercise according to their various inclinations, which is 
 for the most part reading. It is ordinary to have public 
 lectures every morning before daybreak; at which none 
 are obliged to appear but those who are marked out for 
 literature; yet a great many, both men and women of 
 all ranks, go to hear lectures of one sort or other, accord- 
 ing to their inclinations. But if others, that are not 
 made for contemplation, choose rather to employ them- 
 selves at that time in their trades, as many of them do, 
 they are not hindered, but are rather commended, as 
 men that take care to serve their country. After sup- 
 per, they spend an hour in some diversion, in sum- 
 mer in their gardens, and in winter in the halls where 
 they eat; where they entertain each other, either with 
 music or discourse. They do not so much as know dice, 
 or any such foolish and mischievous games; they have, 
 however, two . sorts of games not unlike our chess ; the 
 one is between several numbers, in which one number, 
 as it were, consumes another ; the other resembles a battle 
 between the virtues and the vices, in which the enmity 
 in the vices among themselves, and their agreement 
 against virtue is not unpleasantly represented; together 
 with the special oppositions between the particular vir- 
 tues and vices ; as also the methods by which vice either 
 openly assaults or secretly undermines virtue ; and virtue 
 on the other hand resists it. /^ut the time appointed for 
 labor is to be narrowly examined, otherwise you may 
 imagine, that since there are only six hours appointed 
 for work, they may fall under a scarcity of necessary 
 provisions. But it is so far from being true, that this 
 time is not sufficient for supplying them with plenty of 
 all things, either necessary or convenient ; that it is rather 
 too much; and this you will easily apprehend, if you 
 consider how great a part of all other nations is quite 
 idle. First, women generally do little, who are the half 
 of mankind; and if some few women are diligent, their 
 husbands are idle; then consider the great company of 
 idle priests, and of those that are called religious men ; 
 add to these all rich men, chiefly those that have estates 
 in land, who are called noblemen and gentlemen. 
 
UTOPIA 171 
 
 together with their families, made up of idle persons, 
 that are kept more for show than use; add to these, all 
 those strong and lusty beggars, that go about pretending 
 some disease, in excuse for their begging; and upon the 
 whole account you will find that the number of those by 
 whose labors mankind is supplied, is much less than you 
 perhaps imagined. Then consider how few of those that 
 work are employed in labors that are of real service ; for 
 we who measure all things by money, give rise to many 
 trades that are both vain and superfluous, and serve only 
 to support riot and luxury ^^^or if those who work were 
 employed only in such things as the conveniences of life 
 require, there would be such an abundance of them, that 
 the prices of them would so sink, that tradesmen could 
 not be maintained by their gains; if all those who labor 
 about useless things, were set to more profitable employ- 
 ments, and if all they that languish out their lives in 
 sloth and idleness, everyone of whom consumes as much 
 as any two of the men that are at work, were forced to 
 labor, you may easily imagine that a small proportion of 
 time would serve for doing all that is either necessary, 
 profitable, or pleasant to mankind, especially while pleas- 
 ure is kept within its due bounds. This appears very 
 plainly in Utopia, for there, in a great city, and in all 
 the territory that lies round it, you can scarce find" five 
 hundred, either ""men or women, by their age and 
 strength, are capable of labor, that are not engaged in 
 it; even the Syphogrants, though excused by the law, 
 yet do not excuse themselves, but work, that by their 
 examples they may incite the industry of the rest of the 
 people. The like exemption is allowed to those, who being 
 recommended to the people by the priests, are by the 
 secret suffrages of the Syphogrants privileged from labor, 
 that they may apply themselves wholly to study; and if 
 any of these fall short of those hopes that they seemed 
 at first to give, they are obliged to return to work. And 
 sometimes a hiechanic, that so employs his leisure hours, 
 as to make a considerable advancement in learning, is 
 eased from being a tradesman, and ranked among their 
 learned men. Out of these they choose their ambassa- 
 dors, their priests, their Tranibors, and the Prince him- 
 
UTOPIA 
 
 anciently called their Barzenes, but is called of late 
 Ademus. 
 id thus from the great numbers amoijg them that 
 leither suffered to be idle, nor to be employed in 
 any miitless labor, you may easily make the estimate 
 how much may be done in those few hours in which 
 they are obliged to labor. But besides all that has been 
 already said, it is to be considered that the needful arts 
 among them are managed with less labor than anywhere 
 else. The building or the repairing of houses among us 
 employ many hands, because often a thriftless heir suffers 
 a house that his father built to fall into decay, so that 
 his successor must, at a great cost, repair that which he 
 might have kept up with a small charge: it frequently 
 happens, that the same house which one person built at 
 a vast expense, is neglected by another, who thinks he 
 has a more delicate sense of the beauties of architecture ; 
 and he, suffering it to fall to ruin, builds another at no 
 less charge. But among the Utopians, all things are so 
 regulated that meii very seldom build upon a new piece 
 of ground ; and are not only very quick in repairing their 
 houses, but show their foresight in preventing their 
 .decay: so that their buildings are preserved very long, 
 with but little labor; and thus the builders to whom 
 that care belongs are often without employment, except 
 the hewing of timber, and the squaring of stones, that 
 the materials may be in readiness for raising a building 
 very suddenly, when there is any occasion for it. As to 
 their clothes, observe how little work is spent in them: 
 while they are at labor, they are clothed with leather 
 and skins, cast carelessly about them, which will last 
 seven years; and when they appear in public they put 
 on an upper garment, which hides the other; and these 
 are all of one color, and that is the natural color of the 
 wool. As they need less woolen cloth than is used any- 
 where else, so that which they make use of is much less 
 costly. They use linen cloth more; but that is prepared 
 with less labor, and they value cloth only by the white- 
 ness of the linen, or the cleanness of the wool, without 
 much regard to the fineness of the thread; while in other 
 places, four or five upper garments of woolen cloth, of 
 
UTOPIA 173 
 
 different colors, and as many vests of silk, will scarce 
 serve one man; and while those that are nicer think ten 
 too few, every man there is content with one, which very 
 often serves him - twji years. Nor is there anything that 
 can tempt a man to desire more; for if he had them, he 
 "would neither be the warmer, nor would he make one 
 ~]ot the better appearance for it. And thus, since they 
 are all employed in some useful labor, and since they 
 content themselves with fewer things, it falls out that 
 there is a great abundance of all things among them : so 
 that it frequently happens, that for want of other work, 
 vast numbers are sent out to mend the highways. But 
 when no piiblic undertaking is to be performed, the hours 
 of working are lessened. The magistrates never engage 
 the people in unnecessary labor, since the chief end of 
 the constitution is to regulate labor' by the necessities of 
 the public, and to allow all the people as much time as 
 ig_ necessary for -^ the improvement of their minds, in 
 which they think the happiness of life consist&.— — 
 
 Of "tHEiR Traffic. 
 
 But it is now time to explain to you the mutual inter- 
 course of this people, their commerce, and the rules by 
 which all things are distributed among them. 
 
 As their cities are composed of families, so their fam- 
 ilies are made up of those that are nearly related to one 
 another. Their women, when they grow up, are married 
 ~6ut; but all the males, both children and grandchildren, 
 live still in the same house, in great obedience to their 
 common parent, unless age has weakened his under- 
 standing ; and in that case, he that is next to him in age 
 comeg in his room. But lest any city should become either 
 too great, or by any accident be dispeopled, provision is 
 made that none of their cities may contain above six 
 thousand families, besides those of the country round it. 
 - No family may have less than ten, and more than six- 
 teen persons in it ; but there can be no determined num- 
 ber for the children under age. This rule is easily 
 observed, by removing some of the children of a more 
 fruitful couple to any other family that does not abound 
 
174 UTOPIA 
 
 so much in them. By the same rule, they supply cities 
 that do not increase so fast, from others that breed 
 faster; and if there is any increase over the^hole island, 
 then they draw out a number of their citizens out of the 
 several towns, and send them over to the neighboring 
 continent; where, if they find that the inhabitants have 
 more soil than they can well cultivate, they fix a colony, 
 taking the inhabitants into their society, if they are willing 
 to live with them ; and where they do, that of their own 
 accord, they quickly enter into their method of life, and 
 conform to their rules, and this proves a happiness to 
 both nations; for according to their constitution, such 
 care is taken of the soil, that it becomes fruitful enough 
 for both, though it might be otherwise too narrow and 
 barren for any one of them. But if the natives refuse 
 to conform themselves to their laws, they drive them 
 out of those bounds which they mark out for themselves, 
 and use force if they resist. For they account it a very 
 just cause of war, for a nation to hinder others from 
 possessing a part of that soil, of which they make no 
 use, but which is suffered to lie idle and uncultivated; 
 since every man has by the law of Nature a right to 
 such a waste portion of the earth as is necessary for his 
 subsistence. If an accident has so lessened the number 
 of the inhabitants of any of their towns, that it cannot 
 be made up from the other towns of the island without 
 diminishing them too much, which is said to have fallen 
 out but twice since they were first a people, when great 
 numbers were carried off by the plague ; the loss is then 
 supplied by recalling as many as are wanted from their 
 colonies; for they will abandon these rather than suffer 
 the towns in the island to sink too low. 
 
 But to return to their manner of living in society, the 
 oldest man of every family, as has been already said, is 
 its governor. Wives serve their husbands, and children 
 their parents, and always the younger serves the elder. 
 Every city is divided into four equal parts, and in the 
 middle of each there is a market place: what is brought 
 thither, and manufactured by the several families, is 
 carried from thence to houses appointed for that purpose, 
 in which all things of a sort are laid by themselves; and 
 
UTOPIA 175 
 
 thither every father goes and takes whatsoever he or his 
 family stand in need of, without either paying for it, or 
 leaving anything in exchange. There is no reason for 
 giving a denial to any person, since there is such plenty 
 of everything among them; and there is no danger of a 
 man's asking for more than he needs; they have no in- 
 ducements to do this, since they are sure that they shall 
 always be supplied. It is the fear of want that makes 
 any of the whole race of animals either greedy or 
 ravenous; but besides fear, there is in man a pride that 
 makes him fancy it a particular glory to excel others 
 in pomp and excess. But by the laws of the Utopians, 
 there is no room for this. Near these markets there 
 are others for all sorts of provisions, where there are not 
 only herbs, fruits, and bread, but also fish, fowl, and 
 cattle. There are also, without their towns, places ap- 
 pointed near some running water, for killing their beasts, 
 and for washing away their filth ; which is done by their 
 slaves : for they suffer none of their citizens to kill their 
 cattle, because they think that pity and good nature, 
 which are among the best of those affections that are 
 born with us, are much impaired by the butchering of 
 animals; nor do they sufEer anything that is foul or un-^ 
 clean to be brought within their towns, lest the air should 
 be infected by ill smells which might prejudice their 
 health. In every street there are great halls that lie at 
 an equal distance from each other, distinguished by par- 
 ticular names. The Syphogrants dwell in those that are 
 set over thirty families, fifteen lying on one side of it; 
 and as many on the other. In these halls they all meet 
 and have their repasts. The stewards of every one of 
 them come to the market place at an appointed hour; 
 and according to the number of those that belong to the 
 hall, they carry home provisions. But they take more 
 care of their sick than of any others; these are lodged 
 and provided for in public hospitals; they have belong- 
 ing to every town four hospitals, that are built without 
 their walls, and are so large that they may pass for little 
 towns; by this means, if they had ever such a number 
 of sick persons, they could lodge them conveniently, and 
 at such a distance, that such of them as are sick of infec- 
 
176 UTOPIA 
 
 tious diseases may be kept so far from the rest that there 
 can be no danger of contagion. The hospitals are fur- 
 nished and stored with all things that are cmivenient for 
 the ease and recovery of the sick; and those that are 
 put in them are looked after with such tender and watch- 
 ful care, and are so constantly attended by their skillful 
 physicians, that as none is sent to them against their 
 will, so there is scarce one in a whple town that, if he 
 should fall ill, would not choose rather to go thither than 
 
 J lie sick at home. 
 
 After the steward of the hospitals has taken for the 
 sick whatsoever the physician prescribes, then the best 
 
 f things that are left in the market are distributed equally 
 among the halls, in proportion to their numbers, only, in 
 the first place, they serve the Prince, the chief priest, the 
 Tranibors, the ambassadors, and strangers, if there are 
 any, which indeed falls out but seldom, and for whom 
 there are houses well furnished, particularly appointed 
 for their reception when they come among them. At the 
 hours of dinner and supper, the whole Syphogranty being 
 called together by sound of trumpet, they meet and eat 
 together, except only such as are in the hospitals, or lie 
 sick at home. Yet after the halls are served, no man is 
 hindered to carry provisions home from the market place ; 
 for they know that none does that but for some good 
 reason; for though any that will may eat at home, yet 
 none does it willingly, since it is both ridiculous and 
 foolish for any to give themselves the trouble to make 
 ready an ill dinner at home, when there is a much more 
 plentiful one made ready for him so near hand. All the 
 uneasy and sordid services about these halls are per- 
 formed by their slaves; but the dressing and cooking 
 their meat, and the ordering their tables, belong only to 
 the women, all those of every family taking it by turns. 
 They sit at three or more tables, according to their num- 
 ber; the men sit toward the wall, and the women sit on 
 the other side, that if any of them should be taken sud- 
 denly ill, which is no uncommon case among women 
 with child, she may, without disturbing the rest, rise and 
 go to the nurses' room, who are there with the sucking 
 children; where there is always clean water at hand, 
 
UTOPIA 177 
 
 and cradles in which they may lay the young children, 
 if there is occasion for it, and a fire that they may shift 
 and dress them before it. Every child is nursed by its 
 own mother, if death or sickness does not intervene ; and 
 in that case the Syphogrants' wives find out a nurse 
 quickly, which is no hard matter; for any one that can 
 do it, offers herself cheerfully; for as they are much in- 
 clined to that piece of mercy, so the child whom they 
 nurse considers the nurse as its mother. All the children 
 under five years old sit among the nurses, the rest of the 
 younger sort of both sexes, till they are fit for marriage, 
 either serve those that sit at table; or if they are not 
 strong enough for that, stand by them in great silence, 
 and eat what is given them; nor have they any other 
 formality of dining. In the middle of the first table, 
 which stands across the upper end of the hall, sit the 
 Syphogrant and his wife; for that is the chief and most 
 conspicuous place; next to him sit two of the most 
 ancient, for there go always four to a mess. If there is 
 a temple within that Syphogranty, the priest and his 
 wife sit with the Syphogrant above all the rest : next them 
 there is a mixture of old and young, who are so placed, 
 that as the young are set near others, so they are mixed 
 with the more ancient; which they say was appointed on 
 this account, that the gravity of the old people, and the 
 reverence that is due to them, might restrain the younger 
 from all indecent words and gestures. Dishes are not 
 served up to the whole table at first, but the best are 
 first set before the old, whose- seats are distinguished 
 from the young, and after them all the rest are served 
 alike. The old men distribute to the younger any curious 
 meats that happen to be set before them, if there is not 
 such an abundance of them that the whole company may 
 be served alike. 
 
 Thus old men are honored with a particular respect; 
 yet all the rest fare as well as they. Both dinner and 
 supper are begun with some lecture of morality that is 
 read to them; but it is so short, that it is not tedious 
 nor uneasy to them to hear it: from hence the old men 
 take occasion to entertain those about them, with some 
 useful and pleasant enlargements; but they do not 
 12 
 
178 UTOPIA 
 
 engross the whole discourse so to themselves, during their 
 meals, that the younger may not put in for a share: on 
 the contrary, they engage them to talk, that |j> they may 
 in that free way of conversation find out the force of 
 every one's spirit, and observe his temper. They dis- 
 patch their dinners quickly, but sit long at supper; because 
 they go to work after the one, and are to sleep after the 
 other, during which they think the stomach carries on the 
 concoction more vigorously. They never sup without 
 music; and there is always fruit served up after meat; 
 while they are at table, some burn perfumes, and sprinkle 
 about fragrant ointments and sweet waters: in short, 
 they want nothing that may cheer up their spirits; they 
 give themselves a large allowance that way, and indulge 
 themselves in all such pleasures as are attended with no 
 inconvenience. Thus do those that are in the towns live 
 together; but in the country, where they live at great 
 distance, every one eats at home, and no family wants 
 any necessary sort of provision, for it is from them that 
 provisions are sent unto those that live in the towns. 
 
 Of the Traveling of the Utopians. 
 
 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 Sypho- 
 grant and Tranibors, when there is no particular occasion^ 
 for him at home. Such as travel, carry with them a pass- 
 port from the Prince, which both certifies the license 
 that is granted for traveling, and limits the time of their 
 return. They are furnished with a wagon and a slave, 
 who drives the oxen and looks after them: but unless 
 there are women in the company, the wagon 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 nothing, but are everyivhere 
 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 
 
|UTOPIA I 179 
 
 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 permis- 
 sion 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 labor with them and conform to their 
 rules: and if he does this he may freely go over the 
 whole precinct; being thus 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 pretenses 
 of excusing any from labor. There are no taverns, no 
 alehouses nor stews among them ; nor any other occasions 
 of corrupting each other, of getting into corners, or form- 
 ing 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 ex- 
 change; 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 unfavorable season, they order an ex- 
 portation of the overplus, both of com, 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 1 at moderate rates. And by this ex- 
 change, they not only bring back those few things that 
 they need at home (for indeed they scarce need any- 
 
i8o UTOPIA 
 
 thing but iron), but likewise a great deal of gold and sil- 
 ver ; and by their driving this trade so long, it is not to be 
 imagined how vast a treasure they have got aapong them : 
 so that now they do not much care whether they sell oflE 
 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 proiit 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 neigh- 
 bors 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 ene- 
 mies, 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 appre- 
 hend, 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 our own 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 differ- 
 ent 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 gen- 
 erally long intervening intervals; they Value it no fur- 
 
UTOPIA i8i 
 
 tlier 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 dis- 
 pensed 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 induf^ 
 gent 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 king- 
 dom, 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 ap- 
 pearance though formed of brittle materials: while they 
 make their chamber-pots and close-stools of gold and sil- 
 ver; 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 Uto- 
 pia 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 coast; and diamonds 
 
i82 UTOPIA 
 
 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 de- 
 lighted with them, and glory in them during their child- 
 hood; but when they grow to years, and see that none 
 but children use such baubles, they of their own accord, 
 without being bidden by their parents, lay them aside ; and 
 would be as much ashamed to use them afterward, 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 impres- 
 sions 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 cus- 
 toms, 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 vain-glorious 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 splendor. 
 Thus three ambassadors made their entry with an hun- 
 dred attendants, all clad in garments of different colors, 
 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 
 
UTOPIA 183 
 
 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 them- 
 selves, 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 inno- 
 cently replied, " Hold your peace, this I believe is one of 
 the ambassador's 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 them 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 formerly 
 valued themselves, and accordingly laid it aside ; a reso- 
 lution that they immediately took when on their engag- 
 ing in some free discourse with the Utopians, they 
 discovered their sense of such things and their other cus- 
 toms. 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, 
 
i84 UTOPIA 
 
 that even men 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 de- 
 test 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 honors; 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 labor as to give themselves entirely up to 
 their studies, these being only such persons as discover 
 from their childhood an extraordinary capacity and dis- 
 position 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 
 
UTOPIA i8s 
 
 they are almost in everything equal to the ancient phil- 
 osophers, so they far exceed our modem 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 mind- 
 ing 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 mon- 
 strous 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 oppo- 
 sitions 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 causes of the saltness 
 of the sea, of its ebbing and flowing, and of the origin 
 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 
 belongs 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 
 
1 86 UTOPIA 
 
 a man's happiness in pleasure ; and, wliat may seem more 
 strange, they make use of arguments even from religion, 
 notwithstanding its severity and roughness, f^ the sup- 
 port 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 de- 
 signed that it should be happy; and that he has there- 
 fore 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 pursue.d 
 that should draw a great deal of pain after it; for they 
 think it is 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 accord- 
 ing 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 
 
UTOPIA 187 
 
 Divine Majesty, to whom we owe both all that we have, 
 and all that we can ever hope for. In the next place, rea- 
 son directs ns 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 endeavors 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 favorite 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 
 
i88 UTOPIA 
 
 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 
 t3a"anny 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 advantages, 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 con- 
 vinces 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 rea- 
 son 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 fool- 
 ish, 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 happi- 
 
UTOPIA 189 
 
 ness, 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 noth- 
 ing that is truly delightful ; on the contrary, they have a 
 good deal of bitterness in them: and yet from our per- 
 verse appetites after forbidden objects, are not only ranked 
 among the pleasures, but are made even the greatest de- 
 signs of life. Among those who pursue these sophisti- 
 cated 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 bet- 
 ter 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 sig- 
 nify nothing : for what true or real pleasure can one man 
 find in another's standing bare, or making legs to him ? 
 Will the bending of 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 them- 
 selves with the fancy of their nobility, and are pleased 
 with this conceit, that they are descended from ances- 
 tors, 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 them- 
 selves 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 hap- 
 
I90 UTOPIA 
 
 piness, 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 jeweler is then made to give good 
 security, and required solemnly to swear that the 5tone 
 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 itj your eye could iind 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 an 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 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 stolen, 
 the owner, though he might live perhaps ten years after 
 the theft, of which he knew nothing, would find no dif- 
 ference 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 of it so often should give one a surfeit of it: and 
 what pleasure can one find in hearing the barking and howl- 
 ing of dogs, which seem rather odious than pleasant 
 sounds? Nor can they comprehend the pleasure of see- 
 ing 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 
 
UTOPIA 191 
 
 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 ac- 
 count it both more profitable and more decent to kill 
 those beasts that are more necessary and useful to man- 
 kind; 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 blood- 
 shed, even of beasts, as a mark of a mind that is already 
 corrupted with cruelty, or that at least by the 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 
 iinagine 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 tastes 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 m ind. 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 oair senses some 
 real delight, and is performed, either by recruiting 
 
192 UTOPIA 
 
 naturCj 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 can- 
 vassed 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 subtilty, that does not much alter the mat- 
 ter. It is all one, in their opinion, 'whether it be said 
 
UTOPIA 193 
 
 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 
 vigor ? 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 c hief of v^ich a rises 
 _outjo£jruejyirtiie, and thejwitries£~Qf_A_gQod_^nscience. 
 They account health the chief pleasure that belongs to 
 the body; for they think that the pleasure of eating and 
 drinking and. all^ the _Qther_d£Hglits-jadLs&uaet, are only so 
 far desirable_as_they give, or, maintain health. But they 
 are^lQot~pleasant_iS.- 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 j ort of _pleas.u-r&-_Jhan to be 
 obliged to indulge it. If any man i^goagines that there 
 is a "real happiness in these enjoyments, he must then con- 
 fess 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, drink- 
 ing, 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 _pleasm-es, and the 
 least pure; for we can never relish them, but when they 
 are nu^ with the contrary pains. The pain of hunger 
 13 
 
194 UTOPIA 
 
 must give us the pleasure of eating; and here the pain 
 outbalances the pleasure; and as the pain is more vehe- 
 ment, so it lasts much longer; for as it beeips 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 ten- 
 derness 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 hy such bitter drugs as we must use for those dis- 
 eases that return seldomer upon us ? And thus these 
 pleasant as well as proper gifts of Na,ture maintain the 
 strength and 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 seasonings of life, which Nature 
 seems to have marked out peculiarly for man; since no 
 other sort of animal contemplates the figure and beauty 
 of the universe ; nor is delighted with smells, any farther 
 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 sat- 
 isfaction, he can either serve the public or promote the 
 happiness of others, for which he expects a greater rec- 
 ompense 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 favors, and therefore 
 reject all his blessings; as one who should afflict him- 
 
UTOPIA 195 
 
 self for the empty shadow of virtue; or for no better 
 end to render himself capable of bearing those misfor 
 
 tunes which possibly will never happen. 
 
 This is their notion of virtue and of pleasure: they 
 think 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 un- 
 dertaken to give you an account of their constitution, but 
 not to defend all their principles. I am sure, that what- 
 soever may be said of their notions, there is not in the 
 whole world either a better people or a happier govern- 
 ment: their bodies are vigorous and lively; and though 
 they are but of a middle stature, and have neither the 
 most fruitful 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 no- 
 where to be seen a greater increase both of com and 
 cattle, nor are there anywhere healthier men, and freer 
 from diseases: for one may there see reduced to prac- 
 tice, 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 
 any distance over land than com. The people are in- 
 dustrious, apt to learn, as well as cheerful and pleasant; 
 and none can endure more labor, 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 
 
196 UTOPIA 
 
 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 labor 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 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 lan- 
 guage 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 Theodoras with me; nor 
 have they any dictionaries but Hesichius and Dioscorides. 
 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 com- 
 panions, Thricius Apinatus, happened to carry with him 
 some of Hippocrates's works, and Galen's Microtechne, 
 
UTOPIA 197 
 
 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 honors 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 among man- 
 kind, 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 uncon- 
 cerned 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 in- 
 vention was their own. We showed them some books 
 printed by Aldus, we explained to them the way of mak- 
 ing paper, and the mystery of printing; but as we had 
 never practiced 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 per- 
 fection, 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 es- 
 tablished 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 cop- 
 ies 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 
 were to go among them that had some extraordinary talent 
 or that by much traveling had observed the customs of 
 many nations (which made us to be so well received), 
 
198 UTOPIA 
 
 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, fOT 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 neighboring countries better, so they keep 
 up the art of navigation, which cannot be maintained 
 but by much practice. 
 
 Of Their Slaves, and of Their Marriages. 
 
 They do not make slaves of prisoners of war, ex- 
 cept those that are taken in battle; nor of the sons 
 of their slaves, nor of those of other nations: the 
 slaves among them are only such as are condemned 
 to that state of life for the commission of some crime, 
 or, which is more common, such as their merchants 
 find condemned to die in those parts to which they 
 trade^ whom they sometimes redeem at low rates-, 
 and in other places have them for nothing. They are 
 kept at perpetual labor, and are always chained, but 
 with this difference, that their own natives are treated 
 much worse than others; they are considered as more 
 profligate than the rest, and since they could not be 
 restrained by the advantages of so excellent an educa- 
 tion, are judged worthy of harder usage. Another sort 
 of slaves are the poor of neighboring countries, who 
 offer of their own accord to come and serve them; they 
 treat these better, and use them in all other respects as 
 well as their own countrymen, except their imposing more 
 labor upon them, which is no hard task to those who have 
 been accustomed to it ; and if any of these have a mind to 
 go back to their own country, which indeed falls out but 
 seldom, as they do not force them to stay, so they do not 
 send them away empty-handed. 
 
 I have already told you with what care they look after 
 their sick, so that nothing is left undone that can con- 
 tribute either to their ease or health ; and for those who 
 
UTOPIA 199 
 
 are taken with fixed and incurable diseases, they use all 
 possible ways to cherish them and to make their lives 
 as comfortable as possible. They visit them often, and 
 take great pains to make their time pass off easily; but 
 when any are taken with a torturing and lingering pain, 
 so that there is no hope, either of recovery or ease, the 
 priests and magistrates come and exhort, them, that since 
 they are now unable to go on with the business oi 
 life, are become a burden to themselves and to all 
 about them, and they have really outlived themselves, 
 they should no longer nourish such a rooted distemper, 
 but choose rather to die, since they cannot live but in much 
 misery: being assured, that if they thus deliver them- 
 selves from torture, or are willing that others should do 
 it, they shall be happy after death. Since by their act- 
 ing thus, they lose none of the pleasures, but only the 
 troubles of life ; they think they behave not only reason- 
 ably, but in a manner consistent with religion and piety; 
 because they follow the advice given them by their priests, 
 who are the expounders of the will of God. Such as are 
 wrought on by these persuasions, either starve themselves 
 of their own accord, or take opium, and by that means 
 die without pain. But no man is forced on this way of 
 ending his life; and if they cannot be persuaded to it, 
 this does not induce them to fail in their attendance and 
 care of them ; but as they believe that a voluntary death, 
 when it is chosen upon such an authority, is very honor- 
 able, so if any man takes away his own life, with- 
 out the approbation of the priests and the Senate, they 
 give him none of the honors of a decent funeral, but 
 throw his body into a ditch. 
 
 Their women are not married before eighteen, nor their 
 men before two-and-twenty, and if any of them run into 
 forbidden embraces before marriage they are severely 
 punished, and the privilege of marriage is denied them, 
 unless they can obtain a special warrant from the Prince. 
 Such disorders cast a great reproach upon the master 
 and mistress of the family in which they happen, for it 
 is supposed they have failed in their duty. The reason 
 of punishing this so severely is, because they think that 
 if they were not strictly restrained from all vagrant 
 
zoo UTOPIA 
 
 appetites, very few would engage in a state in which 
 they venture the quiet of their whole lives, by being 
 confined to one person, and are obliged to endure all the 
 inconveniences with which it is accompanied. In choos- 
 ing their wives they use a method that would appear to 
 us very absurd and ridiculous, but it is constantly 
 observed among them, and is accounted perfectly consist- 
 ent with wisdom. Before marriage some grave matron 
 presents the bride naked, whether she is a virgin or a 
 widow, to the bridegroom, and after that some grave 
 man presents the bridegroom naked to the bride. We 
 indeed both laughed at this, and condemned it as very 
 indecent. But they, on the other hand, wondered at the 
 folly of the men of all other nations, who, if they are 
 but to buy a horse of a small value, are so cautious that 
 they will see every part of him, and take off both his 
 saddle and all his other tackle, that there may be no 
 secret ulcer hid under any of them; and that yet in the 
 choice of a wife, on which depends the happiness or 
 unhcppiness of the rest of his life, a man should venture 
 upon trust, and only see about a hand's-breadth 'of the 
 face, a!l the rest of the body being covered, under which 
 there naay "ie hid what may be contagious, as well as 
 loathsome. All men are not so wise as to choose a 
 woman only for her good qualities; and even wise men 
 consider the body as that which adds not a little to the 
 mind : and it is certain there may be some such deformity 
 covered with the clothes as may totally alienate a man 
 from his wife when it is too late to part with her. If 
 such a thing is discovered after marriage, a man has no 
 remedy but patience. They therefore think it is reason- 
 able that there should be good provision made against 
 such mischievous frauds. 
 
 There was so much the more reason for them to make 
 a regulation in this matter, because they are the only 
 people of those parts that neither allow of polygamy, nor 
 of divorces, except in the case of adultery,' or insuffer- 
 able perverseness ; for in these cases the Senate dissolves 
 the marriage, and grants the injured person leave to 
 marry again; but the guilty are made infamous, and are 
 never allowed the privilege of a second marriage. None 
 
UTOPIA 201 
 
 are suffered to put away their wives against their wills, 
 from any great calamity that may have fallen on their 
 persons ; for they look on it as the height of cruelty and 
 treachery to abandon either of the married persons when 
 they need most the tender care of their comfort, and 
 that chiefly in the case of old age, which as it carries 
 many diseases along with it, so it is a disease of itself. 
 But it frequently falls out that when a married couple 
 do not well agree, they by mutual consent separate, and 
 find out other persons with whom they hope they may 
 live more happily. Yet this is not done without obtain- 
 ing leave of the Senate, which never admits of a divorce, 
 but upon a strict inquiry made, both by the senators and 
 their wives, into the grounds upon which it is desired; 
 and even when they are satisfied concerning the reasons 
 of it, they go on but slowly, for they imagine that too 
 great easiness in granting leave for new marriages would 
 very much shake the kindness of married people. They 
 punish severely those that defile the marriage-bed. If 
 both parties are married they are divorced, and the in- 
 jured persons may marry one another, or whom they 
 please ; but the adulterer and the adulteress are condemned 
 to slavery. Yet if either of the injured persons cannot 
 shake off the love of the married person, they may live 
 with them still in that state, but they must follow them 
 to that labor to which the slaves are condemned; and 
 sometimes the repentance of the condemned, together 
 with the unshaken kindness of the innocent and injured 
 person, has prevailed so far with the Prince that he has 
 taken off the sentence; but those that relapse after they 
 are once pardoned are punished with death. 
 
