CHAPTER III UTOPIA AND THE UTOPIAS (a) MORE'S UTOPIA

SIR THOMAS MORE'SUtopia is one of the great books of all time. Reviving the tradition of Plato, it has itself established a tradition for subsequent generations. Yet, when all is said, the book remains and is likely to remain, an enigma, which each reader may interpret as he will. There is certainly no ambiguity about the views expressed in the course of this imaginative fairy-tale by the various participants in the dialogue, above all by that redoubtable traveller, Raphael Hythloday, on whom falls the burden of criticism of this very imperfect world and of the description of a better. But it is a nice matter of speculation to enquire how far what is unquestionably the dominant note of Utopia is a reflection of what was in the mind of More when he wrote the work. Clearly a man who writes a play or a dialogue cannot be assumed to hold all the views expressed by all his puppets. In the present case there are three dramatis personae, More himself, Peter Giles, town clerk of Antwerp, and the reporter regarding the blessed island of Utopia, who is also the critic of conditions in England and indeed in Europe generally. Everything of substance is in fact said by Raphael; the other two are, in the main, but a nodding audience. It is, however, perhaps of significance that among the few words More attributes to himself is an orthodox defence of property as against the praise of communism, and the final observation of all on the last page is a caveat that he cannot ‘perfectly agree’ to everything that has been related.¹ Is Utopia primarily a satire, not intended to be taken too seriously, or is it merely a literary exercise in which a not very convincing flight of fancy provides a series of pegs on which to hang comments on things at large? Or do the devastatingly critical comments of Raphael in fact reflect the mind of More who, confronted with the rather difficult task of living with his contemporaries, chose the path of prudence in giving currency to all this cargo of high explosives in the form of an imaginary dialogue, adding in effect that the editor was not responsible for any of the views expressed by his characters? For, on any interpretation, Utopia is a curious book to have come from Sir Thomas More. It was written in 1515–1516, when he was round about thirty-seven years of age. He was already rising in the service of the State, and was to become Lord Chancellor before tragedy overtook him. To put it no higher, it is unusual for civil servants or Ministers of the State, in the active practice of their profession, to demonstrate, even through the mouth of an imagined Raphael Hythloday, the iniquitous shortcomings of all known States and of most social institutions. One other point may have some bearing on this question. Utopia ought to have been one of the great English classics; in fact, it was written in Latin and printed abroad in 1516. An English translation did not appear until as late as 1551, when translations in German, Italian and French were already available. If More undeniably launched on the world a consignment of highly inflammable and revolutionary doctrine, in intention at least he did not address it to Everyman, but only to those who ‘had the Latin.’

The devising and the writing of Utopias is a curious weakness of mankind. Were it not that the writer of that Utopia, from which all others derive generically their name, was one of the noblest and most courageous of men, one might be tempted to look upon Utopias as the cowards' flight from reality. Doubtless it may be thought that a pleasant tale (assuming that it is pleasant) may reach a wider circle of readers, on the questionable analogy of the efficacy of parables in speaking to the simple: ‘Without a parable spake he not unto them.’ We are assured that truth embodied in a tale may enter in at lowly doors. Something may also be allowed to considerations of prudence, as perhaps in the case of More himself, living in the reign of Henry VIII; it may be possible, with greater safety, to present with a coating of fiction what would merely occasion trouble if offered neat. But the weakness of all Utopias is necessarily that they dodge the real difficulty of how to transform this present world into something better. The writers of Utopias take you to a distant island in a magic sea, or to another planet, or to the far future, whence, looking backward, these evil times may be dimly descried, or they even take you into the bowels of the earth. In any event, the reader is called to witness a smoothly working society, which in most cases has worked smoothly for an indefinite period. But the important point for us lies, in the practical administrative difficulties of the transition. A Utopia is a kind of Heaven. Easy enough doubtless to live there, once you are there; the whole difficulty is in getting there.