 Their law does not determine the punishment for 
 other crimes; but that is left to the Senate, to temper 
 it according to the circumstances of the fact. Husbands 
 have power to correct their wives, and parents to chas- 
 tise their children, unless the fault is so great that a 
 public punishment is thought necessary for striking terror 
 into others. For the most part, slavery is the punish- 
 ment even of the greatest crimes; for as that is no less 
 terrible to the criminals themselves than death, so they 
 think the preserving them in a state of servitude is 
 
202 UTOPIA 
 
 more for the interest of the commonwealth than killing 
 them, since as their labor is a greater benefit to the 
 public than their death could be, so the sight of their 
 misery is a more lasting terror to other men than that 
 which would be given by their death. If their slaves 
 rebel, and will not bear their yoke, and submit to the labor 
 that is enjoined them, they are treated as wild beasts 
 that cannot be kept in order, neither by a prison, nor 
 by their chains ; and are at last put to death. But those 
 who bear their punishment patiently, and are so much 
 wrought on by that pressure that lies so hard on them 
 that it appears they are really more troubled for the 
 crimes they have committed than for the miseries they 
 suffer, are not out of hope but that at last either the 
 Prince will, by his prerogative, or the people by their 
 intercession, restore them again to their liberty, or at 
 least very much mitigate their slavery. He that tempts 
 a married woman to adultery, is no less severely punished 
 than he that commits it; for they believe that a deliber- 
 ate design to commit a crime, is equal to the fact 
 itself: since its not taking effect does not make the 
 person that miscarried in his attempt at all the less 
 guilty. 
 
 They take great pleasure in fools, and as it is thought 
 a base and unbecoming thing to use them ill, so they 
 do not think it amiss for people to divert themselves 
 with their folly: and, in their opinion, this is a great 
 advantage to the fools themselves: for if men were so 
 sullen and severe as not at all to please themselves with 
 their ridiculous behavior and foolish sayings, which is 
 all they can do to recommend themselves to others, it 
 could not be expected that they would be so well pro- 
 vided for, nor so tenderly used as they must otherwise 
 be. If any man should reproach another for his being 
 misshapen or imperfect in any part of his body, it would 
 not at all be thought a reflection on the person so 
 treated, but it would be accounted scandalous in him 
 that had upbraided another with what he could not help. 
 It is thought a sign of a sluggish and sordid mind not 
 to preserve carefully one's natural beauty; but it is like- 
 wise infamous among them to use paint. They all see 
 
UTOPIA 203 
 
 that no beauty recommends a wife so much to her hus- 
 band as the piobity of her life, and her obedience: for 
 as some few are caught and held only by beauty, so all 
 are attracted by the other excellences which charm all 
 the world. 
 
 As they fright men from committing crimes by punish- 
 ments, so they invite them to the love of virtue by 
 public honors; therefore they erect statues to the mem- 
 ories of such worthy men as have deserved well of their 
 country, and set these in their market places, both to 
 perpetuate the remembrance of their actions, and to be 
 an incitement to their posterity to follow their example. 
 
 If any man aspires to any office, he is sure never to 
 compass it; they all live easily together, for none of the 
 magistrates are either insolent or cruel to the people: 
 they affect rather to be called fathers, and by being 
 really so, they well deserve the name; and the people 
 pay them all the marks of honor the more freely, be- 
 cause none are exacted from them. The Prince himself./' 
 has no distinction, either of garments, or of a crown ;v 
 but is only distinguished by a sheaf of corn carried be- 
 fore him; as the high priest is also known by his being 
 preceded by a person carrying a wax light. 
 
 They have but few laws, and such is their constitution 
 that they need not many. They very much condemn 
 other nations, whose laws, together with the commentaries 
 on them, swell up to so many volumes ; for they think it an 
 unreasonable thing to oblige men to obey a body of laws 
 that are both of such a bulk, and so dark as not to be 
 read and understood by every one of the subjects. 
 
 They have no lawyers among them, for they consider 
 them as a sort of people whose profession it is to dis- 
 guise matters, and to wrest the laws ; and therefore they 
 think it is much better that every man should plead his 
 own cause, and trust it to the judge, as in other places 
 the client trusts it to a counselor. By this means they 
 both cut off many delays, and find out truth more cer- 
 tainly: for after the parties have laid open the merits of 
 the cause, without those artifices which lawyers are apt 
 to suggest, the judge examines the whole matter, and sup- 
 ports the simplicity of such well-meaning persons, whom 
 
204 UTOPIA 
 
 otjfierwise crafty men would be sure to run down: and 
 thus they avoid those evils which appear very remarka- 
 bly among all those nations that labor unde^a vast load 
 of laws. Every one of them is skilled in their law, for 
 as it is a very short study, so the plainest meaning of 
 which words are capable is always the sense of their laws. 
 And they argue thus: all laws are promulgated for this 
 end, that every man may know his duty; and therefore 
 the plainest and most obvious sense of the words is that 
 which ought to be put upon thein; since a more refined 
 exposition cannot be easily comprehended, and would only 
 serve to make the laws become useless to the greater part 
 of mankind, and especially to those who need most the 
 direction of them : for it is all one, not to make a law at 
 all, or to couch it in such terms that without a quick 
 apprehension, and much study, a man cannot find out the 
 true meaning of it; since the generality of mankind are 
 both so dull, and so much employed in their several trades, 
 that they have neither the leisure nor the capacity requi- 
 site for such an inquiry. 
 
 Some of their neighbors, who are masters of their own 
 liberties, having long ago, by the assistance of the 
 Utopians, shaken off the yoke of tjrranny, and being 
 much taken with those virtues which they observe among 
 them, have come to desire that they would send magis- 
 trates to govern them; some changing them every year, 
 and others every five years. At the end of their govern- 
 ment they bring them back to Utopia, with great expres- 
 sions of honor and esteem, and carry away others to 
 govern in their stead. In this they seem to have fallen 
 upon a very good expedient for their own happiness an^ 
 safety; for since the good or ill condition of a nation 
 depends so much upon its magistrates, they could not 
 have made a better choice than by pitching on men 
 whom no advantages can bias ; for wealth is of no use to 
 them, since they must so soon go back to their own 
 country; and they being strangers among them, are not 
 engaged in any of their heats or animosities; and it is 
 certain that when public judicatories are swayed, either 
 by avarice or partial affections, there must follow a dis- 
 solution of justice, the chief sinew of society. 
 
UTOPIA 205 
 
 The Utopians call those nations that come and ask 
 magistrates from them, neighbors; but those to whom 
 they have been of more particular service, friends. And 
 as all other nations are perpetually either making leagues 
 or breaking them, they never enter into an alliance with 
 any state. They think leagues are useless things, and 
 believe that if the common ties of humanity do not knit 
 men together, the faith of promises will have no great 
 effect; and they are the more confirmed in this by what 
 they see among the nations round about them, who are 
 no strict observers of leagues and treaties. We know 
 how religiously they are observed in Europe, more par- 
 ticularly where the Christian doctrine is received, among 
 whom they are sacred and inviolable. Which is partly 
 owing to the justice and goodness of the princes them- 
 selves, and partly to the reverence they pay to the popes ; 
 who as they are most religious observers of their own 
 promises, so they exhort all other princes to perform 
 theirs; and when fainter methods do not prevail, they 
 compel them to it by the severity of the pastoral censure, 
 and think that it would bo the moot indecent thing pos- 
 sible if men who are particularly distinguished by the 
 title of the faithful, should not religiously keep the faith 
 of their treaties. But in that new-found world, which is 
 not more distant from us in situation than the people are 
 in their manners and course of life, there is no trusting 
 to leagues, even though they were made with all the pomp 
 of the most sacred ceremonies ; on the contrary, they are 
 on this account sooner broken, some slight pretence being 
 found in the words of the treaties, which are purposely 
 couched in such ambiguous terms that they can never 
 be so strictly bound but they will always find some loop- 
 hole to escape at ; and thus they break both their leagues 
 and their faith. And this is done with such impudence, 
 that those very men who value themselves on having 
 suggested these expedients to their princes, would with 
 a haughty scorn declaim against such craft, or to speak 
 plainer, such fraud and deceit, if they found private men 
 make use of it in their bargains, and would readily say 
 that they deserved to be hanged. 
 
 By this means it is, that all sort of justice passes in the 
 
2o6 UTOPIA 
 
 world for a low-spirited and vulgar virtue, far below the 
 dignity of royal greatness. Or at least, there are set up 
 two sorts of justice; the one is mean, and c^pps on the 
 ground, and therefore becomes none but the lower part of 
 mankind, and so must be kept in severely by, many re- 
 straints that it may not break out beyond the bounds that 
 are set to it. The other is the peculiar virtue of princes,^/ 
 which as it is more majestic than that which becomes the 
 rabble, so takes a freer compass; and thus lawful and/ 
 unlawful are only measured by pleasure and interest. 
 These practices of the princes that lie about Utopia, 
 who make so little account of their faith, seem to be the 
 reasons that determine them to engage in no confeder-v/ 
 acies, perhaps they would change their mind if they lived 
 among us; but yet though treaties were more religiously - 
 observed, they would still dislike the custom of making 
 them; since the world has taken lip a false maxim upon 
 it, as if there were no tie of Nature uniting one nation 
 to another, only separated perhaps by a mountain or a 
 river, and that all were bom in a state of hostility, and 
 so might lawfully do all that mischief to their neighbors 
 against which there is no provision made by treaties ; and 
 that when treaties are made, they do not cut off the en- 
 mity, or restrain the license of preying upon each other, 
 if by the unskillfulness of wording them there are not 
 effectual provisos made against them. They, on the 
 other hand, judge that no man is to be esteemed our enemy 
 that has never injured us; and that the partnership of 
 the human nature is instead of a league. And that kind- 
 ness and good-nature unite men more effectually and with \ 
 greater strength than any agreements whatsoever; since 
 thereby the engagements of men's hearts become stronger \ 
 than the bond and obligation of words. 
 
 Of Their Military Discipline. 
 
 They detest war as a very brutal thing; and which, 
 to the reproach of human nature, is more practised by 
 men than by any sort of beasts. They, in opposition to 
 the sentiments of almost all other nations, think that there \; 
 is nothing more inglorious than that glory that is gained by , 
 
UTOPIA 207 
 
 war. And therefore though they accustom themselves , 
 daily to military exercises and the discipline of war, in 
 which not only their men but their women likewise are 
 trained up_ that in cases of necessity they may not be , 
 quite useless; yet they do not rashly engage in war, un- , 
 less it be either to defend themselves, or their friends, 
 from any unjust aggressors; or out of good nature or 
 in compassion assist an oppressed nation in shaking off 
 the yoke of tyranny. They indeed help their friends, 
 not only in defensive, but also in ofiEensive wars; but 
 they never do that unless they have been consulted be- 
 fore the breach was made, and being satisfied with the 
 grounds on which they went, they had found that all 
 demands of reparation were rejected, so that a war was 
 unavoidable. This they think to be not only just, wheuv, 
 one neighbor makes an inroad on another, by public 
 order, and carry away the spoils ; but when the merchants 
 of one country are oppressed in another, either under pre- '.■ 
 tense of some unjust laws or by the perverse wresting . 
 of good ones. This they count a more just cause of war 
 than the other, because those injuries are done under 
 some color of laws. This was the only ground of that 
 war in which they engaged with the Nephelogetes 
 against the Aleopolitanes, a little before our time; for 
 the merchants of the former having, as they thought, 
 met with great injustice among the latter, which, whether 
 it was in itself right or wrong, drew on a terrible war, in 
 which many of their neighbors were engaged; and their 
 keenness in canying it on being supported by their 
 strength in maintaining it, it not only shook some very 
 flourishing states, and very much afflicted others, but 
 after a series of much mischief ended in the entire con- 
 quest and slavery of the Aleopolitanes, who though be- 
 fore the war they were in all respects much superior to 
 the Nephelogetes, were yet subdued; but though the 
 Utopians had assisted them in the war, yet they pre- 
 tended to no share of the spoil. 
 
 But though they so vigorously assist their friends in 
 obtaining reparation for the injuries they have received 
 in affairs of this nature, yet if any such frauds were 
 committed against themselves, provided no violence was 
 
2o8 UTOPIA 
 
 done to their persons, they would only on their being 
 refused satisfaction forbear trading with such a people, y 
 This is not because they consider their neighl^s more 
 than their own citizens; but since their neighbors trade 
 every one upon his own stock, fraud is a more sensible/ 
 injury to them than it is to the Utopians, among whom 
 the public in such a case only suffers. As they expect 
 nothing in return for the merchandises they export but 
 that in which they so much abound, and is of little use 
 to them, the loss does not much affect them; they think 
 therefore it would be too severe to revenge a loss attended 
 with so little inconvenience either to their lives, or their 
 subsistence, with the death of many persons; but if any 
 of their people is either killed or wounded wrongfully, 
 whether it be done by public authority or only by private 
 men, as soon as they hear of it they send ambassadors, 
 and demand that the guilty persons may be delivered up 
 to them; and if that is denied, they declare war; but if 
 it be complied with, the offenders are condemned either 
 to death or slavery. 
 
 They would be both troubled and ashamed of a bloody 
 victory over their enemies, and think it would be as foolish 
 a purchase as to buy the most valuable goods at too high 
 a rate. And in no victory do they glory so much as in 
 that which is gained by dexterity and good conduct, 
 without bloodshed. In such cases they appoint public 
 triumphs, and erect trophies to the honor of those who 
 have succeeded ; for then do they reckon that a man acts 
 suitably to his nature when he conquers his enemy in 
 such a way as that no other creature but a man could be 
 capable of, and that is by the strength of his "under- 
 standing. Bears, lions, boars, wolves, and dogs, and all 
 other animals employ their bodily force one against an- 
 other in which as many of them are superior to men, 
 both in strength and fierceness, so they are all subdued 
 by his reason and understanding. 
 
 The only design of the Utopians in war is to obtain'' 
 that by force, which if it had been granted them in time, 
 would have prevented the war; or if that cannot be done, 
 to take so severe a revenge on those that have injured 
 them that they may be terrified from doing the like for 
 
UTOPIA 209 
 
 the time to come. By these ends they measure all their 
 designs, and manage them so that it is visible that the 
 appetite of fame or vainglory does not work so much 
 on them as a just care of their own security. 
 
 As soon as they declare war, they take care to have a 
 great many schedules, that are sealed with their common 
 seal, affixed in the most conspicuous places of their 
 enemies' country. This is carried secretly, and done in 
 many places all at once. In these they promise great 
 rewards to such as shall kill the prince, and lesser in pro- 
 portion to such as shall kill any other persons, who are 
 those on whom, next to the prince himself, they cast the 
 chief balance of the war. And they double the sum to 
 him that, instead of killing the person so marked out, 
 shall take him alive and put him in their hands. They 
 offer not only indemnity, but rewards, to such of the 
 persons themselves that are so marked, if they will act 
 against their countrymen: by these means those that are 
 named in the schedules become not only distrustful of 
 their fellow-citizens, but are jealous of one another, and 
 are much distracted by fear and danger ; for it has often 
 fallen out that many of them, and even the Prince 
 himself, have been betrayed by those in whom they have 
 trusted most : for the rewards that the Utopians offer are 
 so unmeasurably great, that there is no sort of crime to 
 which men cannot be drawn by them. They consider the 
 risk that those run who undertake such services, and 
 offer a recompense proportioned to the danger; not only 
 a vast deal of gold, but great revenues in lands, that lie 
 among other nations that are their friends, where they 
 may go and enjoy them very securely , and they observe 
 the promises they make of this kind most religiously. 
 They very much approve of this way of corrupting their 
 enemies, though it appears to others to be base and 
 cruel; but they look on it as a wise course, to make an 
 end of what would be otherwise a long war, without so 
 much as hazarding one battle to decide it. They think 
 it likewise an act of mercy and love to mankind to pre- 
 vent the great slaughter of those that must otherwise be 
 killed in the progress of the war, both on their own side 
 and on that of their enemies, by the death of a few that 
 14 ^ 
 
2IO UTOPIA 
 
 are most guilty ; and that in so doing they are kind even 
 to their enemies, and pity them no less than their own 
 people, as knowing that the greater part of th^ do not 
 engage in the war of their own accord, but are driven 
 into it by the passions of their prince. 
 
 If this method does not succeed with them, then they 
 sow seeds of contention among their enemies, and animate 
 the prince's brother, or some of the nobility, to aspire to 
 the crown. If they cannot disunite them by domestic 
 broils, then they engage their neighbors against them, 
 and make them set on foot some old pretensions, which 
 are never wanting to princes when they have occasion 
 for them. These they plentifully supply with money, 
 though but very sparingly with any auxiliary troops: for 
 they are so tender of their own people, that they would 
 not willingly exchange one of them, even with the prince 
 of their enemies' country. 
 
 But as they keep their gold and silver only for such 
 an occasion, so when that offers itself they easily part 
 with it, since it would be no inconvenience to them 
 though they should reserve nothing of it to themselves. 
 For besides the wealth that they have among them at 
 home, they have a vast treasure abroad, many nations 
 round about them being deep in their debt ; so that they 
 hire soldiers from all places for carrying on their wars, 
 but chiefly from the Zapolets, who live five hundred miles 
 east of Utopia. They are a rude, wild, and fierce nation, 
 who delight in the woods and rocks, among which they 
 were bom and bred. They are hardened both against 
 heat, cold and labor, and know nothing of the delicacies 
 of life. They do not apply themselves to agriculture, 
 nor do they care either for their houses or their clothes. 
 Cattle is all that they look after; and for the greatest 
 part they live either by hunting, or upon rapine ; and are 
 made, as it were, only for war. They watch all oppor- 
 tunities of engaging in it, and very readily embrace such 
 as are offered them. Great numbers of them will fre- 
 quently go out, and offer themselves for a very low pay, 
 to serve any that will employ them : they know none of 
 the arts of life, but those that lead to the taking it away; 
 they serve those that hire them, both with much courage 
 
UTOPIA 2U 
 
 and great fidelity, but will not engage to serve for any 
 determined time, and agree upon such terms, that the 
 next day they may go over to the enemies of those whom 
 they serve, if they offer them a greater encouragement; 
 and will perhaps return to them the day after that, upon 
 a higher advance of their pay. There are few wars in 
 which they make not a considerable part of the armies 
 of both sides: so it often falls out that they who are 
 related, and were hired in the same country, and so have 
 lived long and familiarly together, forgetting both their 
 relations and former friendship, kill one another upon 
 no other consideration than that of being hired to it for 
 a little money by princes of different interests ; and such 
 a regard have they for money, that they are easily 
 wrought on by the diflEerence of one penny a day to 
 change sides. So entirely does their avarice influence them; 
 and yet this money, which they value so highly, is of 
 little use to them ; for what they purchase thus with their 
 blood, they quickly waste on luxury, which among them 
 is but of a poor and miserable form. 
 
 This nation serves the Utopians against all people 
 whatsoever, for they pay higher than any other. The 
 Utopians hold this for a maxim, that as they seek out 
 the best sort of men for their own use at home, so they 
 make use of this worst sort of men for the consumption 
 of war, and therefore they hire them with the offers of 
 vast rewards, to expose themselves to all sorts of haz- 
 ards, out of which the greater part never returns to 
 claim their promises. Yet they make them good most 
 religiously to such as escape. This animates them to 
 adventure again, whenever there is occasion for it; for 
 the Utopians are not at all troubled how many of these 
 happen to be killed,. ::5J3d« reckon it a service done to 
 mankind if they could be "a. means to deliver the world 
 from silch a lewd and vicious sort of people, that seem 
 to have run together as to the drain of human nature. 
 Next to these they are served in their wars with those 
 upon whose account they undertake them, and with the 
 auxiliary troops of their other friends, to whom they 
 join a few of their own people, and send some man of 
 eminent and approved virtue to command in chief. 
 
212 UTOPIA 
 
 There are two sent with him, who during his command 
 are but private men, but the first is to succeed him if 
 he should happen to be either killed or takery and in 
 case of the like misfortune to him, the third comes in 
 his place; and thus they provide against ill events, that 
 such accidents as may befall their generals may not 
 endanger their armies. When they draw out troops of 
 their own people, they take such out of every city as 
 freely offer themselves, for none are forced to go against 
 their wills, since they think that if any man is pressed 
 that wants courage, he will not only act faintly, but by 
 his cowardice dishearten others. But if an invasion is 
 made on their country they make use of such men, if 
 they have good bodies, though they are not brave; and 
 either put them aboard their ships or place them on the 
 walls of their towns, that being so posted they may find 
 no opportunity of flying away; and thus either shame, 
 the heat of action, or the impossibility of flying, bears 
 down their cowardice ; they often make a virtue of neces- 
 sity and behave themselves well, because nothing else is 
 left them. But as they force no man to go into anj v 
 foreign war against his will, so they do not hinder those 
 women who are willing to go along with their husbands ; , 
 on the contrary, they encourage and praise them, and 
 they stand often next their husbands in the front of the ' 
 army. They also place together those who are related, ' 
 parents and children, kindred, and those that are mutually • 
 allied, near one another ; that those whom Nature has in- v 
 spired with the greatest zeal for assisting one another, may 
 be the nearest and readiest to do it ; and it is matter of '- 
 great reproach if husband or wife survive one another, or if 
 f child survives his parents, and therefore when they 
 come to be engaged in action they continue to fight to 
 the last man, if their enemies stand before them. And 
 as they use all prudent methods to avoid the endanger- 
 ing their own men, and if it is possible let all the action 
 and danger fall upon the troops that they hire, so if it 
 becomes necessary for themselves to engage, they then 
 charge with as much courage as they avoided it before 
 with prudence: nor is it a fierce charge at first, but it 
 increases by degrees; and as they continue in action, 
 
UTOPIA 213 
 
 they grow more obstinate and press Harder upon the 
 enemy, insomuch that they will much sooner die than 
 give ground ; for the certainty that their children will be 
 well looked after when they are dead, frees them from 
 all that anxiety concerning them which often masters men 
 of great courage ; and thus they are animated by a noble 
 and invincible resolution. Their skill in military affairs 
 increases their courage; and the wise sentiments which, 
 according to the laws of their country are instilled into 
 them in their education, give additional vigor to their 
 minds: for as they do not undervalue life so as prodi- 
 gally to throw it away, they are not so indecently fond of 
 it as to preserve it by base and unbecoming methods. 
 In the greatest heat of action, the bravest of their youth, 
 who have devoted themselves to that service, single out 
 the general of their enemies, set on him either openly or 
 by ambuscade, pursue him everywhere, and when spent 
 and wearied out, are relieved by others, who never give 
 over the pursuit; either attacking him with close weap- 
 ons when they can get near him, or with those which 
 wound at a distance, when others get in between them; 
 so that unless he secures himself by flight, they seldom 
 fail at last to kill or to take him prisoner. When they 
 have obtained a victory, they kill as few as possible, and 
 are much more bent on taking many prisoners than on 
 killing those that fly before them; nor do they ever let 
 their men so loose in the pursuit of their enemies, as not to 
 retain an entire body still in order; so that if they have 
 been forced to engage the last of their battalions before 
 they could gain the day, they will rather let their enemies 
 all escape than pursue them, when their own army is in 
 disorder; remembering well what has often fallen out to 
 themselves, that when the main body of their army has 
 been quite defeated and broken, when their enemies im- 
 agining the victory obtained, have let themselves loose 
 into an irregular pursuit, a few of them that lay for a 
 reserve, waiting a fit 'opportunity, have fallen on them 
 in their chase, and when straggling in disorder and 
 apprehensive of no danger, but counting the day their 
 own, have turned the whole action, and wresting 
 out of their hands a victory that seemed certain and 
 
214 UTOPIA 
 
 undoubted, while the vanquished have suddenly become 
 victorious. 
 
 It is hard to tell whether they are more dexterous in 
 laying or avoiding ambushes. They sometimes*eem to 
 fly when it is far from their thoughts; and when they 
 intend to give ground, they do it so that it is very hard 
 to find out their design. If they see they are ill posted, 
 or are like to be overpowered by numbers, they then 
 either march oif in the night with great silence, or by 
 some stra'tagem delude their enemies: if they retire in 
 the daytime, they do it in such order, that it is no less 
 dangerous to fall upon them in a retreat than in a march. 
 They fortify their camps with a deep and large trench, 
 and throw up the earth that is dug out of it for a wall; 
 nor do they employ only their slaves in this, but the 
 whole army works at it, except those that are then upon 
 the guard; so that when so many hands are at work, a 
 great line and a strong fortification is finished in so short 
 a time that it is scarce credible. Their armor is very 
 strong for defense, and yet is not so heavy as to 
 make them uneasy in their marches ; for they can even 
 swim with it. All that are trained up to war practice 
 swimming. Both horse and foot make great use of 
 arrows, and are very expert. They have no swords, but 
 fight with a pole-axe that is both sharp and heavy, by 
 which they thrust or strike down an enemy. They are 
 very good at finding out warlike machines, and disguise 
 them so well, that the enemy does not perceive them 
 till he feels the use of them; so that he cannot prepare 
 such a defense as would render them useless; the chief 
 consideration had in the making them, is that they may 
 be easily carried and managed. 
 
 If they agree to a truce, they observe it so religiously 
 that no provocations will make them break it. They 
 never lay their enemies' country waste, nor bum their 
 corn, and even in their marches they take all possible 
 care that neither horse nor foot may tread it down, for 
 they do not know but that they may have use for it 
 themselves. They hurt no man whom they find disarmed, 
 unless he is a spy. When a town is surrendered to them, 
 they take it into their protection : and when they carry a 
 
UTOPIA 21 s 
 
 place by storm, they never plunder it, but put those only 
 to the sword that opposed the rendering of it up, and 
 make the rest of the garrison slaves, but for the other 
 inhabitants they do them no hurt; and if any of them 
 had advised a surrender, they give them good rewards 
 out of the estates of those that they condemn, and dis- 
 tribute the rest among their auxiliary troops, but they 
 themselves take no share of the spoil. 
 
 When a war is ended, they do not oblige their friends 
 to reimburse their expenses ; but they obtain them of the 
 conquered, either in money, which they keep for the next 
 occasion, or in lands, out of which a constant revenue is 
 to be paid them; by many increases, the revenue which 
 they draw out from several countries on such occasions, 
 is now risen to above 700,000 ducats a year. They send 
 some of their own people to receive these revenues, who 
 have orders to live magnificently, and like princes, by 
 which means they consume much of it upon the place; 
 and either bring over the rest to Utopia, or lend it to 
 that nation in which it lies. This they most commonly 
 do, unless some great occasion, which falls out but 
 very seldom, should oblige them to call for it all. It 
 is out of these lands that they assign rewards to such 
 as they encourage to adventure on desperate attempts. 
 If any prince that engages in war with them is making 
 preparations for invading their country, they prevent 
 him, and make his country the seat of the war; for 
 they do not willingly suffer any war to break in upon 
 their island ; and if that should happen, they would only 
 defend themselves by their own people, and not call 
 for auxiliary troops to their assistance. 
 
 Of the Religions of the Utopians. 
 
 There are several sorts of religions, not only in differ- V 
 ent parts of the island, but even in every town; some- 
 worshiping the sun, others the moon, or one of the 
 planets : some worship such men as have been eminent in 
 former times for virtue, or glory, not only as ordinary 
 deities, but as the supreme God: yet the greater and 
 wiser sort of them worship none of these, but adore one 
 
2i6 UTOPIA 
 
 eternal, invisible, infinite, and incomprehensible Deity; 
 as a being that is far above all our apprehensions, that 
 is spread over the whole universe, not by his bulk, but 
 by his power and virtue; him they call th* Father of 
 All, and acknowledge that the beginnings, the increase, 
 the progress, the vicissitudes, and the end of all things 
 come only from him; nor do they offer divine honors to 
 any but to him alone. And indeed, though they differ 
 concerning other things, yet all agree in this, that they 
 think there is one Supreme Being that made and governs 
 the world, whom they call in the language of their 
 country Mithras. They differ in this, that one thinks 
 the God whom he worships is this Supreme Being, and 
 another thinks that his idol is that God; but they all 
 agree in one principle, that whoever is this Supreme 
 Being, he is also that great Essence to whose glory and 
 majesty all honors are ascribed by the consent of all 
 nations. 
 
 By degrees, they fall off from the various superstitions 
 that are among them, and grow up to that one religion 
 that is the best and most in request; and there is no 
 doubt to be made but that all the others had vanished 
 long ago, if some of those who advised them to lay aside 
 their superstitions had not met with some unhappy acci- 
 dent, which being considered as inflicted by heaven, made 
 them afraid that the God whose worship had like to have 
 been abandoned, had interposed, and revenged themselves 
 on those who despised their authority. 
 
 After they had heard from us an account of the doc- 
 trine, the course of life, and the miracles of Christ, and 
 of the wonderful constancy of so many martyrs, whose 
 blood so willingly offered up by them, was the chief occa- 
 sion of spreading their religion over a vast number of 
 nations ; it is not to be imagined how inclined they were 
 to receive it. I shall not determine whether this pro- 
 ceeded from any secret inspiration of God, or whether it 
 was because it seemed so favorable to that community 
 of goods, which is an opinion so particular as well as so 
 dear to them; since they perceived that Christ and his 
 followers lived by that rule, and that it was still kept up in 
 some communities among the sincerest sort of Christians. 
 
UTOPIA 217 
 
 From whichsoever of these motives it might be, true it is 
 that many of them came over to our religion, and were 
 initiated into it by baptism. But as two of our number 
 were dead, so none of the four that survived were in 
 priests' orders; we therefore could only baptize them; so 
 that to our great regret they could not partake of the 
 other sacraments that can only be administered by priests ; 
 but they are instructed concerning them, and long most 
 vehemently for them. They have had great disputes 
 among themselves, whether one chosen by them to be a 
 priest would not thereby be qualified to do all the things 
 that belong to that character, even though he had no 
 authority derived from the Pope ; and they seemed to be 
 resolved to choose some for that employment, but they 
 had not done it when I left them. 
 
 Those among them that have not received our religion, 
 do not fright any from it, and use none ill that goes 
 over to it; so that all the while I was there, one man 
 only was punished on this occasion. He being newly 
 baptized, did, notwithstanding all that we could say to 
 the contrary, dispute publicly concerning the Christian 
 religion with more zeal than discretion; and with so much 
 heat, that he not only preferred our worship to theirs, 
 but condemned all their rites as profane; and cried out 
 against all that adhered to them, as impious and sacri- 
 legious persons, that were to be damned to everlasting 
 burnings. Upon his having frequently preached in this 
 manner, he was seized, and after trial he was condemned 
 to banishment, not for having disparaged their religion, 
 but for his inflaming the people to sedition: for this is 
 one of their most ancient laws, that no man ought to be 
 punished for his religion. At the first constitution of 
 their government, Utopus having understood that before 
 his coming among them the old inhabitants had been 
 engaged in great quarrels concerning religion, by which 
 they were so divided among themselves, that he found it 
 an easy thing to conquer them, since instead of uniting 
 their forces against him, every different party in religion 
 fought by themselves; after he had subdued them, he 
 made a law that every man might be of what religion 
 he pleased, and might endeavor to draw others to it by 
 
2i8 UTOPIA 
 
 the force of argument, and by amicable and modest ways, 
 but without bitterness against those of other opinions; 
 but that he ought to use no other force J?ut that of 
 persuasion, and was neither to mix with it reproaches 
 nor violence ; and such as did otherwise were to be con- 
 demned to banishment or slavery. 
 
 This law was made by Utopus, not only for preserv--^ 
 ing the public peace, which he saw suffered much by , 
 daily contentions and irreconcilable heats, but because ' 
 he thought the interest of religion itself required it. He 
 judged it not fit to determine anything rashly, and 
 seemed to doubt whether those different forms of reli- 
 gion might not all come from God, who might inspire 
 men in a different manner, and be pleased with this va- 
 riety; he therefore thought it indecent and foolish for 
 any man to threaten and terrify another to make him 
 believe what did not appear to him to be true. And 
 supposing that only one religion was really true, and the 
 rest false, he imagined that the native force of truth 
 would at last break forth and shine bright, if supported 
 only by the strength of argument, and attended to with 
 a gentle and unprejudiced mind; while on the other 
 hand, if such debates were carried on with violence and 
 tumults, as the most wicked are always the most obsti- 
 nate, so the best and most holy religion might be choked 
 with superstition, as com is with briars and thorns; he 
 therefore left men wholly to their liberty, that they 
 might be free to believe as they should see cause; only 
 he made a solemn and severe law against such as should 
 so far degenerate from the dignity of human nature as 
 to think that our souls died with our bodies, or that the 
 world was governed by chance, without a wise overruling 
 Providence : for they all formerly believed that there was 
 a state of rewards and punishments to the good and bad 
 after this life; and they now look on those that think 
 otherwise as scarce fit to be counted men, since they de- 
 grade so noble a being as the soul, and reckon it no bet- 
 ter than a beast's: thus they are far from looking on 
 such men as fit for human society, or to be citizens of 
 a well-ordered commonwealth; since a man of such 
 principles must needs, as often as he dares do it, 
 
UTOPIA 219 
 
 despise all their laws and customs : for there is no doubt 
 to be made that a man who is afraid of nothing but 
 the law, and apprehends nothing after death, will not 
 scruple to break through all the laws of his country, 
 either by fraud or force, when by this means he may sat- 
 isfy his appetites. They never raise any that hold these 
 maxims, either to honors or offices, nor employ them in 
 any public trust, but despise them, as men of base and 
 sordid minds ; yet they do not punish them, because they 
 lay this down as a maxim that a man cannot make him- 
 self believe anything he pleases ; nor do they drive 
 any to dissemble their thoughts by threatenings, so 
 that men are not tempted to lie or disguise their 
 opinions; which being a sort of fraud, is abhorred 
 by the Utopians. They take care indeed to prevent their 
 disputing in defense of these opinions, especially before the 
 common people ; but they suffer, and even encourage them 
 to dispute concerning them in private with their priests and 
 other grave men, being confident that they will be cured 
 of those mad opinions by having reason laid before them. 
 There are many among them that run far to the other 
 extreme, though it is neither thought an ill nor unreasonable 
 opinion, and therefore is not at all discouraged. They 
 think that the souls of beasts are immortal; though far 
 inferior to the dignity of the human soul, and not capa- 
 ble of so great a happiness. They are almost all of them 
 very firmly persuaded that good men will be infinitely 
 happy in another state; so that though they are compas- 
 sionate to all that are sick, yet they lament no man's 
 death, except they see him loath to depart with life; for 
 they look on this as a very ill presage, as if the soUl, 
 conscious to itself of guilt, and quite hopeless, was afraid 
 to leave the body, from some secret hints of approach- 
 ing misery. They think that such a man's appearance 
 before God cannot be acceptable to him, who being called 
 on does not go out cheerfully but is backward and unwill- 
 ing, and is, as it were, dragged to it. They are struck 
 with horror when they see any die in this manner, and 
 carry them out in silence and with sorrow, and praying 
 God that he would be merciful to the errors of the de- 
 parted soul, they lay the body in the ground; but when 
 
320 UTOPIA 
 
 any die cheerfully, and full of hope, they do not mourn 
 for them, but sing hymns when they carry out their 
 bodies, and commending their souls very ||p,mestly to 
 Grod : their whole behavior is then rather grave than sad, 
 they burn the body, and set up a pillar where the pile 
 was made, with an inscription to the honor of the de- 
 ceased. When they come from the funeral, they discourse 
 of his good life and worthy actions, but speak of noth- 
 ing oftener and with more pleasure than of his serenity 
 at the hour of death. They think such respect paid to 
 the memory of good men is both the greatest incitement 
 to engage others to follow their example, and the most 
 acceptable worship than can be offered them; for they 
 believe that though by the imperfection of human sight 
 they are invisible to us, yet they are present among us, 
 and hear those discourses that pass concerning them- 
 selves. They believe it inconsistent with the happiness 
 of departed souls not to be at liberty to be where they 
 will, and do not imagine them capable of the ingrati- 
 tude of not desiring to see those friends with whom they 
 lived on earth in the strictest bonds of love and kind- 
 ness: besides they are persuaded that good men after 
 death have these affections and all other good disposi- 
 tions increased rather than diminished, and therefore 
 conclude that they are still among the living, and observe 
 all they say or do. From hence they engage in all theii 
 affairs with the greater confidence of success, as trusting 
 to their protection ; while this opinion of the presence of 
 their ancestors is a restraint that prevents their engag. 
 ing in ill designs. 
 
 They despise and laugh at auguries, and the othei 
 vain and superstitious ways of divination, so much ob- 
 served among other nations; but have great reverence 
 for such miracles as cannot flow from any of the powers 
 of Nature, and look on them as effects and indications 
 of the presence of the supreme Being, of which they 
 say many instances have occurred among them ; and that 
 sometimes their public prayers, which upon great and 
 dangerous occasions they have solemnly put up to God, 
 with assured confidence of being heard, have been 
 answered in a miraculous manner. . 
 
UTOPIA 221 
 
 They think the contemplating God in his works, and \ 
 the adoring him for them, is a very acceptable piece of 
 worship to him. 
 
 There are many among them, that upon a motive of 
 religion neglect learning, and apply themselves to no 
 sort of study; nor do they allow themselves any leisure 
 time, but are perpetually employed, believing that by 
 the good things that a man does he secures to himself 
 that happiness that comes after death. Some of these 
 visit the sick; others mend highways, cleanse ditches, 
 repair bridges, or dig turf, gravel or stones. Others fell 
 and cleave timber, and bring wood, corn, and other 
 necessaries on carts into their towns. Nor do these only 
 serve the public, but they serve even private men, more 
 than the slaves themselves do; for if there is anywhere 
 a rough, hard, and sordid piece of work to be done, 
 from which many are frightened by the labor and loath- 
 someness of it, if not the despair of accomplishing it, 
 they cheerfully, and of their own accord, take that to 
 their share; and by that means, as they ease others very 
 much, so they afflict themselves, and spend their whole 
 life in hard labor; and yet they do not value themselves 
 upon this, nor lessen other people's credit to raise their 
 own; but by their stooping to such servile employments, 
 they are so far from being despised, that they are so 
 much the more esteemed by the whole nation. 
 
 Of these there are two sorts; some live unmarried and 
 chaste, and abstain from eating any sort of flesh; and 
 thus weaning themselves from all the pleasures of the 
 present life, which they account hurtful, they pursue, 
 even by the hardest and most painful methods possible, 
 that blessedness which they hope for hereafter; and the 
 nearer they approach to it, they are the more cheerful 
 and earnest in their endeavors after it. Another sort of 
 them is less willing to put themselves to much toil, and 
 therefore prefer a married state to a single one, and as 
 they do not deny themselves the pleasure of it, so they 
 think the begetting of children is a debt which they owe 
 to human nature and to their country; nor do they avoid 
 any pleasure that does not hinder labor, and therefore 
 eat flesh so much the more willingly, as they find that 
 
222 UTOPIA 
 
 by this means they are the more able to work; the 
 Utopians look upon these as the wiser sect, but they 
 esteem the others as the most holy. They -vmuld indeed 
 laugh at any man, who from the principles of reason 
 would prefer an unmarried state to a married, or a life 
 of labor to an easy life; but they reverence and admire 
 such as do it from the motives of religion. There is 
 nothing in which they are more cautious than in giving 
 their opinion positively concerning any sort Of religion. 
 The men that lead those severe lives are called in the 
 language of their country Brutheskas, which answers to 
 those we call religious orders. 
 
 Their priests are men of eminent piety, and therefore 
 they are but few, for there are only thirteen in every 
 town, one for every temple; but when they go to war, 
 seven of these go out with their forces, and seven others 
 are chosen to supply their room in their absence; but 
 these enter again upon their employment when they 
 return; and those who served in their absence attend 
 upon the high priest, till vacancies fall by death; for 
 there is one set over all the rest. They are chosen by 
 the people as the other magistrates are, by suffrages 
 given in secret, for preventing of factions; and when 
 they are chosen they are consecrated by the college of 
 priests. The care of all sacred things, the worship of 
 God, and an inspection into the manners of the people, 
 are committed to them. It is a reproach to a man to be 
 sent for by any of them, or for them to speak to him in 
 secret, for that always gives some suspicion. All that is 
 incumbent on them is only to exhort and admonish the 
 people; for the power of correcting and punishing ill 
 men belongs wholly to the Prince and to the other mag- 
 istrates. The severest thing that the priest does, is the 
 excluding those that are desperately wicked from joining 
 in their worship. There is not any sort of punishment 
 more dreaded by them than this, for as it loads them 
 with infamy, so it fills them with secret horrors, such is 
 their reverence to their religion ; nor will their bodies be 
 long exempted from their share of trouble; for if they 
 do not very quickly satisfy the priests of the truth of 
 their repentance, they are seized on by the Senate, and 
 
UTOPIA 223 
 
 punished for their impiety. The education of youth 
 belongs to the priests, yet they do not take so much care 
 of instructing them in letters as in forming their minds, 
 and manners aright; they use all possible methods to 
 infuse very early into the tender and flexible minds of 
 children such opinions as are both good in themselves 
 and will be useful to their country. For when deep im- 
 pressions of these things are made at that age, they 
 follow men through the whole, course of their lives^ and 
 conduce much to preserve the peace of the government, 
 which suffers by nothing more than by vices that rise 
 out of ill opinions." The wives of their priests are the 
 most extraordinary women of the whole country; some- 
 times the women themselves are made priests, though 
 that falls out but seldom, nor are any but ancient widows 
 chosen into that order. 
 
 None of the magistrates have greater honor paid them 
 than is paid the priests; and if they should happen to 
 commit any crime, they would not be questioned for it 
 Their punishment is left to God, and to their own con' 
 sciences ; for they do not think it lawful to lay hands on 
 any man, how wicked soever he is, that has been in a 
 peculiar manner dedicated to God; nor do they find any 
 great inconvenience in this, both because they have so 
 few priests, and because they are chosen with much 
 caution, so that it must be a very unusual thing to find 
 one who merely out of regard to his virtue, and for his 
 being esteemed a singularly good man, was raised up to 
 so great a dignity, degenerate into corruption and vice. 
 And if such a thing should fall out, for man is a change- 
 able creature, yet there being few priests, and these hav- 
 ing no authority but what rises out of the respect that 
 is paid them, nothing of great consequence to the 
 public can proceed from the indemnity that the priests 
 enjoy. 
 
 They have indeed, very few of them, lest greater num- 
 bers sharing in the same honor might make the dignity 
 of that order which they esteem so highly to sink in its 
 reputation. They also think it difficult to find out many 
 of such an exalted pitch of goodness, as to be equal to 
 that dignity which demands the exercise of more than 
 
224 UTOPIA 
 
 ordinary virtues. Nor are the priests in greater venera- 
 tion among them than they are among their neighbor- 
 ing nations, as you may imagine by that whici»I think 
 gives occasion for it. 
 
 When the Utopians engage in battle, the priests who 
 accompany them to the war, appareled in their sacred 
 vestments, kneel down during the action, in a place not 
 far from the field, and lifting up their hands to heaven, 
 pray, first for peace, and then for victory to their own 
 side, and particularly that it may be gained without the 
 effusion of much blood on either side; and when the vic- 
 tory turns to their side, they run in among their own 
 men to restrain their fury; and if any of their enemies 
 see them, or call to them, they are preserved by that 
 means; and such as can come so near them as to touch 
 their garments, have not only their lives but their for- 
 tunes secured to them; it is upon this account that all 
 the nations round about consider them so much, and 
 treat them with such reverence, that they have been often 
 no less able to preserve their own people from the fury 
 Df their enemies, than to save their enemies from their 
 rage; for it has sometimes fallen out, that when their 
 armies have been in disorder, and forced to fly, so that 
 their enemies were running upon the slaughter and spoil, 
 the priests, by interposing have separated them from one 
 another, and stopped the effusion of more blood; so that 
 by their mediation a peace has been concluded on very 
 reasonable terms; nor is there any nation about them so 
 fierce, cruel, or barbarous as not to look upon their per- 
 sons as sacred and inviolable. 
 
 The first and the last day of the month, and of the 
 year, is a festival. They measure their months by the 
 course of the moon, and their years by the course of 
 the sun. The first days are called in their language the 
 Cyn.emernes, and the last the Trapememes ; which answers 
 in our language to the festival that begins, or ends the 
 season. 
 
 They have magnificent temples, that are not only nobly 
 built, but extremely spacious; which is the more neces- 
 sary, as they have so few of them ; they are a little dark 
 within, which proceeds not from any error in the archi- 
 
UTOPIA 225 
 
 lecture, but is done with design; for their priests think 
 that too much light dissipates the thoughts, and that a 
 more moderate degree of it both recollects the mind and 
 raises devotion. Though there are many different forms 
 of religion among them, yet all these, how various soever, 
 agree in the main point, which is the worshiping the 
 Divine Essence; and therefore there is nothing to be seen 
 or heard in their temples in which the several persuasions 
 among them may not agree, for every sect performs those 
 rites that are peculiar to it, in their private houses; nor 
 is there anything in the public worship that contradicts 
 the particular ways of those different sects. There are 
 no images for God in their temples, so that every one 
 may represent him to his thoughts, according to the way 
 of his religion; nor do they call this one God by any 
 other name but that of Mithras, which is the common 
 name by which they all express the Divine Essence, 
 whatsoever otherwise they think it to be; nor are there 
 any prayers among them but such as every one of them 
 may use without prejudice to his own opinion. 
 
 They meet in their temples on the evening of the 
 festival that concludes a season: and not having yet 
 broke their fast, they thank God for their good success 
 during that year or month, which is then at an end, and 
 the next day being that which begins the new season, 
 they meet early in their temples, to pray for the happy 
 progress of all their affairs during that period upon 
 which they then enter. In the festival which concludes 
 the period, before they go to the temple, both wives and 
 children fall on their knees before their husbands or 
 parents, and confess everything in which they have 
 either erred or failed in their duty, and beg pardon for 
 it. Thus all little discontents in families are removed, 
 that they may offer up their devotions with a pure and 
 serene mind; for they hold it a great impiety to enter 
 upon them with disturbed thoughts, or with a conscious- 
 ness of their bearing hatred or anger in their hearts to 
 any person whatsoever; and think that they should be- 
 come liable to severe punishments if they presume to 
 offer sacrifices without cleansing their hearts, and recon- 
 ciling all their differences. In the temples, the two 
 
226 UTOPIA 
 
 sexes are separated, the men go to tlie right hand, and 
 the women to the left; and the males and females all 
 place themselves before the head and master oiigciistress 
 of that family to which they belong; so that those who 
 have the government of them at home may see their 
 deportment in public ; and they intermingle them so, that 
 the younger and the older may be set by one another; 
 for if the younger sort were all set together, they would 
 perhaps trifle away that time too much in which they 
 ought to beget in themselves that religious dread of the 
 Supreme Being, which is the greatest and almost the 
 only incitepient to virtue. 
 
 They ofiEer up no living creature in sacrifice, nor do 
 they think it suitable to the Divine Being, from whose 
 bounty it is that these creatures have derived their lives, 
 to take pleasure in their deaths, or the offering up their 
 blood. They burn incense and other sweet odors, and 
 have a great number of wax lights during their worship ; 
 not out of any imagination that such oblations can add 
 anything to the divine Nature, which even prayers cannot 
 do; but as it is a harmless and pure way of worshiping 
 God, so they think those sweet savors and lights, togethet 
 with some other ceremonies, by a secret and unaccount- 
 able virtue, elevate men's souls, and inflame them with 
 greater energy and cheerfulness during the divine worship. 
 
 All the people appear in the temples in white garments, 
 but the priest's vestments are parti-colored, and both the 
 work and colors are wonderful. They are made of no 
 rich materials, for they are neither embroidered nor set 
 with precious stones, but are composed of the plumes of 
 several birds, laid together with so much art and so 
 neatly, that the true value of them is far beyond the 
 costliest materials. They say that in the ordering and 
 placing those plumes some dark mysteries ate represented, 
 which pass down among their priests in a secret tradi- 
 tion concerning them; and that they are as hieroglyphics, 
 putting them in mind of the blessings that they have 
 received from God, and of their duties both to him and 
 to their neighbors. As soon as the priest appears in 
 those ornaments, they all fall prostrate on the ground, 
 with so much reverence and so deep a silence that such 
 
UTOPIA 227 
 
 as look on cannot but be struck with it, as if it were the 
 effect of the appearance of a Deity. After they have 
 been for some time in this posture, they all stand up, 
 upon a sign given by the priest, and sing hymns to the 
 honor of God, some musical instruments playing all the 
 while. These are quite of another form than those used 
 among us: but as many of them are much sweeter than 
 ours, so others are made use of by us. Yet in one thing 
 they very much exceed us; all their music, both vocal 
 and instrumental, is adapted to imitate and express the 
 passions, and is so happily suited to every occasion, that 
 whether the subject of the hymn be cheerful or formed to 
 soothe or trouble the mind, or to express grief or re- 
 morse, the music takes the impression of whatever is 
 represented, affects and kindles the passions, and works 
 the sentiments deep into the hearts of the hearers. 
 When this is done, both priests and people offer up very 
 solemn prayers to God in a set form of words ; and these 
 are so composed, that whatsoever is pronounced by the 
 whole assembly may be likewise applied by every man 
 in particular to his own condition : in these they acknowl- 
 edge God to be the author and governor of the world, 
 and the fountain of all the good they receive, and 
 therefore offer up to him their thanksgiving; and in 
 particular bless him for his goodness in ordering 
 it so, that they are born under the happiest government 
 in the world, and are of a religion which they hope is 
 the truest of all others : but if they are mistaken, and if 
 there is either a better government or a religion more 
 acceptable to God, they implore his goodness to let them 
 know it, vowing that they resolve to follow him whith- 
 ersoever he leads them. But if their government is the 
 best, and their religion the truest, then they pray that 
 he may fortify them in it, and bring all the world both 
 to the same rules of life, and to the same opinions con- 
 cerning himself; unless, according to the unsearchable- 
 ness of his mind, he is pleased with a variety of 
 religions. Then they pray that God may give them an 
 easy passage at last to himself; not presuming to set 
 limits to him, how early or late it should be; but if it 
 may be wished for, without derogating ffom his supreme 
 
228 UTOPIA 
 
 authority, they desire to be quickly delivered, and to be 
 taken to himself, though by the most terrible kind of 
 death, rather than to be detained long from s^ing him 
 by the most prosperous course of life. When this prayer 
 is ended, they all fall down again upon the ground, and 
 after a little while they rise up, go home to dinner, and 
 spend the rest of the day in diversion or military exercises. 
 Thus have I described to you, as particularly as I could, 
 the constitution of that commonwealth, which I do not 
 only think the best in the world, but indeed the only 
 commonwealth that truly deserves that name. In alL 
 other places it is visible, that while people talk of a - 
 commonwealth, every man only seeks his own wealth; 
 but there, where no man has any property, all men zeal- 
 ously pursue the good of the public ; and, indeed, it is no 
 wonder to see men act so differently; for in other com- 
 monwealths, every man knows that unless he provides for 
 himself, how flourishing soever the commonwealth may 
 be, he must die of hunger; so that he sees the necessity 
 of preferring his own concerns to the public; but in 
 Utopia, where every man has a right to everything, they 
 all know that if care is taken to keep the public stores 
 full, no private man can want anything ; for among them 
 there is no unequal distribution, so that no man is poor, 
 none in necessity; and though no man has anything, yet 
 they are all rich; for what can make a man so rich as to 
 lead a serene and cheerful life, free from anxieties; 
 neither apprehending want himself, nor vexed with the 
 endless complaints of his wife ? He is not afraid of the 
 misery of his children, nor is he contriving how to raise 
 a portion for his daughters, but is secure in this, that 
 both he and his wife, his children and grandchildren, to 
 as many generations as he can fancy, will all live both 
 plentifully and happily ; since among them there is no less 
 care taken of those who were once engaged in labor, but 
 grow afterward unable to follow it, than there is else- 
 where of these that continue still employed. I would 
 gladly hear any man compare the justice that is among 
 them with that of all other nations ; among whom, may I 
 perish, if I see anything that looks either like justice or 
 equity : for what justice is there in this, that a nobleman, 
 
UTOPIA 229 
 
 a goldsmith, a banker, or any other man, that either does 
 nothing at all, or at best is employed in things that are 
 of no use to the public, should live in great luxury and 
 splendor, upon what is so ill acquired; and a mean man, 
 a carter, a smith, or a plowman, that works harder even 
 than the beasts themselves, and is employed in labors so 
 necessary, that no commonwealth could hold out a year 
 without them, can only earn so poor a livelihood, and 
 must lead so miserable a life, that the condition of the 
 beasts is much better than theirs ? For as the beasts do 
 not work so constantly, so they feed almost as well, and 
 with more pleasure; and have no anxiety about what is 
 to come, whilst these men are depressed by a barren and 
 fruitless employment, and tormented with the apprehen- 
 sions of want in their old age ; since that which they get 
 by their daily labor does but maintain them at present, 
 and is consumed as fast as it comes in, there is no over- 
 plus left to lay up for old age. 
 
 Is not that government both unjust and ungrateful, that 
 is so prodigal of its favors to those that are called gentle- 
 men, or goldsmiths, or such others who are idle, or live 
 either by flattery or by contriving the arts of vain pleasure ; 
 and on the other hand, takes no care of those of a meaner 
 sort, such as plowmen, colliers, and smiths, without 
 whom it could not subsist ? But after the public has 
 reaped all the advantage of their service, and they come 
 to be oppressed with age, sickness, and want, all their 
 labors and the good they have done is forgotten , and all 
 the recompense given them is that they are left to die in 
 great misery. The richer sort are often endeavoring to 
 bring the hire of laborers lower, not only by their fraudu- 
 lent practices, but by the laws which they procure to be 
 made to that effect ; so that though it is a thing most un- 
 just in itself, to give such small rewards to those who 
 deserve so well of the public, yet they have given those 
 hardships the name and color of justice, by procuring laws 
 to be made for regulating them. 
 
 Therefore I must say that, as I hope for mercy, I can 
 have no other notion of all the other governments that I 
 see or know, than that they are a conspiracy of the rich, 
 who on pretense of managing the public only pursue 
 
230 UTOPIA 
 
 their private ends, and devise all the ways and arts they 
 can find out ; first, that they may, without danger, preserve 
 all that they have so ill acquired, and then that they may 
 engage the poor to toil and labor for them at as low rates 
 as possible, and oppress them as much as they please. 
 And if they can but prevail to get these contrivances es- 
 tablished by the show of public authority, which is consid- 
 ered as the representative of the whole people, then they 
 are accounted laws. Yet these wicked men after they 
 have, by a most insatiable covetousness, divided that 
 among themselves with which all the rest might have been 
 well supplied, are far from that happiness that is enjoyed 
 among the Utopians : for the use as well as the desire of 
 money being extinguished, much anxiety and great occa- 
 sions of mischief are cut off with them And who does not 
 see that the frauds, thefts, robberies, quarrels, tumults, con- 
 tentions, seditions, murders, treacheries, and witchcrafts, 
 which are indeed rather punished than restrained by the 
 severities of law, would all fall off, if money were not any 
 more valued by the world ? Men's fears, solicitudes, cares, 
 labors, and watchings would all perish in the same mo- 
 ment with the value of money: even poverty itself, for the 
 relief of which money seems most necessary, would fall. 
 But, in order to the apprehending this aright, take one 
 instance. 
 
 Consider any year that has been so unfruitful that 
 many thousands have died of hunger; and yet if at the 
 end of that year a survey was made of the granaries of 
 all the rich men that have horded up the com, it would 
 be found that there was enough among them to have pre- 
 vented all that consumption of men that perished in mis- 
 ery; and that if it had been distributed among them, 
 none would have felt the terrible effects of that scar- 
 city; so easy a thing would it be to supply all the neces- 
 sities of life, if that blessed thing called money, which 
 is pretended to be invented for procuring them, was 
 not really the only thing that obstructed tteir being pro- 
 cured ! 
 
 I do not doubt that rich men are sensible of this, and 
 that they well know how much a greater happiness it is 
 to want nothing necessary than to abound in many super- 
 
UTOPIA 231 
 
 fluities, and to be rescued out of so much misery than to 
 abound with so much wealth ; and I cannot think but the 
 sense of every man's interest, added to the authority of 
 Christ's commands, who as he was infinitely wise, knew 
 what was best, and was not less good in discovering it to 
 us, would have drawn all the world over to the laws of 
 the Utopians, if pride, that plague of human nature, that 
 source of so much misery, did not hinder it; for this vice 
 does not measure happiness so much by its own conven- 
 iences as by the miseries of others; and would not be 
 satisfied with being thought a goddess, if none were left 
 that were miserable, over whom she might exult. Pride 
 thinks its own happiness shines the brighter by compar- 
 ing it with the misfortunes of other persons ; that by dis- 
 playing its own wealth, they may feel their poverty the 
 more sensibly. This is that infernal serpent that creeps 
 into the breasts of mortals, and possesses them too much 
 to be easily drawn out ; and therefore I am glad that the 
 Utopians have fallen upon this form of government, in 
 which I wish that all the world could be so wise as to 
 imitate them; for they have indeed laid down such a 
 scheme and foundation of policy, that as men live happily 
 under it, so it is like to be of great continuance ; for they 
 having rooted out of the minds of their people all the seeds 
 both of' ambition and faction,! there is no danger of any 
 commotion at home; which alone has been the ruin of 
 many states, that seemed otherwise to be well secured; 
 but as long as they live in peace at home, and are gov- 
 erned by such good laws, the envy of all their neighbor- 
 ing princes, who have often though in vain attempted 
 their ruin, will never be able to put their state into any 
 commotion or disorder. 
 
 When Raphael had thus made an end of speaking, 
 though many things occurred to me, both concerning the 
 manners and laws of that people, that seemed very ab- 
 surd, as well as their way of making war, as ip their 
 notions of religion and divine matters ; together with sev- 
 eral other particulars, but chiefly what seemed the foun- 
 dation of all the rest, their living in common, without 
 the use of money, by which all nobility, magnificence. 
 
232 UTOPIA 
 
 splendor, and majesty, which, according to the common 
 opinion, are the true ornaments of a nation, would be 
 quite taken away; yet since I perceived th^t Raphael 
 was weary, and was not sure whether he could easily 
 bear contradiction, remembering that he had taken notice 
 of some who seemed to think they were bound in honor 
 to support the credit of their own wisdom, by finding 
 out something to censure in all other men's inventions, 
 besides their own; I only commended their constitution, 
 and the account he had given of it in general; and so 
 taking him by the hand, carried him to supper, and told 
 him I would find out some other time for examining this 
 subject more particularly, and for discoursing more co- 
 piously upon it; and indeed I shall be glad to embrace 
 an opportunity of doing it. In the meanwhile, though 
 it must be confessed that he is both a very learned man, 
 and a person who has obtained a great knowledge of the 
 world, I cannot perfectly agree to everything he has re- 
 lated; however, there are many things in the Common- 
 wealth of Utopia that I rather wish, than hope, to see 
 followed in our governments. 
 
BACON'S 
 
 NEW ATLANTIS. 
 
 l»33> 
 
NEW ATLANTIS. '* 
 
 Wb sailed from Peru, where we had continued by the 
 space of one whole year, for China and Japan, by the 
 South Sea, taking with us victuals for twelve months ; and 
 had good winds from the east, though soft and weak, for 
 five months' space and more. But then the wind came 
 about, and settled in the west for many days, so as we 
 could make little or no way, and were sometimes in pur- 
 pose to turn back. But then again there arose strong and 
 great winds from the south, with a point east; which 
 carried us up, for all that we could do, toward the north : 
 by which time our victuals failed us, though we had made 
 good. spare of them. So that finding ourselves, in the 
 midst of the greatest wilderness of waters iii the world, 
 without victual, we gave ourselves up for lost men, and 
 prepared for death. Yet we did lift up our hearts 
 and voices to God above, who showeth his wonders 
 in the deep ; beseeching him of his mercy, that as in the 
 beginning he discovered the face of the deep, and brought 
 forth dry land, so he would now discover land to us, that 
 we might not perish. And it came to pass, that the next 
 day about evening we saw within a kenning before us, 
 toward the north, as it were, thick clouds which did put 
 us in some hope of land: knowing how that part of the 
 South Sea was utterly unknown ; and might have islands 
 or continents, that hitherto were not come to light. 
 Wherefore we bent pur course thither, where we saw the 
 appearance of land, all that night ; and in the dawning of 
 next day, we might plainly discern that it was a land flat 
 to our sight, and full of boscage, which made it show the 
 more dark. And after an hour and a half's sailing we 
 entered into a good haven, being the port of a fair city. 
 Not great indeed, but well built, and that gave a pleasant 
 view from the sea. And we thinking every minute long 
 
 (235) 
 
336 NEW ATLANTIS 
 
 till we were on land, came close to the shore and offered 
 to land. But straightway we saw divers of the people, with 
 bastons in their hands, as it were, £orbiddin# us to land : 
 yet without any cries or fierceness, but only as warning us 
 off, by signs that they made. Whereupon being not a 
 little discomfited, we were advising with ourselves what 
 we should do. During which time there made forth to 
 us a small boat, with about eight persons in it, whereof 
 one of them had in his hand a tipstaff of a yellow cane, 
 tipped at both ends with blue, who made aboard our ship, 
 without any show of distrust at all. And when he saw 
 one of our number present himself somewhat afore the 
 rest, he drew forth a little scroll of parchment (somewhat 
 yellower than our parchment, and shining like the leaves 
 of writing tables, but otherwise soft and flexible), and 
 delivered it to our foremost man. In which scroll were 
 written in ancient Hebrew, and in ancient Greek, and in 
 good Latin of the school, and in Spanish these words: 
 " Land ye not, none of you, and provide to be gone from 
 this coast within sixteen days, except you have further 
 time given you; meanwhile, if you want fresh water, or 
 victual, or help for your sick, or that your ship needeth 
 repair, write down your wants, and you shall have that 
 which belongeth to mercy. " This scroll was signed with 
 a stamp of cherubim's wings, not spread, but hanging 
 downward, and by them a cross. This being delivered, 
 the officer returned, and left only a servant with us to 
 receive our answer. Consulting hereupon among our- 
 selves, we were much perplexed. The denial of landing, 
 and hasty warning us away, troubled us much: on the 
 other side, to find that the people had languages, and 
 were so full of humanity, did comfort us not a little. And 
 above all, the sign of the cross to that instrument, was 
 to us a great rejoicing, and as it were a certain presage 
 of good. Our answer was in the Spanish tongue, "That 
 for our ship, it was well ; for we had rather met with calms 
 and contrary winds, than any tempests. For our sick, 
 they were many, and in very ill case ; so that if they were 
 not permitted to land, they ran in danger of their lives.* 
 Our other wants we set down in particular, adding, « That 
 we had some little store of merchandise, which if it 
 
NEW ATLANTIS 237 
 
 pleased them to deal for, it might supply our wants, with- 
 out being chargeable unto them." We offered some re- 
 ward in pistolets unto the servant, and a piece of crimson 
 velvet to be presented to the officer; but- the servant took 
 them not, nor would scarce look upon them; and so left 
 us, and went back in another little boat which was sent 
 for him. 
 