Another point with regard to Utopias is perhaps less surprising than it may appear at the first blush. Viewing them as a group, we have here writers, in many cases of the highest eminence, who set out to describe the ideal State, and to reveal its functioning through ideal institutions; and in all cases we are assured that never was there such a happy population. Yet in fact no Utopia has ever been described in which any sane man would on any conditions consent to live, if he could possibly escape. In spite of all the creature comforts, in spite of (and partly because of) the reduction in the hours of work, there is not one in which life would not be weary, flat, stale and unprofitable. And the reason is not far to seek; it is that in all Utopias life has reached a static stage. Nothing ever happens; no one ever disagrees with any one; the government, whatever its form may be, is always so wisely guided that there may be room for gratitude but never for criticism. ‘Life is Colour, and Warmth and Light, and a striving evermore for these.’ In all Utopias perfection has, by definition, been attained, and there is nothing left to Strive for.

Etwas fürchten und hoffen und sorgen
Muss der Mensch für den kommenden Morgen.

But there are no such stimulants to vitality in any known Utopia. The result is that life in any of them would be as devastatingly boring as life in the conventional heaven, where, since the revolt of the angels, nothing has happened to stir the blood or quicken the pulse. Somewhat naively, Raphael says of Utopia that ‘he that knows one of their towns knows them all.’ It is an understatement. He that knows one inhabitant of any Utopia knows all the inhabitants; and one is almost tempted to add that he that knows one Utopia knows all Utopias. Nothing happens, nothing can happen in any of them.¹

Yet though the actual description of life in the ideal state—the social gadgets—may appear trivial and puerile, or at best faintly amusing, the ideas inspiring the dream may be of intense interest. Nowhere is this truer than in the case of the original Utopia itself. If Utopia survives as a living force, it is not because of its description of the garden city of Amaurot, so pleasantly situated on the river Anider, or because of its account of its rather too rational inhabitants, but because of its comments on the social evils of the times in which it was written, and of its astonishing relevance to much subsequent controversy.

Utopia falls into two ‘Books,’ the first of which is in the main concerned with the evil conditions prevailing in England round about 1516, though in fact its censures extend to all the princes and potentates of Western Europe. The second ‘Book’ is devoted, in contrast, to the happy island of Utopia which, through the wise dispensations of a former King Utopus, has escaped the evils from which we suffer. Sitting on a green bank in a garden of Antwerp, More and Peter Giles listen to the tales of Raphael Hythloday, the travelling philosopher. They would fain have a man of his knowledge and experience serve humanity by entering the service of a Prince; but Raphael realises that he would be of no use to the princes of this world, who are ‘generally more set on acquiring new kingdoms, right or wrong, than on governing well those they possess.’¹ Raphael, a Portuguese by birth, is extraordinarily well-informed regarding the conditions in England. It was an age of poverty, of homelessness, of robbery and theft due in part to the enclosures, whereby ‘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.’² Consequently, honest men were reduced to drifting along the dusty highway in the great company of vagabonds who, by way of theft and robbery, ended on the hangman's gallows. The other great nursery of potential thieves was to be found in the unnecessary retainers of useless nobles, for these, when they lose their occupations, must also take to begging and stealing. As this provides one of the Leitmotifs of Utopia, let Raphael Hythloday himself speak:

There is a great number of noblemen among you, that are themselves as idle as drones, that subsist on other men's labour, on the labour of their tenants, whom, to raise their revenues, they pare to the quick.... 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 themselves fall sick, are turned out of doors.... 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?³

This leads to a discussion of the effects of the undue severity of the law, as evidenced in the indiscriminate hanging of all thieves; indeed, at one place Raphael's argument is rather directed against all capital punishment, as being an infringement of divine law.⁴ Universal bad government, ambitious princes neglectful of their subjects, the abuses of the idle rich, vagabondage, robbery, indiscriminate hanging, neglect of the teaching of Christ—such, briefly, are the distinguishing marks of the world in general and of England in particular, over against which Raphael Hythloday sets the vision of Utopia, of which, after an interval devoted to dinner, his auditors being seated once more on the same green bank, he gives a detailed account in Book II.