 About three hours after we had dispatched our answer 
 there came toward us a person ( as it seemed ) of a place. 
 He had on him a gown with wide sleeves, of a kind of 
 water chamolet, of an excellent azure color, far more 
 glossy than ours: his under apparel was green, and so 
 was his hat, being in the form of a turban, daintily made, 
 and not so huge as the Turkish turbans; and the locks 
 of his hair came down below the brims of it. A rever- 
 end man was he to behold. He came in a boat, gilt in 
 some part of it, with four persons more only in that 
 boat; and was followed by another boat, wherein were 
 some twenty. When he was come within a flight-shot of 
 our ship, signs were made to us that we should send 
 forth some to meet him upon the water, which we pres- 
 ently did in our ship-boat, sending the principal man 
 among us save one, and four of our number with him. 
 When we were come within six yards of their boat, they 
 called to us to stay, and not to approach further, which 
 we did. And thereupon the man, whom I before de- 
 scribed, stood up, and with a loud voice in Spanish, 
 asked, " Are ye Christians ? " We answered, " We were ; " 
 fearing the less, because of the cross we had seen in the 
 subscription. At which answer the said person lift up 
 his right hand toward heaven, and drew it softly to his 
 mouth (which is the gesture they use, when they thank 
 God), and then said: "If ye will swear, all of you, by the 
 merits of the Savior, that ye are no pirates; nor have 
 shed blood, lawfully nor unlawfully, within forty days 
 past; you may have license to come on land.* We said, 
 « We were all ready to take that oath. *' Whereupon one 
 of those that were with him, being (as it seemed) a 
 notary, made an entry of this act. Which done, another 
 of the attendants of the great person, which was with 
 him in the same boat, after his lord had spoken a little 
 
238 NEW ATLANTIS 
 
 to him, said aloud : " My lord would have you know, that 
 it is not of pride, or greatness, that he cometh not aboard 
 your ship : but for that, in your answer, yqp declare that 
 you have many sick among you, he was warned by the 
 conservator of health of the city that he should keep a 
 distance." We bowed ourselves toward him, and an- 
 swered: "We were his humble servants; and accounted 
 for great honor and singular humanity toward us, that 
 which was already done : but hoped well, that the nature 
 of the sickness of our men was not infectious." So he 
 returned ; and a while after came the notary to us aboard 
 our ship; holding in his hand a fruit of that country, 
 like an orange, but of color between orange-tawny and 
 scarlet: which cast a most excellent odor. He used it 
 (as it seemed) for a preservative against infection. He 
 gave us our oath, '* By the name of Jesus, and his 
 merits : " and after told us, that the next day by six of 
 the clock in the morning, we should be sent to, and 
 brought to the strangers' house (so he called it), where 
 we should be accommodated of things, both for our whole 
 and for our sick. So he left us; and when we offered 
 him some pistolets, he smiling, said, « He must not be 
 twice paid for one labor : » meaning ( as I take it ) that 
 he had salary sufficient of the state for his service. For 
 ( as I after learned ) they call an officer that taketh rewards 
 twice paid. 
 
 The next morning early, there came to us the same 
 officer that came to us at first with his cane, and told us : 
 "He came to conduct us to the strangers' house: and 
 that he had prevented the hour, because we might have 
 the whole day before us for our business. For (said he) 
 if you will follow my advice, there shall first go with me 
 some few of you, and see the place, and how it may be 
 made convenient for you: and then you may send for 
 your sick and the rest of your number, which ye will 
 bring on land.» We thanked him, and said, "That his 
 care which he took of desolate strangers, God would 
 reward." And so six of us went on land with him; and 
 when we were on land, he went before us, and turned 
 to us and said, " He was but our servant and our guide. * 
 He led us through three fair streets; and all the 
 
NEW ATLANTIS 239 
 
 way we went there were gathered some people on both 
 sides, standing in a row; but in so civil a fashion, as if 
 it had been, not to wonder at us, but to welcome us ; and 
 divers of them, as we passed by them, put their arms 
 a little abroad, which is their gesture when they bid any 
 welcome. The strangers' house is a fair and spacious 
 house, built of brick, of somewhat a bluer color than our 
 brick; and with handsome windows, some of glass, some 
 of a kind of cambric oiled. He brought us first into 
 a fair parlor above stairs, and then asked us, *What 
 number of persons we were ? and how many sick ? " 
 We answered, " We were in all (sick and whole) one and 
 fifty persons, whereof our sick were seventeen." He de- 
 sired us to have patience a little, and to stay till he came 
 back to us which was about an hour after; and then he 
 led us to see the chambers which were provided for us, 
 being in number nineteen. They having cast it (as it 
 seemeth) that four of those chambers, which were better 
 than the rest, might receive four of the principal men of 
 our company; and lodge them alone by themselves; and 
 the other fifteen chambers were to lodge us, two and two 
 together. The chambers were handsome and cheerful 
 chambers, and furnished civilly. Then he led us to a 
 long gallery like a dorture, where he showed us all along 
 the one side (for the other side was but wall and window) 
 seventeen cells, very neat ones, having partitions of cedar 
 wood. Which gallery and cells, being in all forty (many 
 more than we needed), were instituted as an infirmary 
 for sick persons. And he told us withal, that as any of 
 our sick waxed well, he might be removed from his cell 
 to a chamber: for which purpose there were set forth 
 ten spare chambers, besides the number we spake of be- 
 fore. This done, he brought us back to the parlor, and 
 lifting up his cane a little (as they do when they give 
 and charge or command), said to us, "Ye are to know 
 that the custom of the land requireth, that after this day 
 and to-morrow (which we give you for removing your 
 people from your ship), you are to keep within doors for 
 three days. But let it not trouble you, nor do not think 
 yourselves restrained, but rather left to your rest and 
 ease. You shall want nothing; and there are six of our 
 
240 NEW ATLANTIS 
 
 people appointed to attend you for any business you may 
 have abroad." We gave him thanks with all aflEection 
 and respect, and said, « God surely is manif *ted in this 
 land." We offered him also twenty pistolets, but he 
 smiled and only said: "What? Twice paid!" And so 
 he left us. Soon after our dinner was serve d; in which 
 was right, goo d viands, both for b read and meat; better 
 tGan any collegiate diet t hat I have known in Europe. 
 We^TSSSTli^o "drmk of three sorts^ all wholesome and _ 
 good;' wine of "the " grape ; a drink of gram, such as 
 iri5TES'Tis"our' ale^'but more clear; and ar2Ina~"gr~cTaSr~: 
 maaF'orar^'uit'of^ l^Ear'Tgm n yTr'^^ pleasing 
 
 •^na"refresiung"drink. Besides, there were^BrougETm to"' 
 TuS^great store of those scarlet oranges for our sick ; which 
 (they said) were an assured remedy for sickness taken 
 at sea. There was given us also a box of small grey or 
 whitish pills, which they wished our sick should take, 
 one of the pills every night before sleep; which (they 
 said) would hasten their recovery. The next day, after 
 that our trouble of carriage and removing of our men 
 and goods out of our ship was somewhat settled and 
 quiet, I thought good to call our company together, and 
 when they were assembled, said unto them, "My dear 
 friends, let us know ourselves, and how it standeth with 
 us. We are men cast on land, as Jonas was out of the 
 whale's belly, when we were as buried in the deep; and 
 now we are on land, we are but between death and life, 
 for we are beyond both the old world and the new; and 
 whether ever we shall see Europe, God only knoweth. 
 It is a kind of miracle hath brought us hither, and it 
 must be little less that shall bring us hence. Therefore 
 in regard of our deliverance past, and our danger pres- 
 ent and to come, let us look up to God, and every man 
 reform his own ways. Besides we are come here among 
 a Christian people, full of piety and humanity. Let us 
 not bring that confusion of face upon ourselves, as to 
 show our vices or unworthiness before them. Yet there 
 is more, for they have by commandment (though in form 
 of courtesy) cloistered us within these walls for three 
 days; who knoweth whether it be not to take some taste 
 of our manners and conditions ? And if they find them bad. 
 
NEW ATLANTIS 241 
 
 to banish us straightway; if good, to give us further time. 
 For these men that they have given us for attendance, 
 may withal have an eye upon us. Therefore, for God's 
 love, and as we love the weal of our souls and bodies, 
 let us so behave ourselves, as we may be at peace with 
 God, and may find grace in the eyes of this people." 
 Our company with one voice thanked me for my good 
 admonition, and promised me to live soberly and civilly, 
 and without giving any the least occasion of offense. So 
 we spent our three days joyfully, and without care, in 
 expectation what would be done with us when they were 
 expired. During which time, we had every hour joy of 
 the amendment of our sick, who thought themselves cast 
 into some divine pool of healing, they mended so kindly 
 and so fast. 
 
 The morrow after our three days were past, there came 
 to us a new man, that we had not seen before, clothed 
 in blue as the former was, save that his turban was 
 white with a small red cross on the top. He had 
 also a tippet of fine linen. At his coming in, he did 
 bend to us a little, and put his arms abroad. We of our 
 parts saluted him in a very lowly and submissive man- 
 ner ; as looking that from him we should receive sentence 
 of life or death. He desired to speak with some few of us. 
 Whereupon six of us only stayed, and the rest avoided 
 the room. He said, «I am by office governor of this 
 house of strangers, and by vocation I am a Christian 
 priest; and therefore am come to you, to offer you my 
 service, both as strangers, and chiefly as Christians. Some 
 things I may tell you, which I think you will not be 
 unwilling to hear. The state hath given you license to 
 stay on land for the space of six weeks : and let it not 
 trouble you, if your occasions ask further time, for the 
 law in this point is not precise ; and I do not doubt, but 
 myself shall be able to obtain for you such further time 
 as shall be convenient. Ye shall also understand, that 
 the strangers' house is at this time rich, and much afore- 
 hand; for it hath laid up revenue these thirty-seven years; 
 for so long it is since any stranger arrived in this part; 
 and therefore take ye no care; the state will defray you 
 all the time you stay. Neither shall you stay one day 
 16 
 
043 NEW ATLANTIS 
 
 the less for that. As for any merchandise you have 
 brought, ye shall be well used, and have your return, 
 either in merchandise or in gold and silver ;<tfor to us it 
 is all one. And if you have any other request to make, 
 hide it not; for ye shall find we will not mdke your 
 countenance to fall by the answer ye shall receive. Only 
 this I must tell you, that none of you must go above a 
 karan (that is with them a mile and a half) from the 
 walls of the city, without special leave. " We answered, 
 after we had looked a while upon one another, admiring 
 this gracious and parent-like usage, that we could not 
 tell what to say, for we wanted words to express our 
 thanks ; and his noble, free offers left us nothing to ask. 
 It seemed to us, that we had before us a picture of our 
 salvation in heaven; for we that were a while since in 
 the jaws of death, were now brought into a place where 
 we found nothing but consolations. For the command- 
 ment laid upon us, we would not fail to obey it, though 
 it was impossible but our hearts should be inflamed to 
 tread further upon this happy and holy ground. We 
 added, that our tongues should first cleave to the roofs 
 of our mouths, ere we should forget, either this reverend 
 person, or this whole nation, in our prayers. We also most 
 humbly besought him to accept of us as his true servants, 
 by as just a right as ever men on earth were bounden; 
 laying and presenting both our persons and all we had at 
 his feet. He said, he was a priest and looked for a priest's 
 reward; which was our brotherly love, and the good of 
 our souls and bodies. So he went from us, not without 
 tears of tenderness in his eyes, and left us also confused 
 with joy and kindness, saying among ourselves, that we 
 were come into a land of angels, which did appear to us 
 daily and present us with comforts, which we thought 
 not of, much less expected. 
 
 The next day, about ten of the clock, the governor 
 came to us again, and after salutations, said familiarly, 
 that he was come to visit us; and called for a chair, and 
 sat him down; and we being some ten of us (the rest 
 were of the meaner sort, or else gone abroad), sat down 
 with him; and when we were set, he began thus: «We 
 of this island of Bensalem (for so they called it in their 
 
NEW ATLANTIS 243 
 
 language) have this: that by means of our solitary situa- 
 tion, and of the laws of secrecy, which we have for our 
 travelers, and our rare admission of strangers; we know 
 well most part of the habitable world, and are ourselves 
 unknown. Therefore because he that knoweth least is 
 fittest to ask questions, it is more reason, for the enter- 
 tainment of the time, that ye ask me questions, than that 
 I ask you. " We answered, that we humbly thanked him, 
 that he would give us leave so to do. And that we con- 
 ceived by the taste we had already, that there was no 
 worldly thing on earth more worthy to be known than 
 the state of that happy land. But above all (we said) 
 since that we were met from the several ends of the 
 world, and hoped assuredly that we should meet one day 
 in the kingdom of heaven (for that we were both parts 
 Christians), we desired to know (in respect that land was 
 so remote, and so divided by vast and unknown seas 
 from the land where our Savior walked on earth) who 
 was the apostle of that nation, and how it was con- 
 verted to the faith ? It appeared in his face, that he took 
 great contentment in this our question; he said, "Ye 
 knit my heart to you, by asking this question in the 
 first place: for it showeth that you first seek the king- 
 dom of heaven: and I shall gladly, and briefly, satisfy 
 your demand. 
 
 "About twenty years after the ascension of our Savior 
 it came to pass, that there was seen by the people of 
 Renfusa (a city upon the eastern coast of our island, 
 within sight, the night was cloudy and calm), as it might 
 be some mile in the sea, a great pillar of light; not 
 sharp, but in form of a column, or cylinder, rising from 
 the sea, a great way up toward heaven; and on the top 
 of it was seen a large cross of light, more bright and 
 resplendent than the body of the pillar. Upon which so 
 strange a spectacle, the people of the city gathered apace 
 together upon the sands, to wonder; and so after put 
 themselves into a number of small boats to go nearer to 
 this marvelous sight. But when the boats were come 
 within about sixty yards of the pillar, they found them- 
 selves all bound, and could go no further, yet so as they 
 might move to go about, but might not approach nearer; 
 
244 NEW ATLANTIS 
 
 so as the boats stood all as in a theater, beholding this 
 light, as an heavenly sign. It so fell out, that there was 
 in one of the boats one of the wise men o^the Society 
 of Salomon's House; which house or college, my good 
 brethren, is the very eye of this kingdom, who having 
 a while attentively and devoutly viewed and contemplated 
 this pillar and cross, fell down upon his face; and then 
 raised himself upon his knees, and lifting up his hands 
 to heaven, made his prayers in this manner: 
 
 "*Lord God of heaven and earth; thou hast vouch- 
 safed of thy grace, to those of our order to know thy 
 works of creation, and true secrets of them; and to dis- 
 cern (as far as appertaineth to the generations of men) 
 between divine miracles, works of Nature, works of art 
 and impostures, and illusions of all sorts. I do here 
 acknowledge and testify before this people, that the thing 
 we now see before our eyes, is thy finger, and a true 
 miracle. And forasmuch as we learn in our books, that 
 thou never workest miracles, but to a divine and excel- 
 lent end (for the laws of Nature are thine own laws, and 
 thou exceedest them not but upon great cause), we most 
 humbly beseech thee to prosper this great sign, and to 
 give us the interpretation and use of it in mercy; which 
 thou dost in some part secretly promise, by sending it 
 unto us.' 
 
 " When he had made his prayer, he presently found the 
 boat he was in movable and unbound; whereas all the 
 rest remained still fast; and taking that for an assurance 
 6f leave to approach, he caused the boat to be softly and 
 with silence rowed toward the pillar; but ere he came 
 near it, the pillar and cross of light broke up, and cast 
 itself abroad, as it were into a firmament of many stars, 
 which also vanished soon after, and there was nothing 
 left to be seen but a small ark, or chest of cedar, dry 
 and not wet at all with water, though it swam; and in 
 the fore end of it, which was toward him, grew a small 
 green branch of palm ; and when the wise man had taken 
 it with all reverence into his boat, it opened of itself, and • 
 there were found in it a book and a letter, both written 
 in fine parchment, and wrapped in sindons of linen. The 
 book contained all the canonical books of the Old and 
 
NEW ATLANTIS 245 
 
 New Testament, according as you have them (for we 
 know well what the churches with you receive ), and the 
 Apocalypse itself; and some other books of the New 
 Testament, which were not at that time written, were 
 nevertheless in the book. And for the letter, it was in 
 these words: 
 
 « * I Bartholomew, a servant of the Highest, and apostle 
 of Jesus Christ, was warned by an angel that appeared 
 to me in a vision of glory, that I should commit this ark 
 to the floods of the sea. Therefore I do testify and 
 declare unto that people where God shall ordain this ark 
 to come to land, that in the same day is come unto them 
 salvation and peace, and good will from the Father, and 
 from the Lord Jesus.' 
 
 "There was also in both these writings, as well the 
 book as the letter, wrought a great miracle, conform to 
 that of the apostles, in the original gift of tongues. For 
 there being at that time, in this land, Hebrews, Persians, 
 and Indians, besides the natives, every one read upon the 
 book and letter, as if they had been written in his own 
 language. And thus was this land saved from infidelity 
 (as the remain of the old world was from water) by an 
 ark, through the apostolical and miraculous evangelism 
 of St. Bartholomew." And here he paused, and a mes- 
 senger came, and called him forth from us. So this was 
 all that passed in that conference. 
 
 The next day, the same governor came again to us, 
 immediately after dinner, and excused himself, saying, 
 "That the day before he was called from us somewhat 
 abruptly, but now he would make us amends, and spend 
 time with us, if we held his company and confeirence 
 agreeable." We answered, that we held it so agreeable 
 and pleasing to us, as we forgot both dangers past, and 
 fears to come, for the time we heard him speak ; and that 
 we thought an hour spent with him was worth years of our 
 former life. He bowed himself a little to us, and after we 
 were set again, he said, " Well, the questions are on your 
 part." One of our number said, after a little pause, that 
 there was a matter we were no less desirous to know than 
 fearful to ask, lest we might presume too far. But en- 
 couraged by his rare humanity toward us (that could 
 
245 NEW ATLANTIS 
 
 scarce think ourselves strangers, being his vowed and pro- 
 fessed servants), we would take the hardness to propound 
 it; humbly beseeching him, if he thought it not fit to be 
 answered, that he would pardon it, though he*^ejected it. 
 We said, we well observed those his words, which he 
 formerly spake, that this happy island, where we now 
 stood, was known to few, and yet knew most of the 
 nations of the world, which we found to be true, consid- 
 ering they had the languages of Europe, and knew much 
 of our state and business; and yet we in Europe (not- 
 withstanding all the remote discoveries and navigations 
 of this last age) never heard any of the least inkling or 
 glimpse of this island. This we found wonderful strange ; 
 for that all nations have interknowledge one of another, 
 either by voyage into foreign parts, or by strangers that 
 come to them; and though the traveler into a foreign 
 country doth commonly know more by the eye than he 
 that stayeth at home can by relation of the traveler: yet 
 both ways suffice to make a mutual knowledge, in some 
 degree, on both parts. But for this island, we never 
 heard tell of any ship of theirs, that had been seen to 
 arrive upon any shore of Europe; no, nor of either the 
 East or West Indies, nor yet of any ship of any other 
 part of the world, that had made return for them. And 
 yet the marvel rested not in this. For the situation of 
 it (as his lordship said) in the secret conclave of such a 
 vast sea might cause it. But then, that they should have 
 knowledge of the languages, books, affairs, of those that 
 lie such a distance from them, it was a thing we could, 
 not tell what to make of ; for that it seemed to us a con- 
 dition and propriety of divine powers and beings, to be 
 hidden and unseen to others, and yet to have others 
 open, and as in a light to them. At this speech the gov- 
 ernor gave a gracious smile and said, that we did well 
 to ask pardon for this question we now asked, for that 
 it imported, as if we thought this land a land of ma- 
 gicians, that sent forth spirits of the air into all parts, 
 to bring them news and intelligence of other countries. 
 It was answered by us all, in all possible humbleness, 
 but yet with a countenance taking knowledge, that we 
 knew that he spake it but merrilv- That we were apt 
 
NEW ATLANTIS 247 
 
 enough to think, there was somewhat supernatural in this 
 island, but yet rather as angelical than magical. But to 
 let his lordship know truly what it was that made us 
 tender and doubtful to ask this question, it was not any 
 such conceit, but because we remembered he had given a 
 touch in his former speech, that this land had laws of 
 secrecy touching strangers. To this he said, <<You re- 
 member it aright; and therefore in that I shall say to 
 you, I must reserve some particulars, which it is not law- 
 ful for me to reveal, but there will be enough left to 
 give you satisfaction. 
 
 "You shall understand (that which perhaps you will 
 scarce think credible) that about three thousand years 
 ago, or somewhat more, the navigation of the world 
 (especially for remote voyages) was greater than at this 
 day. Do not think with yourselves, that I know not how 
 much it is increased with you, within these threescore 
 years; I know it well, and yet I say, greater then than 
 now; whether it was, that the example of the ark, that 
 saved the remnant of men from the universal deluge, 
 gave men confidence to adventure upon the waters, or 
 what it was ; but such is the truth. The Phoenicians, and 
 especially the Tyrians, had great fleets; so had the Car- 
 thaginians their colony, which is yet farther west. To- 
 ward the east the shipping of Egypt, and of Palestine, 
 was likewise great. China also, and the great Atlantis 
 (that you call America), which have now but junks and 
 canoes, abounded then in tall ships. This island (as ap- 
 peareth by faithful registers of those times) had then fif- 
 teen hundred strong ships, of great content. Of all this 
 there is with you sparing memory, or none ; but we have 
 large knowledge thereof. 
 
 " At that time, this land was known and frequented by 
 the ships and vessels of all the nations before named. 
 And (as it cometh to pass) they had many times men of 
 other countries, that were no sailors, that came with them ; 
 as Persians, Chaldeans, Arabians, so as almost all nations 
 of might and fame resorted hither; of whom we have 
 some stirps and little tribes with us at this day. And 
 for our own ships, they went sundry voyages, as' well to 
 your straits, which you call the Pillars of Hercules, as 
 
248 NEW ATLANTIS 
 
 to other parts in the Atlantic and Mediterranean Seas; 
 as to Paguin (which is the same with Cambalaine) and 
 Quinzy, upon the Oriental Seas, as far as to^e borders 
 of the East Tartary. 
 
 * At the same time, and an age after or more, the in- 
 habitants of the great Atlantis did flourish. For though 
 the narration and description which is made by a great 
 man with you, that the descendants of Neptune planted 
 there, and of the magnificent temple, palace, city and 
 hill ; and the manifold streams of goodly navigable rivers, 
 which as so many chains environed the same site and 
 temple; and the several degrees of ascent, whereby men 
 did climb up to the same, as if it had been a Scala Coeli ; 
 be all poetical and fabulous; yet so much is true, 
 that the said country of Atlantis, as well as that of Peru, 
 then called Coya, as that of Mexico, then named Tyram- 
 bel, were mighty and proud kingdoms, in arms, shipping, 
 and riches ; so mighty, as at one time, or at least within 
 the space of ten years, they both made two great expedi- 
 tions: they of Tyrambel through the Atlantic to the 
 Mediterranean Sea ; and they of Coya, through the South 
 Sea upon this our island; and for the former of these, 
 which was into Europe, the same author among you, 
 as it seemeth, had some relation from the Egyptian 
 priest, whom he citeth. For assuredly, such a thing 
 there was. But whether it were the ancient Athenians 
 that had the glory of the repulse and resistance of those 
 forces, I can say nothing; but certain it is there never 
 came back either ship or man from that voyage. Neither 
 had the other voyage of those of Coya upon us had better 
 fortunie, if they had not met with enemies of greater 
 clemency. For the king of this island, by name Altabin, 
 a wise man and a great warrior, knowing well both his 
 own strength and that of his enemies, handled the mat- 
 ter so, as he cut off their land forces from their ships, and 
 entoiled both their navy and their camp with a greater 
 power than theirs, both by sea and land ; and compelled 
 them to render themselves without striking a stroke ; and 
 after they were at his mercy, contenting himself only 
 with their oath, that they should no more bear arms 
 against him, dismissed them all in safety. But the divine 
 
NEW ATLANTIS 249 
 
 revenge overtook not long after those proud enterprises. 
 For within less than the space of one hundred years the 
 Great Atlantis was utterly lost and destroyed; not by a 
 great earthquake, as your man saith, for that whole tract 
 is little subject to earthquakes, but by a particular del- 
 uge, or inundation; those countries having at this day 
 far greater rivers, and far higher mountains, to pour 
 down waters, than any part of the old world. But it is 
 true that the same inundation was not deep, not past 
 forty foot, in most places, from the ground, so that 
 although it destroyed man and beast generally, yet some 
 few wild inhabitants of the wood escaped. Birds also 
 were saved by flying to the high trees and woods. For 
 as for men, although they had buildings in many places 
 higher than the depth of the water, yet that inundation, 
 though it were shallow, had a long continuance, whereby 
 they of the vale that were not drowned perished fol 
 want of food and other things necessary. So as marvel 
 you not at the thin population of America, nor at the 
 rudeness and ignorance of the people; for you must ac- 
 count your inhabitants of America as a young people, 
 younger a thousand years at the least than the rest of 
 the world, for that there was so much time between the 
 universal flood and their particular inundation. For 
 the poor remnant of human seed which remained in their 
 mountains, peopled the country again slowly, by little 
 and little, and being simple and a savage people (not 
 like Noah and his sons, which was the chief family of 
 the earth), they were not able to leave letters, arts, and 
 civility to their posterity; and having likewise in their 
 mountainous habitations been used, in respect of the ex- 
 treme cold of those regions, to clothe themselves with 
 the skins of tigers, bears, and great hairy goats, that 
 they have in those parts; when after they came down 
 into the valley, and found the intolerable heats which 
 are there, and knew no means of lighter apparel, they 
 were forced to begin the custom of going naked, which 
 continueth at this day. Only they take great pride and 
 delight in the feathers of birds, and this also they took 
 from those their ancestors of the mountains, who were 
 invited unto it, by the infinite flight of birds, that came 
 
2SO NEW AT];,ANTIS 
 
 up to the high grounds, while the waters stood below. 
 So you see, by this main accident of time, we lost our 
 trafi&c with the Americans, with whom of allji others, in 
 regard they lay nearest to us, we had most commerce. 
 As for the other parts of the world, it is most manifest 
 that in the ages following (whether it were in respect of 
 wars, or by a natural revolution of time) navigation did 
 everywhere greatly decay, and specially far voyages (the 
 rather by the use of galleys, and such vessels as could 
 hardly brook the ocean) were altogether left and omitted. 
 So then, that part of intercourse which could be fronj 
 other nations, to sail to us, you see how it hath long 
 since ceased; except it were by some rare accident, as 
 this of yours. But now of the cessation of that othei 
 part of intercourse, which might be by our sailing to 
 other nations, I must j^eld you some other cause. Fol 
 I cannot say, if I shall say truly, but our shipping for num- 
 ber, strength, mariners, pilots, and all things that ap- 
 pertain to navigation, is as great as ever; and therefore 
 why we should sit at home, I shall now give you an ac- 
 count by itself; and it will draw nearer, to give you 
 satisfaction, to your principal question. 
 
 "There reigned in this island, about 1,900 years ago, a 
 king, whose memory of all others we most adore; not 
 superstitiously, but as a divine instrument, though a 
 mortal man: his name was Salomona; and we esteem 
 him as the lawgiver of our nation. This king had a 
 large heart, inscrutable for good; and was wholly bent 
 to make his kingdom and people happy. He therefore 
 taking into consideration how sufficient and substantive 
 this land was, to maintain itself without any aid at all 
 of the foreigner; being 5,000 miles in circuit, and of rare 
 fertility of soil, in the greatest part thereof; and finding 
 also the, shipping of this country might be plentifully 
 set on work, both by fishing and by transportations from 
 port to port, and likewise by sailing unto some small 
 islands that are not far from us, and are under the crown 
 and laws of this state; and recalling into his memory 
 the happy and flourishing estate wherein this land then 
 was, so as it might be a thousand ways altered to the 
 worse, but scarce any one way to the better; though 
 
NEW ATLANTIS 251 
 
 nothing wanted to his noble and heroical intentions, but 
 only (as far as human foresight might reach) to give 
 perpetuity to that which was in his time so happily 
 established, therefore among his other fundamental 
 laws of this kingdom he did ordain the interdicts and 
 prohibitions which we have touching entrance of 
 strangers; which at that time (though it was after the 
 calamity of America) was frequent; doubting novelties 
 and commixture of manners. It is true, the like law 
 against the admission of strangers without license is an 
 ancient law in the kingdom of China, and yet continued 
 in use. But there it is a poor thing; and hath made 
 them a curious, ignorant, fearful foolish nation. But 
 our lawgiver made his law of another temper. For first, 
 he hath preserved all points of humanity, in taking order 
 and making provision for the relief of strangers dis- 
 tressed; whereof you have tasted." At which speech 
 (as reason was) we all rose up, and bowed ourselves 
 He went on: "That king also still desiring to join 
 humanity and policy together; and thinking it against 
 humanity, to detain strangers here against their wills; 
 and against policy, that they should return, and discover 
 their knowledge of this estate, he took this course; he 
 did ordain, that of the strangers that should be permitted 
 to land, as many at all times might depart as many 
 as would; but as many as would stay, should have 
 very good conditions, and means to live from the state. 
 Wherein he saw so far, that now in so many ages since 
 the prohibition, we have memory not of one ship that 
 ever returned, and but of thirteen persons only, at 
 several times, that chose to return in our bottoms. What 
 those few that returned may have reported abroad, I 
 know not. But you must think, whatsoever they have 
 . said, could be taken where they came but for a dream. 
 Now for our traveling from hence into parts abroad, 
 our lawgiver thought fit altogether to restrain it. So is 
 it not in China. For the Chinese sail where they will, 
 ur can; which, showeth, that their law of keeping out 
 strangers is a law of pusillanimity and fear. But this 
 restraint of ours hath one only exception, which is ad- 
 mirable ; preserving the good which cometh by communi- 
 
252 NEW ATLANTIS 
 
 eating with strangers, and avoiding the hurt : and I will 
 now open it to you. And here I shall seem a little to 
 digress, but you will by-and-by find it pertinent. Ye 
 shall understand, my dear friends, that among the 
 excellent acts of that king, one above all hath the pre- 
 eminence. It was the erection and institution of an 
 order, or society, which we call Salomon's House; the 
 noblest foundation, as we think, that ever was upon the 
 earth, and the lantern of this kingdom. It is dedicated 
 to the study of the works and creatures of God. Some 
 think it beareth the_ founder's name a little corrupted, 
 as if it should be Solomon's House. But the records 
 write it as it is spoken. So as I take it to be de- 
 nominate of the king of the Hebrews, which is famous 
 with you and no strangers to us ; for we have some parts of 
 his works which with you are lost; namely, that natural 
 history which he wrote of all plants, from the cedar of 
 Libanus to the moss that groweth out of the wall ; and of 
 all things that have life and motion. This maketh me 
 think that our king finding himself to symbolize, in many 
 things, with that king of the Hebrews, which lived many 
 years before him, honored him with the title of this foun- 
 dation. And I am the rather induced to be of this opinion, 
 for that I find in ancient records, this order or society is 
 sometimes called Solomon's House, and sometimes the 
 College of the Six Days' Works; whereby I am satisfied 
 that our excellent king had learned from the Hebrews 
 that God had created the world, and all that therein is, 
 within six days: and therefore he instituted that house, 
 for the finding out of the true nature of all things, 
 whereby God might have the more glory in the work- 
 manship of them, and men the more fruit in their use of 
 them, did give it also that second name. But now to 
 come to our present purpose. When the king had for- 
 bidden to all his people navigation into any part that was 
 not under his crown, he made, nevertheless, this ordinance; 
 that every twelve years there should be set forth out of 
 this kingdom, two ships, appointed to several voyages; 
 that in either of these ships there should be a mission of 
 three of the fellows or brethren of Salomon's House, 
 whose errand was only to give us knowledge of the affairs 
 
NEW ATLANTIS 253 
 
 and state of those countries to which they were designed ; 
 and especially of the sciences, arts, manufactures, and 
 inventions of all the world; and withal to bring unto us 
 books, instruments, and patterns in every kind: that the 
 ships, after they had landed the brethren, should return ; 
 and that the brethren should stay abroad till the new 
 mission, the ships are not otherwise fraught than with 
 store of victuals, and good quantity of treasure to remain 
 with the brethren, for the buying of such things, and 
 rewarding of such persons, as they should think fit. Now 
 for me to tell yoU how the vulgar sort of mariners are 
 contained from being discovered at land, and how they 
 that must be put on shore for any time, color themselves 
 under the names of other nations, and to what places 
 these voyages have been designed; and what places of 
 rendezvous are appointed for the new missions, and the 
 like circumstances of the practice, I may not do it, neither 
 is it much to your desire. But thus you see we maintain a 
 trade, not for gold, silver, or jewels, nor for silks, nor 
 for spices, nor any other commodity of matter; but only 
 for God's first creature, which was light ; to have light, I 
 say, of the growth of all parts of the world." And when 
 he had said this, he was silent, and so were we all; for 
 indeed we were all astonished to hear so strange things 
 so probably told. And he perceiving that we were willing 
 to say somewhat, but had it not ready, in great courtesy 
 took us off, and descended to ask us questiohs of our 
 voyage and fortunes, and in the end concluded that we 
 might do well to think with ourselves, what time of stay 
 we would demand of the state, and bade us not to scant 
 ourselves; for he would procure such time as we desired. 
 Whereupon we all rose up and presented ourselves to kiss 
 the skirt of his tippet, but he would not suffer us, and so 
 took his leave. But when it came once among our 
 people, that the state used to offer conditions to strangers 
 that would stay, we had work enough to get any of our 
 men to look to our ship, and to keep them from going 
 presently to the governor, to crave conditions; but with 
 much ado we restrained them, till we might agree what 
 course to take. 
 We took ourselves now for freemen, seeing there was 
 
254 NEW ATLANTIS 
 
 no danger oi our utter perdition, and lived most joyfully, 
 going abroad and seeing what was to be seen in the city 
 and places adjacent, within our tedder; an# obtaining 
 acquaintance with many of the city, not of the meanest 
 quality, at whose hands we found such humanity, and 
 such a freedom and desire to take strangers, as it were, 
 into their bosom, as was enough to make us forget all 
 that was dear to us in our own countries: and continu- 
 ally we met with many things, right worthy of observa- 
 tion and relation; as indeed, if there be a mirror in the 
 world, worthy to hold men's eyes, it is that country. 
 One day there were two of our company bidden to a 
 feast of the family, as they call it ; a most natural, pious, 
 and reverend custom it is, showing that nation to be 
 compounded- of all goodness. This is the manner of it: 
 it is granted to any man that shall live to see thirty 
 persons descended of his body, alive together, and all 
 above three years old, to make this feast, which is done 
 at the cost of the state. The father of the family, whom 
 they call the Tirsan, two days before the feast, taketi 
 to him three of such friends as he liketh to choose, and 
 is assisted also by the governor of the city or place where 
 the feast is celebrated, and all the persons of the family, 
 of both sexes, are summoned to attend him. These two 
 days the Tirsan sitteth in consultation, concerning the 
 good estate of the family. There, if there be any dis- 
 cord or suits between any of the family, they are com- 
 pounded and appeased. There, if any of the family be 
 distressed or decayed, order is taken for their relief, and 
 competent means to live. There, if any be subject to 
 vice, or take ill courses, they are reproved and censured. 
 So likewise direction is given touching marriages, and 
 the courses of life which any of them should take, with 
 divers other the like orders and advices. The governor 
 assisteth to the end, to put into execution, by his public 
 authority, the decrees and orders of the Tirsan, if they 
 should be disobeyed, though that seldom needeth; such 
 reverence and obedience they give to the order of Nature. 
 The Tirsan doth also then ever choose one man from 
 among his sons, to live in house with him; who is 
 called ever after the Son of the Vine. The reason will 
 
NEW ATLANTIS 255 
 
 hereafter appear. On the feast day, the father or Tirsan 
 Cometh forth after divine service into a large room where 
 the feast is celebrated; which room hath an half -pace at 
 the upper end. Against the wall, in the middle of the 
 half -pace, is a chair placed for him, with a table and car- 
 pet before it. Over the chair is a state, made round or 
 oval, and it is of ivy ; an ivy somewhat whiter than ours, 
 like the leaf of a silver asp, but more shining; for it is 
 green all winter. And the state is curiously wrought 
 with silver and silk of divers colors, broiding or binding 
 in the ivy; and is ever of the work of some of the 
 daughters of the family; and veiled over at the top, with 
 a fine net of silk and silver". But the substance of it is 
 true ivy; whereof after it is taken down, the friends of 
 the family are desirous to have some leaf or sprig to 
 keep. The Tirsan cometh forth with all his , generation 
 or lineage, the males before him, and the females follow- 
 ing him ; and if there be a mother, from whose body the 
 whole lineage is descended, there is a traverse placed in 
 a loft above on the right hand of the chair, with a privy 
 door, and a carved window of glass, leaded with gold 
 and blue; where she sitteth, but is not seen. When the 
 Tirsan is come forth, he sitteth down in the chair; and 
 all the lineage place themselves against the wall, both at 
 his back, and upon the return of the half-pace, in order 
 of their years, without difference of sex, and stand upon 
 their feet. When he is set, the room being always full 
 of company, but well kept and without disorder, after 
 some pause there cometh in from the lower end of the 
 room a Taratan (which is as much as an herald), and on 
 either side of him two young lads: whereof one carrieth 
 a scroll of their shining yellow parchment, and the other 
 a cluster of grapes of gold, with a long foot or stalk. 
 The herald and children are clothed with mantles of 
 sea- water green satin; but the herald's mantle is 
 streamed with gold, and hath a train. Then the 
 herald with three curtsies, or rather inclinations, 
 cometh up as far as the half-pace, and there first 
 taketh into his hand the scroll. This scroll is the king's 
 charter, containing gift of revenue, and many privileges, 
 exemptions, and points of honor, granted to the father of 
 
256 NEW ATLANTIS 
 
 the family, and it is ever styled and directed, "To such 
 an one, our well-beloved friend and creditor," which is a 
 title proper only to this case. For they say, ^e king is 
 debtor to no man, but for propagation of his subjects; 
 the seal set to the king's charter is the king's image, 
 embossed or molded in gold; and though such charters 
 be expedited of course, and as of right, yet they are 
 varied by discretion, according to the number and dignity 
 of the family. This charter the herald readeth aloud; and 
 while it is read, the father or Tirsan standeth up, sup- 
 ported by two of his sons, such as he chooseth. Then 
 the herald mounteth the half-pace, and delivereth the 
 charter into his hand: and with that there is an accla- 
 mation, by all that are present, in their language, which 
 is thus much, " Happy are the people of Bensalem. " Then 
 the herald taketh' vi^nto his hand from the other child thje 
 cluster of grapes, ^ich is of gold; both the stalk, and 
 the grapes. But theWapes are daintily enameled ; and if 
 the males of the family be the greater number, the grapes 
 are enameled purple, with a little sun set on the top; if 
 the females, then they are enameled into a greenish yel- 
 low, with a crescent on the top. The grapes are in 
 number as many as there are descendants of the family. 
 This golden cluster the herald delivereth also to the Tir- 
 san; who presently delivereth it over to that son that he 
 had formerly chosen, to be in house with him; who 
 beareth it before his father, as an ensign of honor, when 
 he goeth in public ever after; and is thereupon called the 
 Son of the Vine. After this ceremony endeth the father 
 or Tirsan retireth; and after some time cometh forth 
 again to dinner, where he sitteth alone under the state, 
 as before; and none of his descendants sit with him, of 
 what degree or dignity so ever, except he hap to be of 
 Salomon's House. He is served only by his own children, 
 such as are male; who perform unto him all service of 
 the table upon the knee, and the women only stand about 
 him, leaning against the wall. The room below his half- 
 pace hath tables on the sides for the guests that are 
 bidden; who are served with great and comely order; and 
 toward the end of dinner (which in the greatest feasts 
 with them lasteth never above an hour and a half) there 
 
NEW ATLANTIS 257 
 
 is an hymn sung, varied accotding to the invention of 
 him that composeth it (for they have excellent poesy), 
 but the subject of it is always the praises of Adam, and 
 Noah, and Abraham ; whereof the former two peopled the 
 world, and the last was the father of the faithful: con- 
 cluding ever with a thanksgiving for the nativity of our 
 Savior, in whose birth the births of all are only blessed. 
 Dinner being done, the Tirsan retireth again; and having 
 withdrawn himself alone into a place, where he maketh 
 some private prayers, he cometh forth the third time, to 
 give the blessing; with all his descendants, who stand 
 about him as at the first. Then he calleth them forth by 
 one and by one, by name as he pleaseth, though seldom 
 the order of age be inverted. The person that is called 
 (the table being before removed) kneeleth down before the 
 chair, and the father layeth his hand upon his head, or 
 her head, and giveth the blessing in these words: "Son 
 of Bensalem (or daughter of Bensalem), thy father saith 
 it ; the man by whom thou hast breath and life speaketh 
 the word; the blessing of the everlasting Father, the 
 Prince of Peace, and the Holy Dove be upon thee, and 
 make the days of thy pilgrimage good and many. " This 
 he saith to every of them; and that done, if there be 
 any of his sons of eminent merit and virtue, so they be 
 not above two, he calleth for them again, and saith, 
 laying his arm over their shoulders, they standing : " Sons, 
 it is well you are bom, give God the praise, and perse- 
 vere to the end." And withal delivereth to either of 
 them a jewel, made in the figure of an ear of wheat, 
 which they ever after wear in the front of their turban, 
 or hat; this done, they fall to music and dances, and 
 other recreations, after their manner, for the rest of the 
 day. This is the full order of that feast. 
 
 By that time six or seven days were spent, I was fallen 
 into straight acquaintance with a merchant of that city, 
 whose name was Joabin. He was a Jew and circumcised; 
 for they have some few stirps of Jews yet remaining 
 among them, whom they leave to their own religion. 
 Which they may the better do, because they are of a 
 far differing disposition from the Jews in other parts. 
 For whereas they hate the name of Christ, and have a 
 17 
 
2S8 NEW ATLANTIS 
 
 secret inbred rancor against the people among whom 
 they live ; these, contrariwise, give unto our Savior many- 
 high attributes, and love the nation of Beipalem ex- 
 tremely. Surely this man of whom I speak would ever 
 acknowledge that Christ was bom of a Virgin; and that 
 he was more than a man; and he would tell how God 
 made him ruler of the seraphims, which guard his 
 throne; and they call him also the Milken Way, and the 
 Eliah of the Messiah, and many other high names, 
 which though they be inferior to his divine majesty, yet 
 they are far from the language of other Jews. And for 
 the country of Bensalem, this man would make no end 
 of commending it, being desirous by tradition among the 
 Jews there to have it believed that the people thereof 
 were of the generations of Abraham, by another son, 
 whom they call Nachoran; and that Moses by a secret 
 cabala ordained the laws of Bensalem which they now 
 use; and that when the Messias should come, and sit in 
 his throne at Hierusalem, the King of Bensalem should 
 sit at his feet, whereas other kings should keep a great 
 distance. But yet setting aside these Jewish dreams, the 
 man was a wise man and learned, and of great policy, 
 and excellently seen in the laws and customs of that na- 
 tion. Among other discourses one day I told him, I 
 was much afEected with the relation I had from some of 
 the company of their custom in holding the feast of the 
 family, for that, methought, I had never heard of a so- 
 lemnity wherein Nature did so much preside. And be- 
 cause propagation of families proceedeth from the nuptial 
 copulation, I desired to know of him what laws and cus- 
 toms they had concerning marriage, and whether they 
 kept marriage well, and whether they were tied to one 
 wife? For that where population is so much affected, 
 and such as with them it seemed to be, there is com- 
 monly permission of plurality of wives. To this he said: 
 * You have reason for to commend that excellent institu- 
 tion of the feast of the family; and indeed we have ex- 
 perience, that those families that are partakers of the 
 blessings of that feast, do flourish and prosper ever after, 
 in an extraordinary manner. But hear me now, and I 
 will tell you what I know. You shall understand that 
 
NEW ATLANTIS 259 
 
 there is not under the heavens so chaste a nation as this 
 of Bensalem, nor so free from all pollution or foulness. 
 It is the virgin of the world; I remember, I have read 
 in one of your European books, of an holy hermit among 
 you, that desired to see the spirit of fornication, and 
 there appeared to him a little foul ugly Ethiope; but if 
 he had desired to see the spirit of chastity of Bensa- 
 lem, it would have appeared to him in the likeness of a 
 fair beautiful cherubim. For there is nothing, among 
 mortal men, more fair and admirable than the chaste 
 minds of this people. Know, therefore, that with them 
 there are no stews, no dissolute houses, no courtesans, 
 nor anything of that kind. Nay, they wonder, with de- 
 testation, at you in Europe, which permit such things. 
 They say ye have put marriage out of office; for mar- 
 riage is ordained a remedy for unlawful concupiscence; 
 and natural concupiscence seemeth as a spur to marriage. 
 But when men have at hand a remedy, more agreeable 
 to their corrupt will, marriage is almost expulsed. And 
 therefore there are with you seen infinite men that marry 
 not, but choose rather a libertine and impure single life, 
 than to be yoked in marriage ; and many that do marry, 
 marry late, when the prime and strength of their years 
 is past. And when they do marry, what is marriage to 
 them but a very bargain; wherein is sought alliance, or 
 portion, or reputation, with some desire (almost indifiEer- 
 ent) of issue; and not the faithful nuptial union of man 
 and wife, that was first instituted. Neither is it possible 
 that those that have cast away so basely so much of their 
 strength, should greatly esteem children (being of the 
 same matter) as chaste men do. So likewise during mar- 
 riage is the case much amended, as it ought to be if those 
 things were tolerated only for necessity ; no, but they re- 
 main still as a very affront to marriage. The haunting 
 of those dissolute places, or resort to courtesans, are no 
 more punished in married men than in bachelors. And 
 the depraved custom of change, and the delight in mere- 
 tricious embracements (where sin is turned into art), 
 maketh marriage a dull thing, and a kind of imposition 
 or tax. They hear you defend these things, as done to 
 avoid greater evils ; as advoutries, deflowering of virgins, 
 
26o NEW ATLANTIS 
 
 unnatural lust, and the like. But they say, this is a pre- 
 posterous wisdom; and they call it Lot's offer, who to 
 save his guests from abusing, offered his daughters ; nay, 
 they say further, that there is little gained in this; for 
 that the same vices and appetites do still remain and 
 abound, unlawful lust being like a furnace, that if you 
 stop the flames altogether it will quench, but if you 
 give it any vent it will rage; as for masculine love, they 
 have no touch of it ; and yet there are not so faithful and 
 inviolate friendships in the world again as are there, and 
 to speak generally (as I said before) I have not read of 
 any such chastity in any people as theirs. And their usual 
 saying is that whosoever is unchaste cannot reverence him- 
 self ; and they say that the reverence of a man's self, is, 
 next religion, the chief est bridle of all vices. " And when 
 he had said this the good Jew paused a little ; whereupon 
 I, far more willing to hear him speak on than to speak my- 
 self ; yet thinking it decent that upon his pause of speech 
 I should not be altogether silent, said only this; that I 
 would say to him, as the widow of Sarepta said to Elias : 
 "that he was come to bring to memory our sins"; and 
 that I confess the righteousness of Bensalem was greater 
 than the righteousness of Europe. At which speech he 
 bowed his head and went on in this manner : " They have 
 
 _also^many_wise^jjid-excellent laws touching marriage. 
 
 \-They allow no polygamy^ They have ordained that none 
 do 'mtermariyfor compact, until a month be passed from 
 their first interview. Marriage without consent of par- 
 ents they do not make void, but they mulct it in the in- 
 heritors; for the children of such marriages are not 
 admitted to inherit above a third part of their parents* 
 inheritance. I have read in a book_of^ one of your men, of 
 a feigned commohwealth^ where jthe marrie3~coupie"are^ 
 permitted, before they contract, to see one another naked? 
 This they dislike; for they think it a scorn to give a 
 refusal after so familiar knowledge ; but because of many 
 hidden defects in men and women's bodies, they have'a more 
 civilway; for they have near every town a couple of pools 
 (which they call Adam and Eve's pools), where it is per^ 
 mitted to one of the friends of the man, and another of the 
 friends of the woman, to see them severally bathe naked." 
 
NEW ATLANTIS 261 
 
 And as we were thus in conference, there came one 
 that seemed to be a messenger, in a rich huke, that 
 spake with the Jew; whereupon he turned to me and 
 said, "You will pardon me, for I am commanded away 
 in haste." The next morning he came to me again, joy- 
 ful as it seemed and said, " There is word come to the 
 governor of the city, that one of the fathers of Salomon's 
 House will be here this day seven-night; we have seen 
 none of them this dozen years. His coming is in state; 
 but the cause of his coming is secret. I will provide you 
 and your fellows of a good standing to see his entry." 
 I thanked him, and told him I was most glad of the 
 news. The day being come he made his entry. He was 
 a man of middle stature and age, comely of person, and 
 had an aspect as if he pitied men. He was clothed in a 
 robe of fine black cloth with wide sleeves, and a cape; 
 his under garment was of excellent white linen down 
 to the foot, girt with a girdle of the same; and a sin- 
 don or tippet of the same about his neck. He had 
 gloves that were curious, and set with stone; and shoes 
 of peach-colored velvet. His neck was bare to the 
 shoulders. His hat was like a helmet, or Spanish mon- 
 tero ; and his locks curled below it decently ; they were of 
 color brown. His beard was cut round and of the same 
 color with his hair, somewhat lighter. He was carried in 
 a rich chariot, without wheels, litter-wise, with two horses 
 at either end, richly trapped in blue velvet embroidered ; 
 and two footmen on each side in the like attire. The 
 chariot was all of cedar, gilt, and adorned with crystal; 
 save that the fore-end had panels of sapphires, set in 
 borders of gold, and the hinder-end the like of emeralds 
 of the Peru color. There was also a sun of gold, radiant 
 upon the top, in the midst ; and on the top before a small 
 cherub of gold, with wings displayed. The chariot was 
 covered with cloth of gold tissued upon blue. He had 
 before him fifty attendants, young men all, in white satin 
 loose coats up to the mid-leg, and stockings of white silk ; 
 and shoes of blue velvet; and hats of blue velvet, with 
 fine plumes of divers colors, set round like hatbands. 
 Next before the chariot went two men, bare-headed, in 
 linen garments down to the foot, girt, and shoes of blue 
 
262 NEW ATLANTIS 
 
 velvet, who carried the one a crosier, the other a pas- 
 toral staff like a sheephook; neither of them of metal, 
 but the crosier of balm-wood, the pastoral staff of cedar. 
 Horsemen he had none, neither before nor Dehind his 
 chariot; as it seemeth, to avoid all tumult and trouble. 
 Behind his chariot went all the officers and principals of 
 the companies of the city. He sat alone, upon cushions, 
 of a kind of excellent plush, blue; and under his foot 
 curious carpets of silk of divers colors, like the Persian, 
 but far finer. He held up his bare hand, as he went, as 
 blessing the people, but in silence. The street was won- 
 derfully well kept; so that there was never any army 
 had their men stand in better battle-array than the peo- 
 ple stood. The windows likewise were not crowded, but 
 everyone stood in them, as if they had been placed. 
 When the show was passed, the Jew said to me, '' I shall 
 not be able to attend you as I would, in regard of some 
 charge the city hath laid upon me for the entertaining of 
 this great person." Three days after the Jew came to 
 me again, and said, "Ye are happy men; for the father 
 of Salomon's House taketh knowledge of your being here, 
 and commanded me to tell you, that he will admit all 
 your company to his presence, and have private confer- 
 ence with one of you, that ye shall choose; and for this 
 hath appointed the next day after to-morrow. And be- 
 cause he meaneth to give you his blessing, he hath ap- 
 pointed it in the forenoon." We came at our day and 
 hour, and I was chosen by my fellows for the private 
 access. We found him in a fair chamber, richly hanged, 
 and carpeted under foot, without any degrees to the 
 state; he was set upon a low throne richly adorned, and 
 a rich cloth of state over his head of blue satin em- 
 broidered. He was alone, save that he had two pages 
 of honor, on either hand one, finely attired in white. 
 His under garments were the like that we saw him wear 
 in the chariot; but instead of his gown, he had on him 
 a mantle with a cape, of the same fine black, fastened 
 about him. When we came in, as we were taught, we 
 bowed low at our first entrance; and when we were 
 come near his chair, he stood up, holding forth his hand 
 ungloved, and in posture of blessing; and we every one 
 
NEW ATLANTIS 263 
 
 of us stooped down, and kissed the end of his tippet. 
 'I'hat done, the rest departed, and I remained. Then he 
 warned the pages forth of the room, and caused me to 
 sit down beside him, and spake to me thus in the Span- 
 ish tongue: — 
 
 «God bless thee, my son; I will give thee the greatest 
 jewel I have. For I will impart unto thee, for the love 
 of God and men, a relation of the true state of Salomon's 
 House. Son, to make you know the true state of Salo- 
 mon's House, I will keep this order. First, I will set 
 forth unto you the end of our foundation. Secondly, the 
 preparations and instruments we have for our works. 
 Thirdly, the several emplojrments and functions whereto 
 our fellows are assigned. And fourthly, the ordinances 
 and rites which we observe. 
 
 " The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes, 
 and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the 
 bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all things 
 possible. 
 
 " The preparations and instruments are these. We have 
 large and deep caves of several depths; the deepest are 
 sunk 600 fathoms ; and some of them are digged and made 
 under great hills and mountains; so that if you reckon 
 together the depth of the hill, and the depth of the cave, 
 they are, some of them, above three miles deep. For we 
 find that the depth of an hill, and the depth of a cave 
 from the fiat, is the same thing; both remote alike from 
 the sun and heaven's beams, and from the open air. 
 These caves we call the lower region. And we use 
 them for all coagulations, indurations, refrigerations, and 
 conservations of bodies. We use them likewise for the 
 imitation of natural mines and the producing also of new 
 artificial metals, by compositions and materials which we 
 use and lay there for many years. We use them also 
 sometimes (which may seem strange) for curing of some 
 diseases, and for prolongation of life, in some hermits 
 that choose to live there, well accommodated of all things 
 necessary, and indeed live very long; by whom also we 
 learn many things. 
 
 *We have burials in several earths, where we put 
 divers cements, as the Chinese do their porcelain. But 
 
264 NEW ATLANTIS 
 
 we have them in greater variety, and some of them more 
 fine. "We also have great variety of composts and soils, 
 for the making of the earth fruitful. 
 
 «We have high towers, the highest about^alf a mile 
 in height, and some of them likewise set upon high 
 mountains, so that the vantage of the hill with the 
 tower, is in the highest of them three miles at least. 
 And these places we call the upper region, account the 
 air between the high places and the low, as a middle 
 region. We use these towers, according to their several 
 heights and situations, for insulation, refrigeration, con- 
 servation, and for the view of divers meteors — as winds, 
 rain, snaw, hail; and some of the fiery meteors also. 
 And upon them, in some places, are dwellings of hermits, 
 whom we visit sometimes, and instruct what to ob- 
 serve. 
 
 * We have great lakes, both salt and fresh, whereof we 
 have use for the fish and fowl. We use them also for 
 burials of some natural bodies, for we find a difference 
 in things buried in earth, or in air below the earth, and 
 things buried in water. We have also pools, of which 
 some do strain fresh water out of salt, and others by 
 art do turn fresh water into salt. We have also some 
 rocks in the midst of the sea, and some bays upon the 
 shore for some works, wherein is required the air and 
 vapor of the sea. We have likewise violent streams 
 and cataracts, which serve us for many motions; and 
 likewise engines for multiplying and enforcing of winds 
 to set also on divers motions. 
 
 "We have also a number of artificial wells and foun- 
 tains, made in imitation of the natural sources and baths, 
 as tincted upon vitriol, sulphur, steel, brass, lead, niter, 
 and other minerals; and again, we have little wells for 
 infusions of many things; where the waters take the 
 virtue quicker and better than in vessels or basins. And 
 among them we have a water, which we call water of 
 Paradise, being by that we do it made very sovereign 
 for health and prolongation of life. 
 
 . "We have also great and spacious houses, where we 
 imitate and demonstrate meteors — as snow, hail, rain, 
 some artificial rains of bodies, and not of water, thun- 
 
NEW ATLANTIS 265 
 
 ders, lightnings; also generations of bodies in air — as 
 frogs flies, and divers others. 
 
 "We have also certain chambers, which we call cham- 
 bers of health, where we qualify the air as we think 
 good and proper for the cure of divers diseases, and 
 preservation of health. 
 
 "We have also fair and large baths, of several mix- 
 tures, for the cure of diseases, and the restoring of 
 man's body from aref action; and others for the confirm- 
 ing of it in strength of sinews, vital parts, and the very 
 juice and substance of the body. 
 
 " We have also large and various orchards and gardens, 
 wherein we do not so much respect beauty as variety of 
 ground and soil, proper for divers trees and herbs, and 
 some very spacious, where trees and berries are set, 
 whereof we make divers kinds of drinks, besides the 
 vineyards. In these we practice likewise all conclusions 
 of grafting, and inoculating, as well of wild trees as fruit 
 trees, which produceth many effects. And we make by art, 
 in the same orchards and gardens, trees and flowers, to 
 come earlier or later than their seasons, and to come up 
 and bear more speedily than by their natural course they 
 do. We make them also by art greater much than their 
 nature; and their fruit greater and sweeter, and of dif- 
 ferent taste, smell, color, and figure, from their nature. 
 And many of them we so order, as that they become of 
 medicinal use. 
 
 "We have also means to make divers plants rise by 
 mixtures of earths without seeds, and likewise to make 
 divers new plants, differing from the vulgar, and to 
 make one tree or plant turn into another. 
 
 "We have also parks, and inclosures of all sorts, of 
 beasts and birds; which we use not only for view or 
 rareness, but likewise for dissections and trials, that 
 thereby may take light what may be wrought upon the 
 body of man. Wherein we find many strange effects: as 
 continuing life in them, though divers parts, which you 
 account vital, be perished and taken forth; resuscitating 
 of some that seem dead in appearance, and the like. 
 We try also all poisons, and other medicines upon them, 
 as well of chirurgery as physic. By art likewise we make 
 
J 
 
 266 NEW ATLANTIS 
 
 them greater or smaller than their kind is, and contra- 
 riwise dwarf them and stay their growth; we make them 
 more fruitful and bearing than their kind^, and con- 
 trariwise barren and not generative. Also we make 
 them differ in color, shape, activity, many ways. We find 
 means to make commixtures and copulations of divers 
 kinds, which have produced many new kinds, and them 
 not barren, as the general opinion is. We make a num- 
 ber of kinds of serpents, worms, flies, fishes of putrefact- 
 ion, whereof some are advanced (in effect) to be perfect 
 creatures, like beasts or birds, and have sexes, and do 
 propagate. Neither do we this by chance, but we know 
 beforehand of what matter and commixture, what kind 
 of those creatures will arise. 
 
 "We have also particular pools where we make trials 
 upon fishes, as we have said before of beasts and birds. 
 
 * We have also places for breed and generation of those 
 kinds of worms and flies which are of special use; such 
 as are with you your silkworms and bees. 
 
 " I will not hold you long with recounting of our brew- 
 houses, bake-houses, and kitchens, where are made divers 
 drinks, breads, and meats, rare and of special effects. 
 Wines we have of grapes, and drinks of other juice, of 
 fruits, of grains, and of roots, and of mixtures with honey, 
 sugar, manna, and fruits dried and decocted ; also of the 
 tears or wounding of trees, and of the pulp of canes. 
 And these drinks are of several ages, some to the age 
 or last of forty years. We have drinks also brewed with 
 several herbs, and roots, and spices; yea, with several 
 fleshes, and white meats; whereof some of the drinks 
 are such as they are in effect meat and drink both, so 
 that divers, especially in age, do desire to live with them 
 with little or no meat or bread. And above all we strive to 
 have drinks of extreme thin parts, to insinuate into the 
 body, and yet without all biting, sharpness, or fretting; 
 insomuch as some of them put upon the back of your 
 hand, will with a little stay pass through to the palm, 
 and yet taste mild to the mouth. We have also 
 waters, which we ripen in that fashion, as they become 
 nourishing, so that they are indeed excellent drinks, and 
 many will use no other. Bread we have of several grains, 
 
NEW ATLANTIS 267 
 
 roots, and kernels ; yea, an4someofj£sllj.^d fish, dried, 
 with divers kinds of leavings and seasonings; so that" 
 some do extremely move appetites, some do nourish so, 
 as divers do live of them, without any other meat, who 
 live very long. So for meats, we have some of them so 
 beaten and made tender, and mortified, yet without all cor- 
 rupting, as a weak heat of the stomach will turn them 
 into good chilus, as well as a strong heat would meat 
 otherwise prepared. We have some meats also and bread, 
 and drinks, which taken by men, enable them to fast 
 long after; and some other, that used make the very 
 flesh of men's bodies sensibly more hard and tough, and 
 their strength far greater than otherwise it would be. j 
 
 " We have dispensatories or shops of medicines ; wEereiir 
 you may easily think, if we have such variety of plants, 
 and living creatures, more than you have in Europe (for 
 we know what you have), the simples, drugs, and in- 
 gredients of medicines, must likewise be in so much the 
 greater variety. We have them likewise of divers ages, 
 and long fermentations. And for their preparations, we 
 have not only all manner of exquisite distillations, and 
 separations, and especially by gentle heats, and percol- 
 ations through divers strainers, yea,- and substances ; but 
 also exact forms of composition, whereby they incorpo- 
 rate almost as they were natural simples. 
 
 " We have also divers mechanical arts, which you have 
 not; and stuffs made by them, as papers, linen, silks, 
 tissues, dainty works of feathers of wonderful luster, ex- 
 cellent dyes, and many others, and shops likewise as well 
 for such as are not brought into vulgar use among us, 
 as for those that are. For you must know, that of the 
 things before recited, many of them are grown into use 
 throughout the kingdom, but yet, if they did flow from 
 pur invention, we have of them also for patterns and 
 principles. 
 
 "We have also furnaces of great diversities, and that 
 keep great diversity of heats; fierce and quick, strong 
 and constant, soft and mild, blown, quiet, dry, moist, 
 and the like. But above all we have heats, in imitation 
 of the sun's and heavenly bodies' heats, that pass divers 
 inequalities, and as it were orbs, progresses, and returns 
 
268 NEW ATLANTIS 
 
 whereby we produce admirable effects. Besides, we have 
 heats of dungs, and of bellies and maws of living creat- 
 ures and of their bloods and -bodies, and q§ hays and 
 herbs laid up moist, of lime unquenched, and such like. 
 Instruments also which generate heat only by motion. 
 And further, places for strong insulations; and again, 
 places under the earth, which by nature or art jdeld heat. 
 These divers heats we use, as the nature of the opera- 
 tion which we intend requireth. 
 