Life in Utopia may perhaps be dealt with in this place without overmuch detail and with a large brush, except where the peculiarities of the inhabitants raise points of principle. It is of course a communistic island, where private property has ceased to exist. In morals they appear to have been enlightened followers of Bentham, believing in pleasure, ‘using only this caution, that a lesser pleasure might not stand in the way of a greater, and that no pleasure ought to be pursued that should draw a great deal of pain after it.’ ⁵ They seem to have been familiar with the felicific calculus. In matters of religion, ‘their priests are men of eminent piety, and therefore they are but few.’⁶It is a country where there are few laws, and no lawyers—‘a sort of people whose profession it is to disguise matters, and to wrest the laws.’¹ Other engaging features are that ‘they love their ease,’ and, rather oddly, ‘they take great pleasure in fools.’ ²

Life in Utopia is subject to strict discipline: everything is made to a pattern. The cities are numbered; they are at appropriate distances from each other; the number of families in each city and the size of families are regulated. They have their magistrates—Syphogrants and Tranibors, if such details interest. They have a Prince and a Council; but as in all authoritarian states, it is not for the ordinary citizen to meddle unduly with state affairs; ‘It is death for anyone 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.’³ That Utopia entails such a vigorous repression of talk in the tavern has perhaps been insufficiently observed. Every one masters two trades, agriculture and one other. All wear the same clothes, except in so far as is necessary to distinguish the sexes, and the married from the unmarried. Moreover, fashions never change. The day is strictly divided up between its various occupations, and the hour-glass is the tyrant of every man's life. All must work, except a few who are exempted because of their aptitude for study, and if these do not make the necessary progress, this exemption is withdrawn. This austerity of life follows them into their leisure, which must be devoted to ‘some proper exercise.’ The hours of work are, however, only six, three hours before and three hours after dinner. There is a significant passage, the forerunner of much in later literature, arguing that long hours result from the army of idlers which society carries, and that if all did their share, the burden of work could be spread thin, and a few hours' work would suffice. So far from six hours being too little, it is rather too much, for you have but to 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, 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 labours mankind is supplied, is much less than you perhaps imagined.⁴

In addition, very few of those who are employed are really engaged on useful work: ‘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.’ It is an idea which later was dear to the heart of Fourier who, with infinite gusto, docketed and classified all the parasitic classes of mankind. And beyond this, there is a point of frequent recurrence in all Utopias, namely, that simplicity of life has its reward. There is less work to be done, when people eschew the luxurious life and shun changes of fashion. ‘And thus, since they are all employed in some useful labour, and since they content themselves with fewer things, it falls out that there is a great abundance of all things among them.’ ¹ In all this More (or Raphael Hythloday) sets a fashion; by a combination of universal labour, the simple life and more effective machinery, there is almost no limit to the shrinkage of the working hours which subsequent writers have suggested as possible.

Within Utopia life is organised on a communal basis, provisions being brought to the four markets in each town, and thence taken freely, firstly for the use of the hospitals, secondly for the public halls, and thirdly by whomsoever will. But in fact they all eat in the public halls, for without good cause no one would willingly eat at home, ‘since it is both ridiculous and foolish for any one to give themselves the trouble to make ready an ill dinner at home,’ ² when he might fare so much better eating in public. In an ominous phrase elsewhere, we are told that in Utopia ‘all men live in full view.’ In that happy island everything may be had in abundance except privacy. Dinner and supper are prefaced by a short ‘lecture of morality,’ which serves as a text for uplifting conversation³; in Utopia this may be an additional reason for shunning the cold domestic joint.

Trade is conducted on rather unusual principles, and with rather unusual results. Seeing that the island abounds in all things, and that little or nothing is needed from abroad, foreign trade is in essence a giving away of superfluities after a two years' supply has been assured. This export is in part a free gift; otherwise they get in return vast quantities of gold and silver. Here indeed is the mercantilist ideal of a country stuffed with bullion. This, however, is combined with a complete contempt for the precious metals and for all other baubles: ‘the folly of man has enhanced the value of gold and silver, because of their scarcity.’ ⁴ Accordingly, that the hearts of the Utopians may not be beguiled into worshipping the so-called precious metals, the gold is transformed into vessels of dishonour. It is out of gold that chamber-pots and close-stools are fashioned; so also fetters of gold are made for the slaves, to whom an ear-ring of gold may be attached as a special badge of infamy.