 "We have also perspective-houses, where we make 
 demonstrations of all lights and radiations, and of all 
 colors; and out of things uncolored and transparent, we 
 can represent unto you all several colors, not in rain- 
 bows, as it is in gems and prisms, but of themselves 
 single. We represent also all multiplications of light, 
 which we carry to great distance, and make so sharp, as 
 to discern small points and lines. Also all colorations of 
 light : all delusions and deceits of the sight, in figures, 
 magnitudes, motions, colors; all demonstrations of shad- 
 ows. We find also divers means, yet unknown to you, 
 of producing of light, originally from divers bodies. We 
 procure means of seeing objects afar off, as in the heaven 
 and remote places ; and represent things near as afar off, 
 and things afar off as near; making feigned distances. 
 We have also helps for the sight far above spectacles and 
 glasses in use; we have also glasses and means to see 
 small and minute bodies, perfectly and distinctly ; as the 
 shapes and colors of small flies and worms, grains, and 
 flaws in gems which cannot otherwise be seen, observa- 
 tions in urine and blood not otherwise to be seen. We 
 make artificial rainbows, halos, and circles " about light. 
 We represent also all manner of reflections, refractions, 
 and multiplications of visual beams of objects. 
 
 "We have also precious stones, of all kinds, many of 
 them of great beauty and to you unknown ; crystals like- 
 wise, and glasses of divers kind; and among them some 
 of metals vitrificated, and other materials, besides those 
 of which you make glass. Also a number of fossils, and 
 imperfect minerals, which you have not. Likewise load- 
 stones of prodigious virtue: and other rare stones, both 
 natural and artificial. 
 
NEW ATLANTIS 269 
 
 "We have also sound-houses, where we practice and 
 demonstrate all sounds and their generation. We have 
 harmony which you have not, of quarter sounds and --l^s- 
 ser slides of sounds. Divers instruments of music like- 
 wise to you unknown, some sweeter than any you have; 
 with bells and rings that are dainty and sweet. We repre- 
 sent small sounds as great and deep, likewise great sounds, 
 extenuate and sharp; we make divers tremblings and 
 warblings of sounds, which in their original are entire. 
 We represent and imitate all articulate sounds and let- 
 ters, and the voices and notes of beasts and birds. We 
 have certain helps, which set to the ear do further the 
 hearing greatly; we have also divers strange and artifi- 
 cial echoes, reflecting the voice many times, and as it 
 were tossing it ; and some that give back the voice louder 
 than it came, some shriller and some deeper; yea, some 
 rendering the voice, differing in the letters or articulate 
 sound from that they receive. We have all means to convey 
 sounds in trunks and pipes, in strange lines and distances. 
 
 "We have also perfume-houses, wherewith we join 
 also practices of taste. We multiply smells which may 
 seem strange: we imitate smells, making all smells to 
 breathe out of other mixtures than those that give them. 
 We make divers imitations of taste likewise, so that they 
 will deceive any man's taste. And in this house we 
 contain also a confiture-house, where we make all sweet- 
 meats, dry and moist, and divers pleasant wines, milks, 
 broths, and salads, far in greater variety than you have. 
 
 " We have also engine-houses, where are prepared engines 
 and instruments for all sorts of motions. There we imi- 
 tate and practice to make swifter motions than any you 
 have, either out of your muskets or any engine that you 
 have; and to make them and multiply them more easily 
 and with small force, by wheels and other means, and 
 to make them stronger and more violent than yours are, 
 exceeding your greatest cannons and basilisks. We repre- 
 sent also ordnance and instruments of war and engines 
 of all kinds ; and likewise new mixtures and compositions 
 of gunpowder, wildfires burning in water and unquench- 
 able, also fireworks of all variety, both for pleasure and 
 use. We imitate also flights of birds; we have some 
 
270 NEW ATLANTIS 
 
 degrees of flyiiiiT ^^ the air. We have ships and boats 
 for going' ujider water and brooking of seas, also swim- 
 ming'-girdles and supporters. We have di^rs curious 
 clocks and other like motions of return, and some per- 
 petual motions. We imitate also raotions of living crea- 
 tures by images of men, beasts, birds, iishes, and serpents ; 
 we have also a great number of other various motions, 
 strange for equality, fineness and subtilty. 
 
 " We have also a mathematical-house, where are repre- 
 sented all instruments, as well of geometry as astronomy, 
 exquisitely made. 
 
 "We have also houses of deceits of the senses, where 
 we represent all manner of feats of juggling, false ap- 
 paritions, impostures and illusions, and their fallacies. 
 And surely you will easily believe that we, that have so 
 many things truly natural which induce admiration, could 
 in a world of particulars deceive the senses if we would 
 disguise those things, and labor to make them more 
 miraculous. But we do hate all impostures, and lies, 
 insomuch as we have severely forbidden it to all our 
 fellows, under pain of ignominy and fines, that they do 
 not show any natural work or thing adorned or swelling, 
 but only pure as it is, and without all affectation of 
 strangeness. 
 
 "These are, my son, the riches of Salomon's House. 
 
 " For the several employments and offices of our fellows, 
 we have twelve that sail into foreign countries under the 
 names of other nations (for our own we conceal), who 
 bring us the books and abstracts, and patterns of experi- 
 ments of all other parts. These we call merchants of light. 
 
 "We have three that collect the experiments which 
 are in all books. These we call deprepators. 
 
 "We have three that collect the experiments of all 
 mechanical arts, and also of liberal sciences, and also of 
 practices which are not brought into arts. These we call 
 mystery-men. 
 
 ^*We have three that try new experiments. 
 
 " Such as themselves think good. These we call pioneers 
 or miners. 
 
 " We have three that draw the experiments of the for- 
 mer four into titles and tables, to give the better light 
 
NEW ATLANTIS 271 
 
 for the drawing of observations and axioms out of them. 
 These we call compilers. We have three that bend 
 themselves, looking into the experiments of their fellows, 
 and cast about how to draw out of them things of use 
 and practice for man's life and knowledge, as well for 
 works as for plain demonstration of causes, means of 
 natural divinations, and the easy and clear discovery of 
 the virtues and parts of bodies. These we call dowry- 
 men or benefactors. 
 
 "Then after divers meetings and consults of our 
 whole number, to consider of the former labors and 
 collections, we have three that take care out of them 
 to direct new experiments, of a higher light, more 
 penetrating into Nature than the former. These we 
 call lamps. 
 
 «We have three others that do execute the experi- 
 ments so directed, and report them. These we call inoc- 
 ulators. 
 
 " Lastly, we have three that raise the former discover- 
 ies by experiments into greater observations, axioms, and 
 aphorisms. These we call interpreters of Nature. 
 
 "We have also, as you must think, novices and ap- 
 prentices, that the succession of the former employed 
 men do not fail ; besides a great number of servants and 
 attendants, men and women. And this we do also: we 
 have consultations, which of the inventions and experi- 
 ences which we have discovered shall be published, and 
 which not: and take all an oath of secrecy for the con- 
 cealing of those which we think fit to keep secret: 
 though some of those we do reveal sometime to the state, 
 and some not. 
 
 " For our ordinances and rites, we have two very long 
 and fair galleries: in one of these we place patterns and 
 samples of all manner of the more rare and excellent in- 
 ventions: in the other we place the statues of all princi- 
 pal inventors. There we have the statue of your 
 Columbus, that discovered the West Indies: also the in- 
 ventor of ships: your Monk that was the inventor of 
 ordnance and of gunpowder: the inventor of music: the 
 inventor of letters : the inventor of printing : the inventor 
 of observations of astronomy: the inventor of works in 
 
272 NEW ATLANTIS 
 
 metal: the inventor of glass: the inventor of silk of the 
 worm: the inventor of wine: the inventor of com and 
 bread: the inventor of sugars; and all thes&,by more 
 certain tradition than you have. Then we have divers 
 inventors of our own, of excellent works; which since 
 you have not seen, it were too long to make descriptions 
 of them ; and besides, in the right understanding of those 
 descriptions you might easily err. For upon every invention 
 of value we erect a statue to the inventor, and give him a 
 liberal and honorable reward. These statues are some of 
 brass, some of marble and touchstone, some of cedar and 
 other special woods gilt and adorned; some of iron, some 
 of silver, some of gold. 
 
 "We have certain hymns and services, which we say 
 daily, of laud and thanks to God for his marvelous works. 
 And forms of prayers, imploring his aid and blessing for 
 the illumination of our labors; and turning them into 
 good and holy uses. 
 
 "Lastly, we have circuits or visits, of divers principal 
 cities of the kingdom ; where as it cometh to pass we do 
 publish such new profitable inventions as we think good. 
 And we do also declare natural divinations of diseases, 
 plagues, swarms of hurtful creatures, scarcity, tempest, 
 earthquakes, great inundations, comets, temperature of 
 the year and divers other things; and we give counsel 
 theteupon, what the people shall do for the prevention 
 and remedy of them." 
 
 And when he had said this, he stood up; and I, as I 
 had been taught, knelt down ; and he laid his right hand 
 upon my head, and said, "God bless thee, my son, and 
 God bless this relation which I have made. I give thee 
 leave to publish it, for the good of other nations; for 
 we here are in God's bosom, a land unknown. " And so 
 he left me; having assigned a value of about two thou- 
 sand ducats for a bounty to me and my fellows. For 
 they give great largesses, where they come, upon all oc- 
 casions. 
 
 THE REST WAS NOT PERFECTED. 
 
CAMPANELLA'S 
 CITY OF THE SUN. 
 
 IS 
 
 iZJS) 
 
THE CITY OF THE SUN. 
 
 [A Poetical Dialogue between a Grandmaster of the Knights HospitaV' 
 lers and a Genoese Sea Captain, his Guest] 
 
 G. M. — Prithee, now, tell me what happened to yoti 
 during that voyage ? 
 
 Capt. — I have already told you how I wandered over 
 the whole earth. In the course of my journeying I came 
 to Taprobane, and was compelled to go ashore at a place, 
 where through fear of the inhabitants I remained in a 
 wood. When I stepped out of this I found myself on a 
 large plain immediately under the equator. 
 
 6. M. — And what befell you here? 
 
 Capt. — I came upon a large crowd of men and armed 
 women, many of whom did not understand our language, 
 and they conducted me forthwith to the City of the Sun. 
 
 G. M. — Tell me after what plan this city is built and 
 how it is governed ? 
 
 Capt. — The greater part of the city is built upon a 
 high hill, which rises from an extensive plain, but sev- 
 eral of its circles extend for some distance beyond the 
 base of the hill, which is of such a size that the diameter 
 of the city is upward of two miles, so that its circum- 
 ference becomes about seven. On account of the humped 
 shape of the naountain, however, the diameter of tte city 
 is really more than if it were built on a plain. 
 
 It is divided into seven rings or huge circles named 
 from the seven planets, and the way from one to the 
 other of these is by four streets and through four gates, 
 that look toward the four points of the compass. Fur- 
 thermore, it is so built that if the first circle were 
 stormed, it would of necessity entail a double amount of 
 energy to storm the second ; still more to storm the third ; 
 and in each succeeding case the strength and energy 
 would have to be doubled ; so that he who wishes to cap- 
 
 (*75) 
 
276 THE CITY OF THE SUN 
 
 ture that city must, as it were, storm it seven times. 
 For my own part, however, I think that not even the 
 first wall could be occupied, so thick are the ^rthworks 
 and so well fortified is it with breastworks, towers, guns 
 and ditches. 
 
 When I had been taken through the northern gate 
 (which is shut with an iron door so wrought that it can 
 be raised and let down, and locked in easily and strongly, 
 its projections running into the grooves of the thick posts 
 by a marvelous device), I saw a level space seventy 
 paces * wide between the first and second walls. From 
 hence can be seen large palaces all joined to the wall of 
 the second circuit, in such a manner as to appear all one 
 palace. Arches run on a level with the middle height 
 of the palaces, and are continued round the whole ring. 
 There are galleries for promenading upon these arches, 
 which are supported from beneath by thick and well- 
 shaped columns, enclosing arcades like peristyles, or 
 cloisters of an abbey. 
 
 But the palaces have no entrances from below except 
 on the inner or concave partition, from which one enters 
 directly to the lower parts of the building. The higher 
 parts, however, are reached by flights of marble steps, 
 which lead to galleries for promenading on the inside 
 similar to those on the outside. From these one enters the 
 higher rooms, which are very beautiful, and have windows 
 on the concave and convex partitions. These rooms are 
 divided from one another by richly decorated walls. 
 The convex or outer wall of the ring is about eight 
 spans thick; the concave three; the intermediate walls 
 are one, or perhaps one and a half. Leaving this cir- 
 cle one gets to the second plain, which is nearly three 
 paces narrower than the first. Then the first wall of 
 the second ring is seen adorned above and below with 
 similar galleries for walking, and there is on the inside 
 of it another interior wall inclosing palaces. It has also 
 similar peristyles supported by columns in the lower 
 part, but above are excellent pictures, round the ways 
 into the upper houses. And so on afterward through 
 similar spaces and double walls, enclosing palaces, and 
 
 * A pace was ij^ yards, 1,000 paces making a mile. 
 
THE CITY OF THE SUN 277 
 
 adorned with galleries for walking, extending along their 
 outer side and supported by columns, till the last circuit 
 is reached the way being still over a level plain. 
 
 But when the two gates, that is to say, those of the 
 outmost and the inmost walls have been passed, one 
 mounts by means of steps so formed that an ascent is 
 scarcely discernible, since it proceeds in a slanting direc- 
 tion, and the steps succeed one another at almost imper- 
 ceptible heights. On the top of the hill is a rather 
 spacious plain, and in the midst of this there rises a 
 temple built with wondrous art. 
 
 G. M. — Tell on, I pray you ! Tell on! I am dying 
 to hear more. 
 
 Capt. — The temple is built in the form of a circle; it is 
 not girt with walls, but stands upon thick columns, beauti- 
 fully grouped. A very large dome, built with great care 
 in the center or pole, contains another small vault as it 
 were rising out of it, and in this a spiracle, which is right 
 over the altar. There is but one altar in the middle of 
 the temple, and this is hedged round by columns. The 
 temple itself is on a space of more than three hundred 
 and fifty paces. Without it, arches measuring about eight 
 paces extend from the heads of the columns outwards, 
 whence other columns rise about three paces from the thick, 
 strong and erect wall. Between these and the former col- 
 umns there are galleries for walking, with beautiful pave- 
 ments, and in the recess of the wall, which is adorned with 
 numerous large doors, there are immovable seats, placed as 
 it were between the inside columns, supporting the temple. 
 Portable chairs are not wanting, many and well adorned. 
 Nothing is seen over* the altar but a large globe, upon 
 which the heavenly bodies are painted, and another globe 
 upon which there is a representation of the earth. Fur- 
 thermore, in the vault of the dome there can be discerned 
 representations of all the stars of heaven from the first 
 to the sixth magnitude, with their proper names and 
 power to influence terrestrial things marked in three little 
 verses for each. There are the poles and greater and 
 lesser circles according to the right latitude of the place, 
 but these are not perfect because there is no wall below. 
 They seem, too, to be made in their relation to the globes 
 
278 THE CITY OF THE SUN 
 
 on the altar. The pavement of the temple is bright with 
 precious stones. Its seven golden lamps hang always 
 burning, and these bear the names of the seve^ planets. 
 
 At the top of the building several small and beautiful 
 cells surround the small dome, and behind the level space 
 above the bands or arches of the exterior and interior 
 columns there are many cells, both small and large, where 
 the priests and religious officers dwell to the number of 
 forty-nine. 
 
 A revolving flag projects from the smaller dome, and 
 this shows in what quarter the wind is. The flag is 
 marked with figures up to thirty-six, and the priests know 
 what sort of year the different kinds of winds bring and 
 what will be the changes of weather on land and sea. 
 Furthermore, under the flag a book is always kept writ- 
 ten with letters of gold. 
 
 G. M. — I pray you, worthy hero, explain to me their 
 whole system of government ; for I am anxious to hear it. 
 
 Capt. — The great ruler among them is a priest whom 
 they call by the name Hoh, though we should call him 
 Metaphysic. He is head over all, in temporal and spirit- 
 ual matters, and all business and lawsuits are settledT^by^ 
 him, as the supreme authority. Three princes of equal 
 power — viz, Pon, Sin and Mor — assist him, and these in 
 our tongue we should call Power, Wisdom and Love. To 
 Power belongs the care of all matters relating to, war 
 and peace. He attends to the military arts, and, next to 
 Hoh, he is ruler in every affair of a warlike nature. He 
 governs the military magistrates and the soldiers, and has 
 the management of the munitions, the fortifications, the 
 storming of places, the implements of war, the armories, 
 the smiths and workmen connected with matters of this 
 sort. 
 
 But Wisdom is the ruler of the liberal arts, of me- 
 chanics, of all sciences with their magistrates and doc- 
 tors, and of the 'discipline of the schools. As many 
 doctors as there are, are under his control. There is 
 one doctor who is called Astrologus; a second, Cosmo- 
 graphus; a third, Arithmeticus ; a fourth, Geometra; a fifth, 
 Historiographus ; a sixth, Poeta; a seventh, Logicus; an 
 eighth, Rhetor; a ninth, Grammaticus; a tenth, Medicus; 
 
THE CITY OF THE SUN 279 
 
 an eleventh, Physiologus ; a twelfth, Politicus; a thir- 
 teenth, Moralis. They have but one book, which they 
 call Wisdom, and in it all the sciences are written with 
 conciseness and marvelous fluency of expression. This 
 they read to the people after the custom of the Pytha- 
 goreans. It is Wisdom who causes the exterior and 
 interior, the higher and lower walls of the city to be 
 adorned with the finest pictures, and to have all the 
 sciences painted upon them in an admirable manner. 
 On the walls of the terople^ and on_the..dome, which is 
 let down when the priest gives an address, lest the 
 sounds of his voice, being scattered, ' should fly away 
 from his audience, there are pictures of stars in their 
 different magnitudes, with the powers and motions of 
 each, expressed separately in three little verses. 
 
 On the interior wall of the first circuit all the mathe- 
 matical figures are conspicuously painted — figures more 
 in number than Archimedes or Euclid discovered, marked 
 S3nnmetrically, and with the explanation of them neatly 
 written and contained each in a little verse. There are 
 definitions and propositions, etc., etc. On the exterior 
 convex wall is first an immense drawing of the whole 
 earth, given at one view. Following upon this, there 
 are tablets setting forth for every separate country the 
 customs both public and private, the laws, the origins 
 and the power of the inhabitants ; and the alphabets the 
 different people use can be seen above that of the City 
 of the Sun. 
 
 On the inside of the second circuit, that is to say of 
 the second ring of buildings, paintings of all kinds 
 of precious and common stones, of minerals and metals 
 are s_een; and a little piece of the metal itself is also 
 there with an apposite explanation in two small verses 
 for each metal or stone. On the outside are marked all 
 the seas, rivers, lakes, and streams which are on the face 
 of the earth; as are also the wines and the oils and the 
 different liquids, with the sources from which the last are 
 extracted, their qualities and strength. There are also 
 vessels built into the wall above the arches, and these 
 are full of liquids from one to three hundred years old, 
 which cure all diseases. Hail and snow, storms and 
 
28o THE CITY OF THE SUN 
 
 thunder, and whatever else takes place in the air, are 
 represented with suitable figures and little verses. The 
 inhabitants even have the art of represenl^g in stone 
 all the phenomena of the air, such as the wind, rain, 
 thunder, the rainbow, etc. 
 
 On the interior of the third circuit all the different 
 families of trees and herbs are depicted, and there is a 
 live specimen of each plant in earthenware vessels placed 
 upon the outer partition of the arches. With the speci- 
 mens there are explanations as to where they were first 
 found, what are their powers and natures, and resem- 
 blances to celestial things and to metals: to parts of the 
 human body and to things in the sea, and also as to their 
 uses in medicine, etc. On the exterior wall are all the 
 races of fish, found in rivers, lakes and seas, and their 
 habits and values, and ways of breeding, training and 
 living, the purposes for which they exist in the world, 
 and their uses to man. Further, their resemblances to 
 celestial and terrestrial things, produced both by nature 
 and art, are so given that I was astonished when I saw 
 a fish which was like a bishop, one like a chain, another 
 like a garment, a fourth like a nail, a fifth like a star, 
 and others like images of those things existing among 
 as, the relation in each case being completely manifest. 
 There are sea urchins to be seen, and the purple shell- 
 fish and mussels; and whatever the watery world pos- 
 sesses worthy of being known is there fully shown in 
 marvelous characters of painting and drawing. 
 
 On the fourth interior wall all the different kinds of 
 birds are painted, with their natures, sizes, customs, 
 colors, manner of living, etc. ; and the only real phcenix 
 is possessed by the inhabitants of this city. On the ex- 
 terior are shown all the races of creeping animals, ser- 
 pents, dragons and worms; the insects, the flies, gnats, 
 beetles, etc. , in their different states, strength, venoms and 
 uses, and a great deal more than you or I can think of. 
 
 On the fifth interior they have all the larger animals 
 of the earth, as many in number as would astonish you. 
 We indeed know not the thousandth part of them, for 
 on the exterior wall also a great many of immense size 
 are also portrayed. To be sure, of horses alone, how 
 
THE CITY OF THE SUN 281 
 
 great a number of breeds there is and how beautiful are 
 the forms there cleverly displayed 
 
 On the sixth interior are painted all the mechanical 
 arts, with the several instruments for each and their 
 manner of use among diiferent nations. Alongside the 
 dignity of such is placed, and their several inventors are 
 named. But on the exterior all the inventors in science, 
 in warfare, and in law are represented. There I saw 
 Moses, Osiris, Jupiter, Mercury, Lycurgus, Pompilius, 
 Pythagoras, Zamolxis, Solon, Charondas, Phoroneus, with 
 very many others. They even have Mahomet, whom 
 nevertheless they hate as a false and sordid legislator. 
 In the most dignified position I saw a representation of 
 Jesus Christ and of the twelve Apostles, whom they con- 
 sider very worthy and hold to be great. Of the repre- 
 sentations of men, I perceived Caesar, Alexander, Pyrrhus 
 and Hannibal in the highest place; and other very 
 renowned heroes in peace and war, especially Roman 
 heroes, were painted in lower positions, under the gal- 
 leries. And when I asked with astonishment whence 
 they had obtained our history, they told me that among 
 them there was a knowledge of all languages, and that 
 by perseverance they continually send explorers and ambas- 
 sadors over the whole earth, who learn thoroughly the 
 customs, forces, rule, and histories of the nations, bad 
 and good alike. These they apply all to their own repub- 
 lic, and with this they are well pleased. I learned that 
 cannon and typography were invented by the Chinese 
 before we knew of them. There are magistrates, who 
 announce the meaning of the pictures, and boys are 
 accustomed to learn all the sciences, without toil and as 
 if for pleasure; but in the way of history only until 
 they are ten years old. 
 
 Love is foremost in attending to the charge of the -^ 
 race. He sees that men and women are so joined t 
 together, that they bring forth the best offspring. Indeed, \ 
 they laugh at us who exhibit a studious care for our 
 breed of horses and dogs, but neglect the breeding of 
 human beings. Thus the education of the children is 
 under his rule. So also is the medicine that is sold, the 
 sowing and collecting of fruits of the earth and of trees. 
 
382 THE CITY OF THE SUN 
 
 agriculture, pasturage, the preparations for the months, 
 the cooking arrangements, and whatever has any refer- 
 ence to food, clothing, and the intercourse ^ the sexes. 
 Love himself is ruler, but there are many male and 
 female magistrates dedicated to these arts. 
 
 Metaphysic then with these three rulers manage all 
 
 the above-named matters, and even by himself alone 
 
 ^nothing is done; all business is discharged by the four 
 
 ■ together, but in whatever Metaphysic inclines to the 
 
 i^rest are sure to agree. 
 
 G. M, — Tell me, please, of the magistrates, their servi- 
 ces and duties, of the education and mode of living, 
 whether the government is a monarchy, a repiiblic, or an 
 aristocracy. 
 
 Capt. — This race of men came there from India, flying 
 from the sword of the Magi, a race of plunderers and 
 tyrants who laid waste their country, and they deter- 
 mined to lead a philosophic life in fellowship with one 
 another. Although the community of wives is not in- 
 stituted among the other inhabitants of their province, 
 among them it is in use after this manner. All things 
 are common with them, and their _dispensation Js by 
 the authority of the magistrates. Arts and honors and 
 pleasures are common, and are held in such a manner 
 that no one can appropriate anything to himself. 
 
 They say that all private property is acquired and im- 
 proved for the reason that each one of us by himself has 
 his own home and wife and children. From this self- 
 love springs. For when we raise a son to riches and 
 dignities, and leave an heir to much wealth, we become 
 either ready to grasp at the property of the state, if in 
 any case fear should be removed from the power which 
 belongs to riches and rank; or avaricious, crafty, and 
 hypocritical, if anyone is of slender purse, little strength, 
 and mean ancestry. But when we have taken away self- 
 love, there remains only love for the state. 
 
 G. M. — Under such circumstances no one will be will- 
 ing to labor, while he expects others to work, on the fruit 
 of whose labors he can live, as Aristotle argues against Plato. 
 
 Capt. — I do not know how to deal with that argu- 
 ment, but I declare to you that they bum with so great 
 
THE CITY OF THE SUN 283 
 
 a love for their fatherland, as I could scarcely have 
 believed possible; and indeed with much nvore than the 
 histories tell us belonged to the Romans, who fell will- 
 ingly for their country, inasmuch as they have to a 
 greater extent surrendered their private property. I 
 think truly that the friars and monks and clergy of our 
 country, if they were not weakened by love for their 
 kindred and friends, or by the ambition to rise to higher 
 dignities, would be less fond of property, and more 
 imbued with a spirit of charity toward all, as it was in 
 the time of the Apostles, and is now in a great many 
 cases. 
 
 G. M. — St. Augustine may say that, but I say that 
 among this race of men, friendship is worth nothing; 
 since they have not the chance of conferring mutual 
 benefits on one another. 
 
 Ca/^.^Nay, indeed. For it is worth the trouble to see 
 that no one can receive gifts from another. Whatever is 
 necessary they have, they receive it from the community, 
 and the magistrate takes care that no one receives more 
 than he deserves. Yet nothing necessary is denied to 
 anyone. Friendship is recognized among them in war, 
 in infirmity, in the art contests, by which means they aid 
 one another mutually by teaching. Sometimes they im-~ 
 prove themselves mutually with praises, with conversa- 
 tion, with actions, and out of the things they need. All 
 those of the same age call one another brothers. They 
 call all over twenty-two years of age, fathers; those who 
 are less than twenty-two are named sons. Moreover, the 
 magistrates govern well, so that no one in the fraternity 
 can do injury to another. 
 
 G. iJf.— And how? 
 
 Capt. — As many names of virtues as there are among 
 us, so many magistrates there are among them. There 
 is a magistrate who is named Magnanimity, another 
 Fortitude, a third Chastity, a fourth Liberality, a fifth 
 Criminal and Civil Justice, a sixth Comfort, a seventh 
 Truth, an eighth Kindness, a tenth Gratitude, an eleventh 
 Cheerfulness, a twelfth Exercise, a thirteenth Sobriety, 
 etc. They are elected to duties of that kind, each one 
 to that duty for excellence in which he is known from 
 
284 THE CITY OF THE SUN 
 
 boyhood to be most suitable. Wherefore among them 
 neither robbery nor clever murders, nor lewdness, incest, 
 adultery, or other crimes of which we accusei^ne another, 
 can be found. They accuse themselves of ingratitude 
 and malignity when anyone denies a lawful satisfaction 
 to another, of indolence, of sadness, of anger, of scurrility, 
 of slander, and of lying, which curseful thing they 
 thoroughly hate. Accused persons undergoing punish- 
 ment are deprived of the common table, and other 
 honors, until the judge thinks that they agree with their 
 correction. 
 
 G. M. — Tell me the manner in which the magistrates 
 are chosen. 
 
 Capt. — You would not rightly understand this, unless 
 you first learned their manner of living. That you may 
 know then, men and women \^&bx the same kind of gar- 
 ment, suited for war. The women wear the toga below 
 the knee, but the men above. And both sexes are in- 
 structed in all the arts together. When this has been 
 done as a start, and before their third year, the__bQys 
 learn the language and the alphabet on the walls b y 
 walking -jound_them! They have four leaders, and four 
 elders, the first to direct them, the second to teach them 
 and these are men approved beyond all others. After 
 some time they exercise themselves, with gymnastics, 
 running, quoits, and other games, by means of which all 
 their muscles are strengthened alike. Their feet are 
 always bare, and so are their heads as far as the seventh 
 ring. Afterward they lead them to the offices of the 
 trades, such as shoemaking, cooking, metalworking, 
 carpentry, painting, etc. In order to find out the bent 
 of the genius of each one, after their seventh year, when 
 they have already gone through the mathematics on the 
 walls, they take them to the readings of all the sciences; 
 there are four lectures at each reading, and in the course 
 of four hours the four in their order explain ever)rthing. 
 
 For some take physical exercise or busy themselves 
 with public services or functions, others apply them- 
 selves to reading. Leaving these studies all are devoted 
 to the more abstruse subjects, to mathematics, to medi- 
 cine, and to other sciences. There is continual debate 
 
THE CITY OF THE SUN 285 
 
 and studied argument among them, and after a time 
 they become magistrates of those sciences or mechanical 
 arts in which they are the most proficient; for every 
 one follows the opinion of his leader and judge, and 
 goes out to the plains to the works of the field, and for 
 the purpose of becoming acquainted with the pasturage 
 of the dumb animals. And they consider him the more 
 noble and renowned who has dedicated himself to the 
 study of the most arts and knows how to practice them 
 wisely. Wherefore they laugh at us in that we consider 
 our workmen ignoble, and hold those to be noble who 
 have mastered no pursuit; but live in ease, and are so 
 many slaves given over to their own pleasure and las- 
 civiousness; and thus as it were from a school of vices 
 so many idle and wicked fellows go forth for the ruin 
 of the state. 
 
 The rest of the officials, however, are chosen by the 
 four chiefs, Hoh, Pon, Sin and Mor, and by the teach- 
 ers of that art over which they are fit to preside. And 
 these teachers know well who is most suited for rule. 
 Certain men are proposed by the magistrates in council, 
 they themselves not seeking to become candidates, and 
 he opposes who knows anything against those brought 
 forward for election, or if not, speaks in favor of them. 
 But no one attains to the dignity of Hoh except him 
 who knows the histories of the nations, and their cus- 
 toms and sacrifices and laws, and their form of govern- 
 ment, whether a republic or a monarchy. He must also 
 know the names of the lawgivers and the inventors in 
 science, and the laws and the history of the earth and 
 the heavenly bodies. They think it also necessary 
 that he should understand all the mechanical arts, the 
 physical sciences, astrology and mathematics. (Nearly 
 every two days they teach our mechanical art. They 
 are not allowed to overwork themselves, but frequent 
 practice and the paintings render learning easy to them. 
 Not too much care is given to the cultivation of lan- 
 gfuages, as they have a goodly number of interpreters 
 who are grammarians in the state.) But beyond every- 
 thing else it is necessary that Hoh should understand 
 metaphysics and theology; that he should know thoroughly 
 
286 THE CITY OF THE SUN 
 
 the derivations, foundations and demonstrations of all 
 the arts and sciences; the likeness and difference of 
 things; necessity, fate, and the harmonies_of the uni- 
 verse; power,^. wisdom, and the love_Qt.:things and of 
 God; the stages of life and its symbols; everything re- 
 lating to the heavens, the earth and the sea; and the 
 ideas of God, as much as mortal man can know of him. 
 He must also be well read in the Prophets and in astrology. 
 And thus they know long beforehand who will be 
 Hoh. He is not chosen to so great a dignity unless he has 
 attained his thirty^fiftll— xeaT- And this office. is, perpet- 
 ual, because it is not known who may be too wise for it 
 or who too skilled in ruling. 
 
 G. M. — Who indeed can be so wise? If even anyone 
 has a knowledge of the sciences it seems that he must 
 be unskilled in ruling. 
 