There is thus much gold in the country, even if it is to be found in unexpected places. It is used to hire mercenaries in the event of a war, and this need is also supplied by a certain traffic in the condemned criminals of other countries who are acquired as slaves. In this fantasy which is called Utopia, we here touch on two points which may offend modern susceptibilities. Firstly, the Utopians do not wage war wholly on approved principles. In this matter they cannot escape the charge of being somewhat imperialistic. If their population exceeds the optimum, they send out colonies to the neighbouring continent, ‘taking the inhabitants into their society, if they are willing to live with them.’ Otherwise they drive them out of the bounds which they have marked for themselves:

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.¹

This is the pure doctrine of Lebensraum, naked and unashamed, and it is interesting to see the Law of Nature invoked here, and invoked in a logical sense, as applying to the rights of all the inhabitants of the world to all the land of the world, and not merely, for example, to the right which the French people may be supposed to have to the land of France. Wars may of course arise otherwise through loyalty to their friends. When it comes to the waging of war, while the Utopians fight bravely in the last resort, they prefer to hire mercenaries from other nations and to gain victory by dexterity rather than by bloodshed. In practice this means that they stir up fifth columnist activity, and incite enemy subjects to kill their prince.

The second point that may offend is that we are still, apparently, in a world of slavery. Quite apart from the demands of war, the comforts of Utopia demand a slave population whose function it is to render the ‘uneasy services’; they also do the work of the slaughterhouse, an occupation which the fastidious Utopians find nauseating. In short, they do everything that is unpleasant, a consideration which ought in itself to make the work of the others more agreeable. Unlike the Utopians who get off with a six-hour day, the slaves ‘are kept at perpetual labour and are always chained.’² The slaves are a motley crowd; firstly, there are their own condemned criminals, and secondly, ‘which is more common,’ condemned criminals of other countries, whom merchants may pick up at bargain prices, or even get for nothing. These are supplemented by the voluntary poor of other countries, who presumably feel that slavery in Utopia is better than freedom elsewhere. These, as indeed they deserve, are better treated than the other classes of slaves. The rebellious slave is treated like a wild beast, and in the last resort is put to death. The implied advocacy of slavery as a punishment represents a protest against the harshness of excessive hanging; while, on economic grounds, a slave who can be made to do useful work is more of an asset to the community than a hanged criminal. But there is inevitably a flaw in any Utopia that needs slaves for its uneasy services.

Much of this, it may be said, represents but the trimmings of the fairy-tale; and any one who cares may say that this or that is impracticable, or absurd or undesirable. Let it be remembered that More was one of those unfortunate people whose humour is tinged with seriousness, and whose most earnest utterance is illumined by a jest playing in the back of the mind. They are an unhappy race who are sure to be misunderstood: far happier they who announce when they are jesting, or, better still, who refrain from such a dangerous pastime. More was a master of irony, and we are not meant to take literally all that he wrote; if we could but see his eyes as he wrote (or thought) some of the more startling passages, it might help those of us who are specially stupid to a better understanding of what he meant. But there is little irony in what are for us the essential passages, where Raphael Hythloday, with a sombre eloquence, advances a passionate demand for justice, and laments the iniquities, the fruits of selfishness, that spring from man's lust for wealth and power; and argues, in consequence, for the necessity of communism. In order to appreciate the perennial influence of More, it is sufficient to read Hythloday in his more exalted moments, and to note the strange modernity of his utterances. A few extracts—unfortunately too brief—will here be more effective than much exposition. The first relates to the evils of private property, and is a more restrained statement, occurring at the end of Book I, where, in contrast to the evil conditions in England, Hythloday first glances at Utopia:

Though to speak plainly my real sentiments, I must freely own, that so long as there is any property, and while money is the standard of all other things, I cannot think that a nation can be governed either justly or happily: not justly, because the best things will fall to the share of the worst men; nor happily, because all things will be divided among a few (and even those are not in all respects happy), the rest being left to be absolutely miserable.... When, I say, I balance all these things in my thoughts, I grow more favourable to Plato... 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 fall into indigence.... 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.¹

Towards the end of the second book, a note of passion enters Hythloday's restatement of the same point. Utopia, he says, is the only commonwealth that truly deserves that name; and he continues:

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 zealously pursue the good of the public: and indeed, it is no wonder to see men act so differently; for in other commonwealths, 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?¹

And on the disputed question of Justice, there is this eloquent denunciation:

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, 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 splendour, upon what is so ill acquired; and a mean man, a carter, a smith or a ploughman, that works harder even than the beasts themselves, and is employed in labours 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.²