 Capt. — This very question I asked them and they re- 
 plied thus: "We, indeed, are raore certain that such a 
 very learned man has the knowledge of governing, than 
 you who place ignorant persons in authority, and con- 
 sider them suitable merely because they have sprung 
 from rulers or have been chosen by a powerful faction. 
 But our Hoh, a man really the most capable to rule, is 
 for all that never cruel nor wicked, nor a tyrant, inas- 
 much as he possesses so much wisdom. This, moreover, 
 is not unknown to you, that the same argument cannot 
 apply among you, when you consider that man the most 
 learned who knows most of grammar, or logic, or of 
 Aristotle or any other author. For such knowledge as 
 this of yours much servile labor and memory work is re- 
 quired, so that a man is rendered unskillful; sincejiejaas. 
 contemplated nothing but the words , gl books and has 
 given his mind with useless result to the consideration 
 of the dead signs of things. Hence he knows not in 
 what way God rules the universe, nor the ways and cus- 
 toms of Nature and the nations. Wherefore he is not 
 equal to our Hoh. For th at one cannot know so many 
 arts and sciences thoroughly^ wh6~is not~esteemed^Jor 
 skilled_mgenmly~very IpFat all things, and the^elore at 
 ruling espeeiaiiy^- This liIsoTs" plain to us thar^'who 
 knows onljT one~ science, does not really ^now either that 
 
THE CITY OF THE SUN 287 
 
 or the others, and he who is suited for only one science 
 and has gathered his knowledge from books, is unlearned 
 and unskilled. But this is not the case~ with intellects 
 prompt and expert in every branch of knowledge and 
 suitable for the consideration of natural objects, as it is 
 necessary that our Hon should be. Besides in our state 
 the sciences are taught with a facility ( as you have seen ) 
 by which more scholars are turned out by us in one year 
 than by you in ten, or even fifteen. Make trial, I pray 
 you, of these boys." In this matter I was struck with 
 astonishment at their truthful discourse and at the trial 
 of their boys, who did not understand my language well. 
 Indeed it is necessary that three of them should be 
 skilled in our tongue, three in Arabic, three in Polish, 
 and three in each of the. other languages, and no recre- 
 ation is allowed them unless they become more learned. 
 For that they go out to the plain for the sake of run- 
 ning about and hurling arrows and lances, and of firing 
 harquebuses, and for the sake of hunting the wild ani- 
 mals and getting a knowledge of plants and stones, and 
 agriculture and pasturage; sometimes the band of boys 
 does one thing, sometimes another. 
 
 They do not consider it necessary that the three rulers 
 assisting Hon should know other than the arts having 
 reference to their rule, and so they have only a historical 
 knowledge of the arts which are common to all. But 
 their own they know well, to which certainly one is 
 dedicated more than another. Thus Power is the most 
 learned in the equestrian art, in marshaling the army, 
 in marking out of camps, in the manufacture of every 
 kind of weapon and of warlike machines, in planning 
 stratagems,, and in every affair of a military nature. 
 And for these reasons, they consider it necessary that 
 these chiefs should have been philosophers, historians, 
 politicians, and physicists. Concerning the other two 
 triumvirs, understand remarks similar to those I have 
 made about Power. 
 
 G. M. — I really wish that you would recount all their 
 public duties, and would distinguish between them, and 
 also that you would tell clearly how they are all taught 
 in common. 
 
288 THE CITY OF THE SUN 
 
 Capt. — They have dwellings in common and dormito- 
 ries, and couches and other necessaries. But at the end 
 of every six months they are separated by ^e masters. 
 Some shall sleep in this ring, some in another; some in 
 the first apartment, and some in the second; and these 
 apartments are marked by means of the alphabet on the 
 lintel. There are occupations, mechanical and theoretical, 
 common to both men and women, with this difference, 
 that the occupations which require more hard work, and 
 walking a long distance, are practiced by men, such as 
 plowing, sowing, gathering the fruits, working at the 
 threshing-floor, and perchance at the vintage. But it is 
 customary to choose women for milking the cows, and 
 for making cheese. In like manner, they go to the gardens 
 near to the outskirts of the city both for collecting the 
 plants and for cultivating them. In fact, all sedentary 
 and stationary pursuits are practiced by the women, such 
 as weaving, spinning, sewing, cutting the hair, shaving, 
 dispensing medicines, and making all kinds of garments. 
 They are, however, excluded from working in wood and 
 the manufacture of arms. If a woman is fit to paint, she 
 is not prevented from doing so; nevertheless, music is 
 given over to the women alone, because they please the 
 more, and of a truth to boys also. But the women have 
 not the practice of the drum and the horn. 
 
 And they prepare their feasts and arrange the tables 
 in the following manner. It is the peculiar work of the 
 boys and girls under twenty to wait at the tables. In 
 every ring there are the suitable kitchens, bams, and stores 
 of utensils for eating and drinking, and over every de- 
 partment an old man and an old woman preside. These two 
 have at once the command of those who serve, and the 
 power of chastising or causing to be chastised, those who 
 are negligent or disobedient; and they also examine and 
 mark each one, both male and female, who excels in his 
 or her duties. 
 
 All the young people wait upon the older ones who have 
 passed the age of forty, and in the evening when they go to 
 sleep the master and mistress command that those should 
 be sent to work in the morning, upon whom in succession 
 the duty falls, one or two to separate apartments. The 
 
THE CITY OF THE SUN 289 
 
 young people, however, wait upon one another, and that 
 alas ! with some unwillingness. They have first and second 
 tables, and on both sides there are seats. On one side sit 
 the women, on the other the men ; and as in the refectories 
 of the monks, there is no noise. While they are eating a 
 young man reads a book from a platform, intoning distinctly 
 and sonorously, and often the magistrates question 
 them upon the more important parts of the reading. 
 And truly it is pleasant to observe in what manner these 
 young people, so beautiful and clothed in garments so 
 suitable, attend to them, and to see at the same time so 
 many friends, brothers, sons, fathers and mothers all in 
 their turn living together with so much honesty, propriety 
 and love. So each one is given a napkin, a plate, fish," 
 and a dish of food. It is the duty of the medical offi- 
 cers to tell the cooks what repasts shall be prepared on 
 each day, and what food for the old, what for the young, 
 and what for the sick. The magistrates receive the full- 
 grown and fatter portion, and they from their share 
 always distribute something to the boys at the table who 
 have shown themselves more studious in the morning at 
 the lectures and debates concerning wisdom and arms. 
 And this is held to be one of the most distinguished 
 honors. For six days they ordain to sing with music 
 at table. Only a few, however, sing; or there is one 
 voice accompanying the lute and one for each other 
 instrument. And when all alike in service join their 
 hands, nothing is found to be wanting. The old men placed 
 at the head of the cooking business and of the refectories 
 of the servants praise the cleanliness of the streets, the 
 houses, the vessels, the garments, the workshops and the 
 warehouses. 
 
 They wear white undergarments to which adheres a 
 covering, which is at once coat and legging, without 
 wrinkles. The borders of the fastenings are furnished 
 with globular buttons, extended round and caught up 
 here and there by chains. The coverings h£ the legs 
 descend to the shoes and are continued even to the heels. 
 Then they cover the feet with large socks, or as^ it were 
 half -buskins fastened by buckles, over which they wear 
 a half-boot, and besides, as I have already said, they are 
 19 
 
290 THE CITY OF THE SUN 
 
 clothed with a toga. And so aptly fitting are the gar- 
 ments, that when the toga is destroyed, the different 
 parts of the whole body are straightway (^cerned, no 
 part being concealed. They change their clothes for 
 different ones four times in the year, that is when the 
 sun enters respectively the constellations Aries, Cancer, 
 Libra and Capricorn, and according to the circumstances 
 and necessity as decided by the officer of health. The 
 keepers of clothes for the different rings are wont to dis- 
 tribute them, and it is marvelous that they have at the 
 same time as many garments as there is need for, some 
 heavy and some slight, according to the weather. They 
 all use white clothing, and this is washed in each month 
 with lye or soap, as are also the workshops of the lower 
 trades, the kitchens, the pantries, the bams, the store- 
 houses, the armories, the refectories, and the baths. 
 Moreover, the clothes are washed at the pillars of the 
 peristyles, and the water is brought down by means of 
 canals which are continued as sewers. In every street 
 of the different rings there are suitable fountains, which 
 send forth their water by means of canals, the water 
 being drawn up from nearly the bottom of the mountain 
 by the sole movement of a cleverly contrived handle. There 
 is water in fountains and in cisterns, whither the rain water 
 collected from the roofs of the houses is brought through 
 pipes full of sand. They wash their bodies often, accord- 
 ing as the doctor and master command. All the me- 
 chanical arts are practiced under the peristyles, but the 
 speculative are carried on above in the walking galleries 
 and ramparts where are the more splendid paintings, but 
 the more sacred ones are taught in the temple. In the 
 halls and wings of the rings there are solar timepieces 
 and bells, and hands by which the hours and seasons are 
 marked off. 
 
 G. M.— Tell me about their children. 
 
 Capt. — When their women have brought forth children, 
 they suckle and rear them in temples set apart for all. 
 They give milk for two years or more as the physician 
 orders. After that time the weaned child is given into 
 the charge of the mistresses, if it is a female, and to the 
 masters, if it is a male. And then with other young 
 
THE CITY OF THE SUN 291 
 
 children they are pleasantly instructed in the alphabet, 
 and in the knowledge of the pictures, and in running, 
 walking and wrestling; also in the historical drawings, 
 and in languages; and they are adorned with a suitable 
 garment of different colors. After their sixth year they 
 are taught natural science, and then the mechanical 
 sciences. The men who are weak in intellect are sent 
 to farms, and when they have become more proficient 
 some of them are received into the state. And those of 
 the same age and bom under the same constellation are 
 especially like one another in strength and in appearance, 
 and hence arises much lasting concord in the state, these 
 men honoring one another with mutual love and help. 
 Names are given to them by Metaphysicus, and that not 
 by chance but designedly, and according to each one's 
 peculiarity, as was the custom among the ancient Romans. 
 Wherefore one is called Beautiful {Pule her), another the 
 Big-nosed {Naso), another the Fat-legged {Cranipes), 
 another Crooked ( Torvus), another Lean (Macer), and 
 so on. But when they have become very skilled in their 
 professions and done any great deed in war or in time 
 of peace, a cognomen from art is given to them, such as 
 Beautiful the great painter {Pulcker, Fictor Magnus), the 
 golden one {^Aureus), the excellent one {Excellens), or 
 the strong ( Strenuus ) ; or from their deeds, such as Naso 
 the Brave {Nason Fortis), or the cunning, or the great, 
 or very great conqueror; or from the enemy any one has 
 overcome, Africanus, Asiaticus, Etruscus; or if any one 
 has overcome Manfred or Tortelius, he is called Macer 
 Manfred or Tortelius, and so on. All these cognomens 
 are added by the higher magistrates, and very often with 
 a crown suitable to the deed or art, and with the flourish 
 of music. Eqt gold and silver is reckoned of little_yalue 
 among them except— asj^gi^EiaL for their vessels^ and 
 ornamenfsT^whicir^re common tq^all. 
 
 G. M. — Tell me, I pray you, is there no jealousy among 
 them or disappointment to that one who has not been 
 elected to a magistracy, or to any other dignity to which 
 he aspires? 
 
 Capt. — Certainly not. For no one wants either neces- 
 saries or luxuries. Moreover, the race is managed for 
 
292 THE CITY OF THE SUN 
 
 the good of the commonwealth and not of private indi- 
 viduals, and the magistrates must be obeyed. They deny 
 what we hold — viz, that it is natural to m^ to recog- 
 nize his offspring and to educate them, and to use his 
 wife and house and children as his own. For they say 
 that children are bred for the preservation of the species 
 and not for individual pleasure, as St. Thomas also as- 
 serts. Therefore the breeding of children has reference 
 to the commonwealth and not to individuals, except in 
 so far as they are constituents of the commonwealth. 
 And since individuals for the most part bring forth chil- 
 dren wrongly and educate them wrongly, they consider 
 that they remove destruction from the state, and, there- 
 fore, for this reason, with most sacred fear, they commit 
 the education of the children, who as it were are the ele- 
 ment of the republic, to the care of magistrates; for the 
 safety of the community is not that of a few. And thus 
 they distribute male and female breeders of the best na- 
 tures according to philosophical rules. Plato thinks that 
 this distribution ought to be made by lot, lest some men 
 seeing that they are kept away from the beautiful women, 
 should rise up with anger and hatred against the magis- 
 trates; and he thinks further that those who do not de- 
 serve cohabitation with the more beautiful women, should 
 be deceived whilst the lots are being led out of the city 
 by the magistrates, so that at all times the women who 
 are suitable should fall to their lot, not those whom they 
 desire. This shrewdness, however, is not necessary among 
 the inhabitants of the City of the Sun. For with the m 
 dgformity is unknown. When the women are exercised 
 they get a clear complexion, and become strong of liinb, 
 tall and agile, and with them beauty consists in tallness 
 and strength. Therefore, if any woman dyes her face, 
 so that it may become beautiful, or uses high-heeled 
 boots so that she may appear tall, or garments with 
 trains to cover her wooden shoes, she is condemned to 
 capital punishment. But if the women should even de- 
 sire them, they have no facility for doing these things. 
 For who indeed would give them this facility ? Further, 
 they assert that among us abuses of this kind arise from 
 the leisure and sloth of women. By these means they 
 
THE CITY OF THE SUN 293 
 
 lose their color and have pale complexions, and become 
 feeble and small. For this reason they are without proper 
 complexions, use high sandals, and become beautiful not 
 from strength, but from slothful tenderness. And thus 
 they ruin their own tempers and natures, and conse- 
 quently those of their offspring. Furthermore, if at any 
 time a man is taken captive with ardent love for a cer- 
 tain woman, the two are allowed to converse and joke 
 together, and to give one another garlands of flowers or 
 leaves, and to make verses. But if the race is endan- 
 gered, by no means is further union between them per- 
 mitted. Moreover, the love born of eager desire is not 
 known among them; only that born of friendship. 
 
 Domestic affairs and partnerships are of little account, 
 because, excepting the sign of honor, each one receives 
 what he is in need of. To the heroes and heroines of 
 the republic, it is customary to give the pleasing gifts 
 of honor, beautiful wreaths, sweet food, or splendid clothes, 
 while they are feasting. In the daytime all use white 
 garments within the city, but at night or outside the city 
 they use red garments either of wool or silk. They hate 
 black as they do dung, and therefore they dislike the 
 Japanese, who are fond of black. Pride they consider 
 the most execrable vice, and one who acts proudly is 
 chastised with the most ruthless correction. Wherefore 
 no one thinks it lowering to wait at table or to work in 
 the kitchen or fields. All work they call discipline, and 
 thus they say that it is honorable to go on foot, to do 
 any act of nature, to see with the eye, and to speak with 
 the tongue; and when there is need, they distinguish 
 philosophically between tears and spittle. 
 
 Every man who, when he is told off to work, does his 
 duty, is considered very honorable. It is not the custom 
 to keep slaves. For they are enough, and more than 
 enough, for themselves. But with us, alas! it is not so,. 
 In Naples there exist seventy thousand souls, and out 
 of these scarcely ten or fifteen thousand do any work, 
 and they are always lean from overwork and are getting 
 weaker every day. The rest become a prey to idleness, 
 avarice, ill-health, lasciviousness, usury and other vices, 
 and contaminate and corrupt very many families by hold- 
 
294 THE CITY OF THE SUN 
 
 ing them in servitude for their own use, by keeping them 
 in poverty and slavishness, and by imparting to them 
 their own vices. Therefore public slavery ruii^ them ; use- 
 ful works, in the field, in military service, and in arts, 
 except those which are debasing, are not cultivated, the 
 few who do practice them doing so with much aversion. 
 But in the City of the Sun, while duty and work is dis- 
 tributed among all, it only falls to each one to work for 
 about four hours every day. The remaining hours are 
 spent in learning joyously, in debating, in reading, in 
 reciting, in writing, in walking, in exercising the mind 
 and body, and with play. They allow no game which is 
 played while sitting, neither the single die nor dice, nor 
 chess, nor others like these. But they play with the ball, 
 with the sack, with the hoop, with wrestling, with hurl- 
 ing at the stake. They say, moreover, that grinding 
 poverty renders men worthless, cunning, sulky, thievish, 
 insidious, vagabonds, liars, false witnesses, etc. ; and that 
 wealth makes them insolent, proud, ignorant, traitors, 
 assumers of what they know not, deceivers, boasters, 
 wanting in affection, slanderers, etc. But with them all 
 the rich and poor together make up the community. 
 They are rich because they want nothing, poor because 
 they possess nothing; and consequently they are not 
 slaves to circumstances, but circumstances serve them. 
 And on this point they strongly recommend the religion 
 of the Christians, and especially the life of the Apos- 
 tles. 
 
 G. M. — This seems excellent and sacred, but the com- 
 munity of women is a thing too difficult to attain. The 
 holy Roman Clement says that wives ought to be com- 
 mon in accordance with the apostolic institution, and 
 praises Plato and Socrates, who thus teach, but the Glos- 
 sary interprets this community with regard to obedience. 
 And TertuUian agrees with the Glossary, that the first 
 Christians had everything in common except wives. 
 
 Capt. — These things I know little of. But this I saw 
 among the inhabitants of the City of the Sun that they 
 did not make this exception. And they defend them- 
 selves by the opinion of Socrates, of Cato, of Plato, and 
 of St. Clement, but, as you say, they misunderstand the 
 
THE CITY OF THE SUN 295 
 
 opinions of these thinkers. And the inhabitants of the 
 solar_city ascribe this to their want of education, since 
 "EEeyare by no means learned in philosophy. Neverthe- 
 less, they send abroad to discover the customs of nations, 
 and the best of these they always adopt. Practice makes 
 the women suitable for war and other duties. Thus they 
 agree with Plato, in whom I have read these same things. 
 The reasoning of our Cajetan does not convince me, and 
 least of all that of Aristotle. This thing, however, ex- 
 isting among them is excellent and worthy of imitation 
 — -viz, that no physical defect renders a man incapable 
 of being serviceable except the decrepitude of old age, 
 since even the deformed are useful for consultation. 
 The lame serve as guards, watching with the eyes which 
 they possess. The blind card wool with their hands, 
 separating the down from the hairs, with which latter 
 they stuff the couches and sofas; those who are without 
 the use of eyes and hands give the use of their ears or 
 their voice for the convenience of the state, and if one 
 has only one sense, he uses it in the farms. And these r, 
 cripples are well treated, and some become spies, telling 
 the officers of the state what they have heard. I 
 
 G. M. — Tell me now, I pray you, of their military 
 affairs. Then you may explain their arts, ways of life 
 and sciences, and lastly their religion. 
 
 Capt. — The triumvir, Power, has under him all the 
 magistrates of arms, of artillery, of cavalry, of foot 
 soldiers, of architects, and of strategists, and the masters 
 and many of the most excellent workmen obey the 
 magistrates, the men of each art paying allegiance to their 
 respective chiefs. Moreover, Power is at the head of all 
 the professors of gymnastics, who teach military exercise, 
 and who are prudent generals, advanced in age. By 
 these the boys are trained after their twelfth year. 
 Before this age, however, they have been accustomed to 
 wrestling, running, throwing the weight and other minor 
 exercises, under inferior masters. But at twelve they 
 are taught how to strike at the enemy, at horses and 
 elephants, to handle the spear, the sword, the arrow and 
 the sling; to manage the horse; to advance and to 
 retreat; to remain in order of battle; to help a comrade 
 
296 THE CITY OF THE SUN 
 
 in arms; to anticipate the enemy by cunning; and to 
 conquer. 
 
 The women also are taught these arts under tiieir own 
 magistrates and mistresses, so that they may oe able if 
 need be to render assistance to the males in battle near 
 the city. They are taught to watch the fortifications 
 lest at some time a hasty attack should suddenly be made. 
 In this respect they praise the Spartans and Amazons. 
 The women know well also how to let fly fiery balls, 
 and how to make them from lead; how to throw stones 
 from pinacles and to go in the way of an attack. They 
 are accustomed also to give up wine unmixed altogether, 
 and that one is punished most severely who shows any 
 fear. 
 
 The inhabitants of the City of the Sun do not fear 
 death, because they all believe^ that the soul is immortal, 
 and that when it has left the body it is" associated with 
 other spirits, wicked or good, according to the merits of 
 this present life. Although they are partly followers of 
 Brahma and Pythagoras, they do not believe in the 
 transmigration of souls, except in some cases, by a 
 distinct decree of God. They do not abstain from injur- 
 ing an enemy of the republic and of religion, who is 
 uiiworthy_of , pity. . During the second month the army 
 is reviewed, and every day there is practice of arms, 
 either in the cavalry plain or within the walls. Nor 
 are they ever without lectures on the science of war. 
 They take care that the accounts of Moses, of Joshua, 
 of David, _of Judas Maccabeus, of Caesar, of Alexander, 
 of Scipio, of Hannibal, and 6ther great soldiers should 
 be read. And then each one gives his own opinion as to 
 whether these generals acted well or ill, usefully or 
 honorably, and then the teacher answers and says who 
 are right. 
 
 G. M. — With whom do they wage war, and for what 
 reasons, since they are so prosperous ? 
 
 Capt. — Wars might _ never occur, nevertheless they are 
 exercised in military tactics and in hunting, lest per- 
 chance they should become effeminate and unprepared 
 for any emergency. - Besides there ~are four kingdoms in_ 
 the island, which are very envious of their prosperity~for 
 
THE CITY OF THE SUN 297 
 
 this reason that the people desire to live after the man- 
 ner of the inhabitants of the City of the Snn, and to he 
 under their rule rather than that of their own kings. 
 Whereforejthe state often makes war uponjthese because, 
 
 since thfiyjiayejipt an object of worship and do not ob- 
 serve the religion of^^other nations^or of the Brahmins. 
 And other nations of India, to which formerly they were 
 subject, rise up as it were in rebellion, as also do the 
 Taprobanese, whom they wanted to join them at first. 
 The warr iors of th^ City of the Sun, however, ^re always 
 the victors. As ^oon-as Jhey suffered fromJusult. or_ dis- 
 grac e or plunder, or when their allies have been harassed , 
 or _s_p eople hav e been oppressed by a tyraiit of th e sta te 
 ( for _they_ are always the advocates of liberty), they go 
 immediately to the council for deliberation. After they 
 have knelt in the presence of God that he mighF inspire 
 their consultation, they proceed l;o examine the merits of 
 the business, and thus war is decided on. Immediately 
 after_a_pd£Sty-whom.ihey' call Forensic, is sent away; He 
 deniands^rom J;ha.enemy_th&j;estitution o the pluhder^^ 
 asks that the allies should be freed from oppression, or 
 that __the , tyrants should be deposed. If Jthey deny these 
 things war_ji&_declared^by mvoking the vengeanceL^TGod 
 — the_God^of Sabaoth- — for destruction of those who main- 
 tain an unjust cause. But if the enemy refuse to reply, 
 the priest gives him the space of one hour for Jhis answer, 
 ifTiej^a king, but three^f it is a repuWic, so that they 
 cannot escape giving a response. And in this manner is 
 war undertaken against the ingolent enemies of natural 
 rights and of religion. When war has been declared, the 
 deputy of Power" performs everything , but Power, like 
 the Roman dictator, plans and wills everjrthing, so that 
 hurtful tardiness may be avoided. And when anything 
 of great moment arises he._consult s Hoh and Wisdom 
 ^ui.X<o.ve. 
 
 Before this, however, the occasion of war and the 
 justice of making-an ,.exp.editionis~ declared by a herald 
 in the_great coun cil. All from, twenty years and upward 
 are -adn?itted to this council, and thus the necessaries are 
 agreed upon. All kinds of weapons stand in the armories, 
 
298 THE CITY OF THE SUN 
 
 and these they use often in sham fights. The exterior 
 walls of each ring are full of guns prepared by their 
 labors, and they have other engines for hurlii^ which 
 are called cannons, and which, they take into battle upon 
 mules and asses and carriages. When they have arrived 
 in an open plain they inclose in the middle the provi- 
 sions, engines of war, chariots, ladders and machines, and 
 all fight courageously. Then each one returns to the 
 standards, and the enemy thinking that they are giving 
 and preparing to flee, are deceived and relax their order; 
 then the warriors of the City of the Sun, wheeling into 
 wings and columns on each side, regain their breath and 
 strength, and ordering the artillery to discharge their 
 bullets they resume the fight against a disorganized host. 
 And they observe many ruses of this ki nd. They over- 
 come all mortals with their stratagems and engines. 
 Their camp is fortified after the manner of the Romans, 
 They pitch their tents and fortify with wall and ditch 
 with wonderful quickness. The masters of works, of 
 engines and hurling machines, stand ready, and the 
 soldiers understand the use of the spade and the ax. 
 
 Five, eight, or ten leadets learned in the order of battle 
 and in strategy consult together concerning the business 
 of war, and command their bands after consultation. It 
 ijfis their wont to take out with them a body of boys, 
 armed and on horses, so that they may learn to fight, just 
 as the whelps of lions and wolves are accustomed to blood. 
 And these in time of danger betake themselves to a place 
 of safety, along with many armed women. After the 
 battle the women and boys soothe and relieve the pain of 
 the warriors, and wait upon- them and encourage them 
 with embraces and pleasant words. How wonderful a 
 help is this! For the soldiers, in order that they may 
 acquit themselves as sturdy men in the eyes of their 
 wives and offspring, endure hardships, and so love makes 
 them conquerors. He who in the fight first scales the 
 enemy's walls receives after the battle a crown of grass, 
 as a token of honor, and at the presentation the women 
 and boys applaud loudly; that one who affords aid to an 
 ally gets a civic crown of oak leaves; he who kills a 
 tyrant dedicates his arms in the temple and receives from 
 
THE CITY OF THE SUN 299 
 
 Hoh the cognomen of his deed, and other warriors obtain 
 other kinds of crowns. Every horse soldier carries a spear 
 and two strongly tempered pistols, narrow at the mouth, 
 hanging from his saddle. And to get the barrels of their 
 pistols narrow they pierce the metal which they intend to 
 convert into arms. Further, every cavalry soldier has a 
 sword and a dagger. But the rest, who form the light- 
 armed troops, carry a metal cudgel. For if the foe 
 cannot pierce their metal for pistols and cannot make 
 swords, they attack him with clubs, shatter and overthrow 
 him. Two chains of six spans' length hang from the club, 
 and at the end of these are iron balls, and when these are 
 aimed at the enemy they surround his neck and drag him 
 to the ground ; and in order that they may be able to use 
 the club more easily, they do not hold the reins with their 
 hands, but use them by means of the feet. If perchance 
 the reins are interchanged above the trappings of the 
 saddle, the ends are fastened to the stirrups with buckles 
 and not to the feet. And the stirrups have an arrange- 
 ment for swift movement of the bridle, so that they draw 
 in or let out the rein with marvelous celerity. With the 
 right foot they turn the horse to the left, and with the left 
 to the right. This secret, moreover, is not known to the 
 Tartars. For, although they govern the reins with their 
 feet, they are ignorant nevertheless of turning them and 
 drawing them in and letting them out by means of the 
 block of the stirrups. The light-armed cavalry with them 
 are the first to engage in battle, then the men forming the 
 phalanx with their spears, then the archers for whose 
 services a great price is paid, and who are accustomed to 
 fight in lines crossing one another as the threads of cloth, 
 some rushing forward in their turn and others receding. 
 They have a band of lancers strengthening the line of 
 battle, but they make trial of the swords only at the end. 
 After the battle they celebrate the military triumphs 
 after the manner of the Romans, and even in a more 
 magnificent way. Prayers by the way of thank-offerings 
 are made to God, and then the general presents himself 
 in the temple, and the deeds, good and bad, are related 
 by the poet or historian, who according to custom was 
 with the expedition. And the greatest chief, Hoh, 
 
300 THE CITY OF THE SUN 
 
 crowns the general with laurel and distributes little gifts 
 and honors to all the valorous soldiers, who are for some 
 days free from public duties. But this exemption from 
 work is by no means pleasing to them, since they know 
 not what it is to be at leisure, and so they help their 
 companions. On the other hand, they who have been 
 congueredjthrough -their own fault, or have lost the vic- 
 tory, are blamed; and they- who were the first to take to 
 flight are in no way worthy to escape death, unless when 
 the whole army asks their lives, and each one takes upon 
 hirnself a part of their punishment. But this indulgence 
 is_ rarely granted, except when there are good reasons 
 favoring it. But he who did not bear help to an ally or 
 friend is beaten with rods. That one who did not obey 
 orders is given to the beasts, in an inclosure, to be 
 devoured, and a staff is put in his hand, and if he should 
 conquer the lions and the bears that are there, which is 
 almost impossible, he is received into favor again. The 
 conquered states or those willingly delivered up to them, 
 forthwith have all things in common, and receive a gar- 
 rison and magistrates from the City of the Sun, and by 
 degrees they are accustomed to the ways of the city^ the 
 mistress of all, to which they even send their sons to be 
 taught without contributing anything for expense. 
 
 It would be too great trouble to tell you about the 
 spies and their master, and about the guards and laws 
 and ceremonies, both within and without the state, which 
 you can of yourself imagine. Since fro m childhood t hey 
 are chosen according to their mclination~and the_ISar 
 under which' they were bom, therefore each one work- 
 ing according to his natural propensity, does his duty 
 well and pleasantly, because naturally. The same things 
 I may say concerning strategy and the other functions. 
 
 There are guards in the city by day and by night, and 
 they are placed at the four gates, and outside the walls 
 of the seventh ring, above the breastworks and towers 
 and inside mounds. These places are guarded in the day 
 by women, in the night by men. And lest the guard 
 should become weary of watching, and in case of a sur- 
 prise, they change them every three hours, as is the cus- 
 tom with our soldiers. At sunset, when the drum and 
 
THE CITY OF THE SUN 301 
 
 symphonia sound, the armed guards are distributed. 
 Cavalry and infantry make use of hunting as the symbol 
 of war, and practice games and hold festivities in the 
 plains. Then the music strikes up, and freely they par- 
 don the ofifenses and faults of the enemy, and after the 
 victories they are kind to them, if it has been decreed 
 that they should destroy the walls of the enemy's city 
 and take their lives. All these things are done in the 
 same day as the victory, and afterward they never cease 
 to load the conquered with favors, for they say that 
 there ought to be no fighting, except when the con- 
 querors give up the conquered, not when they kill them. 
 If there is a dispute among them concerning injury or any 
 other matter (for they themselves scarcely ever contend 
 except in matters of honor), the chief and his magistrates 
 chastise the accused one secretly, if he has done harm in >- ,/ 1 \ 
 deeds after he has been first angry. If they wait until the ' ' ' 
 time of the battle for the verbal decision, theyjnust ^ve ' o' , , 
 vent to their anger against the enemy, and he who.in iat- ,■ 
 tie shows the most daring deeds, is_ considered to have i 
 
 defended the better and truer cause in the struggleT^d 
 the other yields, and they are punished justly. Neverthe- 
 less, they are not allowed to come to single combat, 
 since right is maintained by the tribunal, and because the 
 unjust cause is often apparent when the more just suc- 
 cumbs, and he who professes to be the better man shows 
 this in public fight. <: 
 
 ' G. M. — This is worth while, so that factions should 
 not be cherished for the harm of the fatherland, and so 
 that civil wars might not occur, for by means of these a 
 tyranfbften^rises, as the examples of Rome and Athens 
 show. Now, I pray you, tell me of their works and mat- 
 ter connected therewith. 
 
 Capt. — I believe that you have already heard about 
 their military affairs and about their agricultural and 
 pastoral life, and in what way these are common to them, 
 and how they honor with the first grade of nobility who- 
 ever is considered to have a knowledge of these. They 
 who are skillful in more arts than these they consider 
 still nobler, and they set that one apart for teaching the 
 art in which he is most skillful. The occupations which 
 
302 THE CITY OF THE SUN 
 
 require the most labor, such as working in metals and 
 building, are the most praiseworthy among them. No 
 one declines to go to these occupations, for t^ reason 
 that from the beginning their propensities are well known, 
 and among them, on account of the distribution of labor, 
 no one does work harmful to him, but only that which 
 is necessary for him. The occupations entailing less 
 labor belong to the women. All of them are expected 
 to know how to swim, and for this reason ponds are dug 
 outside the walls of the city and within them near to 
 the fountains. 
 
 Commerce is of little use to them, but they know the 
 value of money and they count for the use of their am- 
 bassadors and explorers, so that with it they may have 
 the means of living. They receive merchants into their 
 states from the different countries of the world, and these 
 buy the superfluous goods of the city. The people of 
 the City of the Sun refuse to take money, but in im- 
 porting they accept in exchange those things of which 
 they are in need, and sometimes they buy with money; 
 and the young people in the City of the Sun are much 
 amused when they see that for a small price they receive 
 so many things in exchange. The old men however, do 
 not laugh. They are unwilling that the state should be 
 corrupted by the vicious customs of slaves and foreigners. 
 Therefore they do business at the gates, and sell those 
 whom they have taken in war or keep them for digging 
 ditches and other hard work without the city, and for 
 this reason they always send four bands of soldiers to 
 take care of the fields, and with them there are the 
 laborers. They go out of the four gates from which 
 roads with walls on both sides of them lead to the sea, 
 so that goods might easily be carried over them and 
 foreigners might not meet with difficulty on their way. 
 
 To strangers they are kind and polite; they keep them 
 for three days at the public expense; after they have 
 first washed their feet, they show them their city and its 
 customs, and they honor them with a seat at the council 
 and public table, and there are men whose duty it is to 
 take care of and guard the guests. But if strangers 
 should wish to become citizens of their state, they try 
 
THE CITY OF THE SUN 305, 
 
 them first for a month on a farm, and for another month 
 in the city, then they dedide concerning them, and admit 
 them with certain ceremonies and oaths. 
 
 Agriculture is much followed among them ; there is not 
 a span of earth without cultivation, and they observe the 
 winds and propitious stars. With the exception of a few 
 left in the city all go out armed, and with flags and 
 drums and trumpets sounding, to the fields, for the pur- 
 pose of plowing, sowing, digging, hoeing, reaping, 
 gathering fruit and grapes; and they set in order every- 
 thing, and do their work in a very few hours and with 
 much care. They use wagons fitted with sails which are 
 borne along by the wind even when it is contrary, by 
 the marvelous contrivance of wheels within wheels. 
 
 And when there is no wind a beast draws along a huge 
 cart, which is a grand sight. 
 
 The guardians of the land move about in the mean- 
 time, armed and always in their proper turn. They do 
 not use dung and filth for manuring the fields, thinking 
 that the fruit contracts something of their rottenness, 
 and when eaten gives a short and poor subsistence, as 
 women who are beautiful with rouge and from want of 
 exercise bring forth feeble offspring. Wherefore they do 
 not as it were paint the earth, but dig it up well and 
 use secret remedies, so that fruit is borne quickly and 
 multiplies, and is not destroyed. They have a book for 
 this work, which they call the Georgics. As much of 
 the land as is necessary is cultivated, and the rest is 
 used for the pasturage of cattle. 
 
 The excellent occupation of breeding and rearing horses, 
 oxen, sheep, dogs, and all kinds of domestic and tame 
 animals, is in the highest esteem among them as it was 
 in the time of Abraham. And the animals are led so to 
 pair that they may be able to breed well. 
 
 Fine pictures of oxen, horses, sheep, and other animals 
 are placed before them. They do not turn out horses 
 with mares to feed, but at the proper time they bring 
 them together in an inclosure of the stables in their fields. 
 And this is done when they observe that the constella- 
 tion Archer is in favorable conjunction with Mars and 
 Jupiter. For the oxen they observe the Bull, for the 
 
304 THE CITY OF THE SUN 
 
 sheep the Ram, and so on in accordance with art. Under 
 the Pleiades they keep a drove of hens and ducks and 
 geese, which are driven out by the women t^feed near 
 the city. The women only do this when it is a pleasure 
 to them. There are also places inclosed, where they 
 make cheese, butter, and milk food. They also keep 
 capons, fruit, and other things, and for all these matters 
 there is a book which they call the Bucolics. They have 
 an abundance of all things, since every one likes to be 
 industrious, their labors being slight and profitable. 
 They are docile, and that one among them who is head 
 of the rest in duties of this kind they call king. For 
 they say that this is the proper name of the leaders, and 
 it does not belong to ignorant persons. It is wonderful 
 to see how men and women march together collectively, 
 and always in obedience to the voice of the king. Nor 
 do they regard him with loathing as we do, for they 
 know that although he is greater than themselves, 
 he is for all that their father and brother. They keep 
 groves and woods for wild animals, and they often 
 hunt. 
 
 The science of navigation is considered very dignified 
 by them, and they possess rafts and triremes, which go 
 over the waters without rowers or the force of the wind, 
 but by a marvelous contrivance. And other vessels they 
 have which are moved by the winds. They have a cor- 
 rect knowledge of the stars, and of the ebb and flow of 
 the tide. They navigate for the sake of becoming ac- 
 quainted with nations and different countries and things. 
 They injure nobody, and they do not put up with injury, 
 and they never go to battle unless when provoked. They 
 assert that the whole earth will in time come to live in 
 accordance with their customs, and consequently they 
 always find out whether there be a nation whose manner 
 of living is better and more approved than the rest. They 
 admire the Christian institutions and look for a realiza- 
 tion of the apostolic life in vogue among themselves and 
 in us. There are treaties between them and the Chinese, 
 and many other nations, both insular and continental, 
 such as Siam and Calicut, which they are only just able 
 to explore. Furthermore, they have artificial fires, bat- 
 
THE CITY OF THE SUN 305 
 
 ties on sea and land, and many strategic secrets. There- 
 fore they are nearly always victorious. 
 
 G- M. — Now it would be very pleasant to learn with 
 what foods and drinks they are nourished, and in what 
 way and for how long they live. 
 
 Capt. — Their food consists of flesh, butter, honey, cheese, 
 garden herbs, and vegetables of various kinds. They 
 were unwilling at first to slay animals, because it seemed 
 cruel ; but thinking afterward that it was also cruel to de- 
 stroy herbs which have a share of sensitive feeling, they 
 saw that they would perish from hunger unless they did 
 an unjustifiable action for the sake of justifiable ones, 
 and so now they all eat meat. Nevertheless, they do not 
 kill willingly useful animals, such as oxen and horses. 
 They observe the difference between useful and harmful 
 foods, and for this they employ the science of medicine. 
 They always change their food. First they eat flesh, then 
 fish, then afterward they go back to flesh, and nature is 
 never incommoded or weakened. The old people use the 
 more digestible kind of food, and take three meals a day, 
 eating only a little. But the general community eat twice, 
 and the boys four times, that they might satisfy nature. 
 The length of their lives is generally one hundred years, 
 but often they reach two hundred. 
 
 As regards drinking, they are extremely moderate. 
 Wine is never given to young people until they are ten 
 years old, unless the state of their health demands it. 
 After their tenth year they take it diluted with water, 
 and so do the women, but the old men of fifty and up- 
 ward use little or no water. They eat the most healthy 
 things, according to the time of the year. 
 
 They think nothing harmful which is brought forth by 
 God, except when there has been abuse by taking too 
 much. And therefore in the summer they feed on fruits, 
 because they are moist and juicy and cool, and counter- 
 act the heat and dryness. In the winter they feed on dry 
 articles, and in the autumn they eat grapes, since they 
 are given by God to remove melancholy and sadness ; and 
 they also make use of scents to a great degree. In the 
 morning, when they have all risen, they comb their hair 
 and wash their faces and hands with cold water. Then 
 
3o6 THE CITY OF THE SUN 
 
 they chew thyme or rock parsley or fennel, or rub their 
 hands with these plants. The old men make incense, and 
 with their faces to the east repeat the short piayer which 
 Jesus Christ taught us. After this they go to wait upon 
 the old men, some go to the dance, and others to the 
 duties of the state. Later on they meet at the early lec- 
 tures, then in the temple, then for bodily exercise. Then 
 for a little while they sit down to rest, and at length 
 they go to dinner. 
 
 Among them there is never gout in the hands or feet, 
 no catarrh, no sciatica, nor grievous colics, nor flatu- 
 'lency, nor hard breathing. For these diseases are caused 
 by indigestion and flatulency, and by frugality and exer- 
 cise they remove every humor and spasm. Wherefore it is 
 unseemly in the extreme to be seen vomiting or spitting, 
 since they say that this is a sign either of little exercise 
 dr of ignoble sloth, or of drunkenness or gluttony. They 
 suffer rather from swellings or from the dry spasm, which 
 they relieve with plenty of good and juicy food. They 
 heal fevers with pleasant baths and with milk food, and 
 with a pleasant habitation in the country and by gradual 
 exercise. Unclean diseases cannot be prevalent with them 
 because they often clean their bodies by bathing in wine, 
 and soothe them with aromatic oil, and by the sweat of 
 exercise they diffuse the poisonous vapor which corrupts 
 the blood and the marrow. They do suffer a little from 
 consumption, because they cannot perspire at the breast, 
 but they never have asthma, for the humid nature of 
 which a heavy man is required. They cure hot fevers 
 with cold potations of water, but slight ones with sweet 
 smells, with cheese bread or sleep, with music or dancing. 
 Tertiary fevers are cured by bleeding, by rhubarb or by 
 a similar drawing remedy, or by water soaked in the 
 roots of plants, with purgative and sharp-tasting quali- 
 ties. But it is rarely that they take purgative medicines. 
 Fevers occurring every fourth day are cured easily by 
 suddenly startling the unprepared patients, and by means 
 of herbs producing effects opposite to the humors of this 
 fever. All these secrets they told me in opposition to 
 their own wishes. They take more diligent pains to cure 
 the lasting fevers, which they fear more, and they strive 
 
THE CITY OF THE SUN 307 
 
 to_ counteract these by the observation of stars and of (^ 
 plants, and_by prayers to God. Fevers recurring every 
 fifth, sixth, eighth or more days, you never find when- 
 ever heavy humors are wanting. 
 
 They use baths, and moreover they have warm ones 
 according to the Roman custom, and they make use also 
 of olive oil. They have found out, too, a great many 
 secret cures for the preservation of cleanliness and health. 
 And in other ways they labor to cure the epilepsy, with 
 which they are often troubled. 
 
 G. M. — A sign this disease is of wonderful cleverness, 
 for from it Hercules, Scotus, Socrates, Callimachus and 
 Mahomet have suffered. 
 
 Capt. — They cure by roe ans of pra yers to heav en, by ( 
 
 strengthening the head, by acids, by planned gymnastics, 
 and with fat cheese bread sprinkled with the flour of 
 wheaten com. They are very skilled in making dishes, 
 and in them they put spice, honey, butter and many 
 highly strengthening spices, and they temper their rich- 
 ness with acids, so that they never vomit. They do not 
 drink ice-cold drinks nor artificial hot drinks, as the 
 Chinese do; for they are not without aid against the 
 humors of the body, on account of the help they get 
 from the natural heat of the water; but they strengthen 
 it with crushed garlic, with vinegar, with wild thyme, 
 with mint, and with basil, in the summer or in time of 
 special heaviness. They know also a secret for renovat- 
 ing life after about the seventieth year, and for ridding 
 it of affliction, and this they do by a pleasing and indeed 
 wonderful art. 
 
 G. M. — Thus far you have said nothing concerning 
 their sciences and magistrates. 
 
 Capt. — Undoubtedly I have. But since you are so 
 curious I will add more. Both when it is new moon and 
 full moon they call a council after a sacrifice. To this 
 all from twenty years upward are admitted, and each 
 one is asked separately to say what is wanting in the 
 state, and which of the magistrates have discharged their 
 duties rightly and which wrongly. Then after eight days 
 all the magistrates assemble, to wit, Hoh first, and with 
 him Power, Wisdom and Love. Each one of the three 
 
3o8 THE CITY OF THE SUN 
 
 last has three magistrates under him, making in all 
 thirteen, and they consider the affairs of the arts pertaining 
 to each one of them; Power, of war; Wisdom, of the 
 sciences; Love, of food, clothing, education ana breeding. 
 The masters of all the bands, who are captains of tens, 
 of fifties, of hundreds, also assemble, the women first and 
 then the men. They argue about those things which are 
 for the welfare of the state, and they choose the magis- 
 trates from among those who have already been named 
 in the great council. In this manner they assemble 
 daily, Hoh and his three princes, and they correct, con- 
 firm and execute the matters passing to them, as decisions 
 in the elections; other necessary questions they provide 
 of themselves. They do not use lots unless when they 
 are altogether doubtful how to decide. The eight magis- 
 trates under Hoh, Power, Wisdom and Love are changed 
 according to the wish of the people, but the first four are 
 never changed, unless they, taking council with them- 
 selves, give up the dignity of one to another, whom 
 among them they know to be wiser, more renowned, and 
 more nearly perfect. And then they are obedient and 
 honorable, since they yield willingly to the wiser man 
 and are taught by him. This, however, rarely happens. 
 The principals of the sciences, except Metaphysics, who 
 is Hoh himself, and is as it were the architect of all 
 science, having rule over all, are attached to Wisdom. 
 Hoh is ashamed to be ignorant of any possible thing. 
 Under Wisdom therefore is Grammar, Logic, Physics, 
 Medicine, Astrology, Astronomy, Geometry, Cosmography, 
 Music, Perspective, Arithmetic, Poetry, Rhetoric, Paint- 
 ing, Sculpture. Under the triumvir Love are Breeding, 
 Agriculture, Education, Medicine, Clothing, Pasturage, 
 Coining. 
 
 G. M. — What about their judges? 
 
 Capt. — This is the point I was just thinking of explain- 
 ing. Everyone is judged by the first master of his trade, 
 and thus all the head artificers are judges. They punish 
 with exile, with flogging, with blame, with deprivation 
 of the common table, with exclusion from the church and 
 from the company of women. When there is a case in 
 which great injury has been done, it is punished with 
 
THE CITY OP THE SUN 309 
 
 death, and they repay an eye with an eye, a nose for 
 a nose, a tooth for a tooth, and so on, according to the 
 law of retaliation. If the offense is willful the council 
 decides. When there is strife and it takes place unde- 
 signedly, the sentence is mitigated; nevertheless, not by 
 the judge but by the triumvirate, from whom even it 
 may be referred to Hoh, not on account of justice but of 
 mercy, for Hoh is able to pardon. They have no prisons, 
 except one tower for shutting up rebellious enemies, and 
 there is no written statement of a case, which we com- 
 monly call a lawsuit. But the accusation and witnesses are 
 produced in the presence of the judge and Power; the 
 accused person makes his defense, and he is immediately 
 acquitted or condemned by the judge; and if he appeals 
 to the triumvirate, on the following day he is acquitted 
 or condemned. On the third day he is dismissed through 
 the mercy and clemency of Hoh, or receives the inviola- 
 ble rigor of his sentence. An accused person is recon- 
 ciled to his accuser and to his witnesses, as it were, with 
 the medicine of his complaint, that is, with embracing 
 and kissing. No one is killed or stoned unless by the 
 hands of the people, the accuser and the witnesses 
 beginning first. For they have no executioners and 
 lictors, lest the state should sink into ruin. The choice 
 of death is given to the rest of the people, who inclose 
 the lifeless remains in little bags and burn them by the 
 application of fire, while exhorters are present for the pur- 
 pose of advising concerning a good death. Nevertheless, 
 the whole nation laments and beseeches God that his 
 anger may be appeased, being in grief that it should, as 
 it were, have to cut off a rotten member of the state. 
 Certain officers talk to and convince the accused man by 
 means of arguments until he himself acquiesces in the 
 sentence of death passed upon him, or else he does not 
 die. But if a crime has been committed against the liberty 
 of the republic, or against God, or against the supreme 
 magistrates, there is immediate censure without pity. 
 These only are punished with death. He who is about 
 to die is compelled to state in the presence of the people 
 and with religious scrupulousness the reasons for which 
 he does not deserve death, and al§aJth»jiss.of— the others 
 
3IO THE CITY OF THE SUN 
 
 who ought to die instead of him, and further the mis- 
 takes of the magistrates. If, moreover, it should seem 
 right to the person thus asserting, he must say why the 
 accused ones are deserving of less punishmem than he. 
 And if by his arguments he gains the victory he is sent 
 into exile, and appeases the state by means of prayers 
 and sacrifices and good life ensuing. They do not tor- 
 ture those named by the accused person, but they warn 
 them. Sins of frailty and ignorance are punished only 
 with blaming, and with compulsory continuation as 
 learners under the law and discipline of those sciences or 
 arts against which they have sinned. And all these things 
 they have mutually among themselves, since they seem 
 to be in very truth members of the same body, and one 
 of another. 
 
 This further I would have you know, that if a trans- 
 gressor, without waiting to be accused, goes of his own 
 accord before a magistrate, accusing himself and seeking 
 to make amends, that one is liberated from the punish- 
 ment of a secret crime, and since he has not been accused 
 of such a crime, his punishment is changed into another. 
 They take special care that no one should invent slander, 
 and if this should happen they meet the offense with the 
 punishment of retaliation. Since they always walk about 
 and work in crowds, five witnesses are required for the 
 conviction of a transgressor. If the case is otherwise, 
 after having theatened him, he is released after he has 
 sworn an oath as the warrant of good conduct. Or if he 
 is accused a second or third time, his increased punish- 
 ment rests on the testimony of three or two witnesses. 
 They have but few laws, and these short and plain, and 
 written upon a flat table, and hanging to the doors of the 
 temple, that is between the columns. And on single 
 columns can be seen the essence of things described in 
 the very terse style of Metaphysics — viz, the essences 
 of God, of the angels, of the world, of the stars, of man, 
 of fate, of virtue, all done with great wisdom. The 
 definitions of all the virtues are also delineated here, and 
 here is the tribunal, where the judges of all the virtues have 
 their seat. The definition of a certain virtue is writtten un- 
 der that column where the judges for the aforesaid virtue sit. 
 
THE CITY OP THE SUN 311 
 
 and when a judge gives judgment he sits and speaks thus : O 
 son, thou hast sinned against this sacred definition of benefi- 
 cence, or of magnanimity, or of another virtue, as the 
 case may be. And after discussion the judge legally con- 
 demns him to the punishment for the crime of which he 
 is accused — viz, for injury, for despondency, for pride, 
 for ingratitude, for sloth, etc. But the sentences are 
 certain and true correctives, savoring more of clemency 
 than of actual punishment. 
 
 G. M. — Now you ought to tell me about their priests, 
 their sacrifices, their religion, and their belief. 
 
 Capt. — Th^ chiefjgriest is_Hoh, and it is the duty of 
 all the superior magistrates to pardon sins. Therefore 
 the whole state by secret confession, which we also use, 
 tell their sins to the magistrates, who at once purge their 
 souls and . teach those that are inimical to the people. 
 Then the sacred magistrates themselves confess their l 
 own sinfulness to th e three supreme chief s, and together 
 they confess the faults of one another, though no special 
 one is named, and they confess especially the heavier 
 faults and those harmful to the state. At length the ' 
 triumvirs confess their sinfulness to Hoh himself, who 
 forthwith recognizes the kinds of sins that are harmful 
 to the state, and succors with timely remedies. Then he 
 offers sacrifices and pray ers to G9 d. Aiid before this he _ ^ 
 confesses the sins-of, the wholg people,_in ^ jhe„presence 
 of God, and publicly in the temple, above the altarTjas 
 often as it had been necessary that . the. f aulL_slioiild be 
 corrected. NeverthelesSj no transgressor jsjpqken of by 
 his name. In this manner he absolves, the people by 
 advising them that they should beware of sins of the 
 aforesaid kind. Afterward he offers sacrifice to God, 
 that he should pardon the state and absolve it of its 
 sins, and to teach and defend it. Once in every year 
 the chief priests of each separate subordinate state con- f 
 fess their sins in the presence of Hoh. Thus he is not 
 ignorant of the wrongdoings of the provinces, and forth- 
 with he removes them with all human and heavenly 
 remedieSr^ ^ " . 
 
 Sacrifice is conduc ted after the following manner : Hoh 
 asks the people which^one among thein wishes to give 
 
312 THE CITY OF THE SUN 
 
 himself as ajacrifice to God for the sake of his fellows. 
 He is then placed upaBT the' fo urth tah le, with"cereinotries 
 and the offering up of prayers : the table is hung up in a 
 wonderful manner by means of four ropes passfflg through 
 four cords attached to firm pulley blocks in the small 
 dome of the temple. This done they cry to the God of 
 mercy, that he may accept the offering, not of a beast as 
 among the heathen, but of a human being. Then Hoh 
 orders the ropes to be drawn and the sacrifice is pulled 
 up above to the centre of the small dome, and there it 
 dedicates itself with the most fervent supplications. 
 Food is given to it through a window by the priests, who 
 live around the dome, but it is allowe d a very li ttle to 
 eajt, until it has atoned for the sms of the stated TEere 
 with prayer and fasting he cries to the God of heaven 
 that he might accept its willing offering. And after 
 t wenty _ or thirty da ys, thejanger)^ God bei ng appea sed, 
 the sacrifice becomes a priest, or sometimes, though rarely, 
 returns below by means of the outer way for the priests. 
 Ever after this man is t reate d with great__bene_yplence 
 and much honor, for the reason that he, _offered_ liimaglf 
 unto death for the sake of his_coiintry. But God does 
 ■ not re^ire^deaA. The priests above twenty-four years 
 of age offer praises from their places in the top of the 
 temple. This they do in the middle of the^ight, at noon, 
 in the morning and in jthe^ evening, to wit, four times a 
 day they sing their chants in the presence of God. It is 
 also their work to observe the stars and to note with the 
 
 astrmi5e~f HeiF motions and JnH^nces^uponhuman thin gs^ 
 and to find out their powers. ^hus_they ^now in what 
 part of the earth any change has been or will be, and at 
 
 what time it has taken place, and- they -send ^to-iind 
 
 whether the matter be as they have it. They make a 
 note of predictions, true and false, so that they may be 
 able from experience to predict most correctly. The 
 priests, moreover, determine the hours for breeding and 
 the days for sowing, reaping, and gathering the vintage, 
 and are as it were the ambassadors and intercessors and 
 connection between God and man. And it is^om among 
 them ijjQStly ±hat„Hoh_is_elected. They write very learneH 
 treatises and search into the sciences. Below they never 
 
THE CITY OF THE SUN 313 
 
 descend, unless for their dinner and supper, so that the 
 essence of their heads do not descend to the stomachs 
 and liver. Only very seldom, and that as a cure for the 
 ills of solitude, do they have converse with women. On 
 certain days Hoh goes up to them and deliberates with 
 them concerning the matters which he has lately investi- 
 gated for the benefit of the state and all the nations of 
 the world. 
 
 In the temple beneath one priest always stands near 
 the altar praying fqr the people, and at the end of every 
 hour another succeeds him, just as we are accustomed in 
 solemn prayer to change every fourth hour. And this 
 method of supplication they call perpetual prayer. After 
 a meal they return thanks to God Then they sing the 
 deeds of the Christian, Jewish, and Gentile heroes, and 
 of those of all other nations, and this is very delightful 
 to them. Forsooth, no one is envious of another. They 
 sing a hymn to Love, one to Wisdom, and one each to all 
 the other virtues, and this they do under the direction of 
 the ruler of each virtue. Each one takes the woman he 
 loves most, and they dance for exercise with propriety 
 and stateliness under the peristyles. The women wear 
 their long hair all twisted together and collected into 
 one knot on the crown of the head, but in rolling it they 
 leave one curl. The men, however, have one curl only 
 and the rest of their hair around the head is shaven off. 
 Further, they wear a slight covering, and above this a 
 round hat a little larger than the size of their head. 
 In the fields they use caps, but at home each one wears 
 a biretto white, red, or another color according to his 
 trade or occupation. Moreover, the magistrates use 
 grander and more imposing-looking coverings for the 
 head. 
 
 They hold_ great_Jestivities when the sun enters the 
 four cardinal points of the Tiei^^s, that is^_wh,en ie 
 enters Cancer, Libra, Capricorn, and. Aries, On these 
 occasions they have very learned, splendid, and as it 
 were comic performances. They celebrate also every full 
 and every new moon with a festival, as also they do the 
 anniversaries of the founding of the city, and of the days 
 when they have won victories or done any other great 
 
31* THE CITY OF THE SUN 
 
 achievement. The celebrations take place with the music 
 of female voices, with the noise of trumpets and drums, 
 and the firing of salutations. The poets sing the praises 
 of the most renowned leaders and the victories. Never- 
 theless if any of the m should deceive even by dispar- 
 aging a foreign hero, he is punished . No one can 
 exercise the function of a poet who invents that which is not 
 true, and a license like this they think to be a pest of 
 our world, for the reason that it puts a premium upon 
 virtue and often assigns it to unworthy persons, either 
 from fear or flattery, or ambition or avarice. For the 
 praise of no one is a statue erected until after his death ; 
 but while he is alive, who has found out new arts and 
 very useful secrets, or who has rendered great service to 
 the state, either at home or on the battlefield, his name 
 is written in the book of heroes. They do n ot bury 
 dead bodies, but bum them, so that_a_plague ma^not 
 arise from tliemi~and so that they^mayJbe_convertedJ^iito 
 fire, a very noble and powerful thing jwhich has its_com- 
 ing from the sun and returns to it. And for the above 
 reasons no chance is given for idolatry. The statues and 
 pictures of the heroes, however, are there, and the 
 splendid women set apart to become mothers often look 
 at them. Prayers are jmade._irQnL-the state _tO-the-iour 
 horizontal corners of the world.. _ In the morning to the 
 rising sun, then to the setting sun, then to the south 
 and lastly to the north; and in the contrary order in the 
 evening, first to the setting suiiT^to the rising sun, to 
 the jiorth, and at length to_llie_south._^ They repeat but 
 one prayer, which asks for health of body and of 1mind 
 and happiness for themselves and all people, and they 
 conclude it with the petition " As it seems best to God. " 
 The public prayer for all is long, and it is poured for th 
 to heaven. S^JJiis reason the__alta,r is round andjs di- 
 vided crosswise by ways at right angles to one finother. 
 By these ways Hph- enters after he has repeated the four 
 prayers, and he prays looking up to heaven. And then 
 a great mystery is seen by them. The priestly vest- 
 ments are of a beauty and meaning like to those of 
 Aaton. They resemble Nature and they surpass Art. 
 They divide the seasons according to the revolution of 
 
THE CITY OF THE SUN 315 
 
 tJie sun, and not of the stars, and they observe yearly 
 by how much time the one precedes the other. They 
 hold tha,t the sun approaches nearer and nearer, and 
 there£bre_by ever-lessening circles reachea_J:ier tropics 
 and~The equator everyj;ear a little sooner. Th ey measur e 
 month's by the course of the moon, years by that of the sun. 
 They praise Ptolemy, admire Copernicus7~b^]2aceI5xis- 
 tarch^ and PhHolausJiefore^him. They take great pains 
 in endeavoring to_understand the conslructicm3f~the 
 world, and~whether or jnotrT will perish, and at what 
 time.~— They^lieye that the true oracle of Jesus. Christ 
 is by the signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars, 
 whiStr signs do not thus appear to many of us foolish 
 ones: Therefore they wait for the renewing of the age, 
 "andr^grchance for its end. "They" say~that it is very 
 doubtful whether the world was made f rom^nbthing^or 
 frqin_the ruins of other worlds, or from chaos, but they 
 certainly ±hink that it was made, and did not exist from_ 
 eternity. Therefore they disbelieve in Aristotle, whom 
 they consider a logician and not a philosopher. From 
 analogies, they can draw many arguments against the 
 eternity of the world. The sun and_the _stars the y,^Qj.a 
 speak, regard as the living representatives and signs of 
 God, as the tempieFand""Ebly"lTving altars, ^cT they honor 
 but do not worship them. Beyond all other things they 
 venerate the sun, but, the y consi dgr_nq_created things 
 worthy the adoration of worship. This they give to God 
 alone, and thui~tEey~serve him, that they may not come 
 into the power of a tyrant and fall into misery by under- 
 going punishment by creatures of revenge. They con- 
 template and know God under _the^mage of the Sun and 
 they call it the sign of pod^'ETs face and living image, by 
 means of which light, heat, life, and the making of all 
 things good and bad proceeds. Therefore they have 
 built an altar like to the Sun in shape, and the priests 
 praise God in the Sun and in the stars, as it were his 
 altars, and in the heavens, his temple as it were; and 
 they pray to good angels, who are, so to speak, the in- 
 tercessors living in the stars, their strong abodes. 
 For God long since set signs of their beauty in heaven, 
 and of his glory in the Sun. They say there is but one 
 
3i6 THE CITY OF THE SUN 
 
 heaven, and that the planets move and rise of them- 
 selves when they approach the sun, or are in conjunction 
 with it. 9 
 
 They assert two principles of the physics of things 
 below, namely, that the Sun is_thef ath^ an^^the^ Earth 
 the mother; the air'tsTiiTlmpure part, of _ the heavens ; 
 ail fire is derived from the sun. The sea is the sweat of 
 earth, or the fluid of earth combusted, and fused within 
 its bowels; but is the bond of union between air and 
 earth, as the blood is of the spirit and flesh of animals. 
 The world is a great animal, and we live within it as 
 worms live within us. Therefore we do not belong to 
 the system of stars, sun, and earth, but to God only; 
 for in respect to them which seek only to amplify them- 
 selves, we are bom and live by chance; but in respect 
 to God, whose instruments we are, we are formed by 
 prescience and design, and for a high end. Therefore 
 we are bound to no Father but God, and receive all 
 things from him. They hold as beyond question the 
 immortality, of souls, and that these associate with good 
 angels after death, or with bad angels, according as they 
 have likened themselves in this life to either. For all 
 things seek their like. They differ little from us as to 
 places of reward and punishment. They, are in do^bt 
 whether there are ,6ther worlds beyond ours, and account 
 it madness to say there is nothing. Nonentity is incom- 
 patible with the infinite entity of God. They lay down 
 two principles of metaphysics, entity which is the highest 
 God, and nothingness which is the defect of entity. 
 Evil and sin come of the propensity to nothingpigssx the 
 sin having its cause not efficient, but in jieficiency. 
 Deficiency is, they say, of power, wisdom or will. Sin 
 they place in the last of these three, because he who 
 knows and has the power to do good is bound also to 
 have the will, for will arises out of them. They worship 
 God m TVinity,_saxing_GQdJs _lhe supreme Po w er , jghence^ 
 preqeedFTheJhighest Wisdom, which is the same with- 
 God, and from these comes Love, which is both Power 
 and Wisd9ni; but they do not distinguish persons by 
 name, as in our Christian law, which has not been 
 revealed to them. This religion, when its abuses have 
 
THE CITY OF THE SUN 317 
 
 been removed, will be the future mistress of the world, 
 as great theologians teach and hope. Therefore Spain 
 found the New World ( though its first discoverer, Colum- 
 bus, greatest of heroes, was a Genoese), that all nations 
 should be gathered under one law. We know not what 
 we do, but God knows, whose instruments we are. 
 They sought new regions for lust of gold and riches, 
 but God works to a higher end. T he su n strives to 
 burn up the. earth, not to produce plants and men,~Fut 
 God guides the Jbattle to' great issues. "His the "praise, 
 to him the glory! ^ "^ 
 
 G. M. — Oh, if you knew what our astrologers say of 
 the coming age, and of our age, that has in it more 
 history within a hundred years than all the world had 
 in four thousand years before ! Of the wonderful inven- 
 tion of printing and guns, and the use of the magnet, 
 and how it all comes of Mercury, Mars, the Moon, and 
 the Scorpion! 
 
 Capt. — Ah, well! God gives all in his jjood time. 
 They astrologize too much.