Lastly there is this most revolutionary conclusion drawn from the condition of the world at large:

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 pretence of managing the public only pursue 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 labour for them at as low rates as possible, and oppress them as much as they please.³

It is such passages as these (all of them, be it noted for what it is worth, spoken by Hythloday) that have made Utopia a living book for four hundred years. And if any one cares to cast a forward-looking glance to Marxian revolutionary socialism, he will be able to find in More (or in More's creature, Hythloday) quite a number of significant pointers. They may be worth enumerating. Quite apart from the main thesis of the evils springing from private property, Utopia lays emphasis on (i) the evils of the unproductive classes; (ii) our extravagance and wrongful use of wealth; (iii) the evils of money, and in particular the baneful influence of gold; (iv) the exploitation of the poor by the rich; and lastly and most surprisingly (v) the conception of the State as a class organisation, a ‘conspiracy of the rich.’ Somewhat apart from these—in some ways it is more in the anarchist tradition—is the plea for reduction of hours of work by cutting out unnecessary idlers and unnecessary luxuries.’ Assuredly, whatever may be thought of More, Raphael Hythloday had in him the makings of a very promising revolutionary Marxian socialist.

(b) CAMPANELLA: THE CITY OF THE SUN

Campanella's City of the Sun is not infrequently regarded as a kind of pendent to Utopia; it at least presents an ideal State which is of interest by reason of its similarities and its contrasts. Campanella (1568–1639) was a much tortured, much imprisoned Dominican monk, and The City of the Sun is a literary by-product of his imprisonment. It is in stretches a somewhat tedious, not to say boring, production, and more even than most Utopias it is pervaded by a chilling atmosphere of unreality. It is difficult to take seriously a chief ruler called Hoh, assisted by three subsidiary princes named Pon, Sin, and Mor—names admirably devised to fill in the odd corners of a crossword puzzle. Even when these are translated into Metaphysic, Power, Wisdom and Love, they remain somewhat inhuman. It is gratifying to know that in whatever Hoh inclines to, Pon, Sin and Mor are sure to agree. It is a characteristic of all totalitarian States. Nor do we readily acknowledge Magistrates who are called Chastity, Fortitude, Gratitude, Sobriety and so on, through all the known and reputed virtues. There is a somewhat too lengthy description of the city itself, and of its walls. These walls have inscribed on them all knowledge and all science, and thus are the young educated. It is not a wholly absurd idea, for without doubt much wall-space is running to waste in all our cities. A complete course of mathematics displayed on the Underground stations might not be without its effects, though perhaps awkward for those making the journey in the wrong direction.

Here also is a Commonwealth that has risen beyond private property, and has carried community of possessions to the debatable point of community of wives. It is possible to indicate with brevity the few points of significance in Campanella. In the first place, Campanella emphasises, with a clarity and a precision that have seldom been surpassed, the conflict between the individualistic and the social instincts, and he realises that these individualistic instincts are not mere selfishness, but are rooted in the family:

They say that all private property is acquired and improved 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 any one is of slender purse, little strength, and mean ancestry. But when we have taken away self-love, there remains only love for the state.¹

This is a passage of extraordinary importance, and represents a line of thought which extends from Plato to Fourier and beyond. Stripped of unessentials, it means that it is the family that is the stumbling block to the creation of the communistic and the socialist State. Inside this larger community within which all men are to be equals and brothers in a sloppy sense, there is already this other group in which men are brothers in a very peculiar and definite sense: and as Plato and Campanella clearly saw, devotion to the family detracts from that complete devotion and surrender to the State and the public interest which is postulated as desirable.

With this there is also in Campanella an early emphasis on Eugenics, and a realisation that children are produced for and belong to the State, and are not primarily the concern of the parents: ‘Indeed, they laugh at us who exhibit a studious care for our breed of horses and dogs, but neglect the breeding of human beings.’ ² More in detail, he argues thus:

Moreover, the race is managed for the good of the commonwealth and not of private individuals, and the magistrates must be obeyed. They deny what we hold—viz., that it is natural to man to recognize 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 asserts.³

The State, therefore, in the person of the mysterious Mor (Love) is responsible for the education of children, since ‘individuals for the most part bring forth children wrongly and educate them wrongly.’⁴

The other point of significance in Campanella relates to his attitude to work. In More's Utopia, doubtless every one worked; but there were still slaves for the uneasy services. Campanella abolishes slavery, and emphasises the dignity of all work. In contrast with our foolish ideas of nobility, ‘they consider him the more noble and renowned who has dedicated himself to the study of the most arts and knows how to practise them wisely,’ and they laugh at us in that we consider our workmen ignoble.⁵ ‘All work they call discipline’; no one thinks it lowering to wait at table or to work in the kitchen. Thus even More's ‘uneasy services’ are honourable. The working hours which had been six a day in Utopia have contracted to four, and the rest of the time is spent in ‘learning joyously’ and in many other diversions. The only prohibition seems to be against games which are played while sitting; on this test, billiards would seem to be permissible, whereas chess is expressly forbidden. Such are the solarians, ‘rich because they want nothing, poor because they possess nothing; and consequently they are not slaves to circumstances, but circumstances serve them.’¹

(c) FÉNELON

Among the other writers of early modern Utopias, perhaps a glance should be directed towards Fénelon, who on the strength of certain passages in Les Aventures de Télémaque has been claimed as a sympathiser with the communist way of life. Though much admired by the appropriate authorities, Télémaque is to our modern eyes a rather odd book. It is a pedagogic romance, written for the instruction of the young Duke of Burgundy; and Fénelon, aiming at two birds with one book, seeks to combine instruction in classical mythology with such moral and political lessons as an Archbishop might properly impart to a pupil of importance. An eminent authority in French literature has declared that to savour the charm of Télémaque it must be read ‘dans l'innocence de la première jeunesse’: presumably the Duke satisfied this condition. There are indeed two Utopias embedded in this morass, the first dealing with La Bétique, at the end of Book VII, the second being concerned with the town of Salente, which is referred to in Books X and XVII. Neither need delay us long.

The happy country of La Bétique is one of those cases in which Utopia is made easy by the special favour of heaven, manifested in an idyllic situation and a climate such as never was on land or sea. The sky is perpetually sweet and serene; the winters are mild, and the heat of the summer is tempered with refreshing zephyrs. Indeed, the whole year is a happy marriage of spring and autumn. Consequently, the soil yields a double harvest every year. The trees by the wayside are perpetually green; the mountains are almost clothed with cattle. It will be conceded that people living under these conditions start off with a certain initial advantage.

Despite all this wealth bursting and sprouting around them, the natives of La Bétique have clung to the simple life. Though they are supplied with gold and silver, these are devoted to the manufacture of ploughs—a more honourable use than in Utopia. The beatific climate enables them to do without houses, just as, apart from certain traditional conventions, it might enable them to dispense with clothes. As a matter of fact, it almost does. They think that we pin ourselves down unduly if we make a house which will outlive us. In this happy state, they live without dividing the soil, holding all goods in common, moving on with their tents when they have exhausted the fruits and the pasturage around them. Their peace consists in cutting off vain riches and deceitful pleasures. They neither drink, nor wage war, and the list of their virtues is endless. Among all the inhabitants of La Bétique there is neither pride nor haughtiness, nor bad faith nor desire to extend their domination.

All this may have fired the imagination of the Duke of Burgundy in the innocence of his first youth: to our more sophisticated age it sounds rather thin stuff and little better than vacant chaff well meant for grain. A Utopia which rests on a climate which will make possible the scrapping of houses and clothes is not likely to be realised in Surrey's green and pleasant land, still less in the not-quite-so-green but more invigorating land that makes up the Moor of Rannoch. And though it would be unreasonable to ask that the Archbishop should have read the works of Malthus, the Malthusian question of the stability of such a society should have occurred to him. What in fact Fénelon describes in La Bétique is the Garden of Eden, in an enlarged and improved edition; and thither, if only because of the Cherubim with the flaming swords, we may not return.

The town of Salente (Books X and XVII) has been mentioned, but, strictly speaking, the relevant passages give us not so much a description of a Utopia, as instructions for the restoration of a state to a condition of health and well-being. It is, of course, Fénelon, speaking through Mentor, who gives the advice and issues the instructions; and while, in the language of taxation, the impact is on Télémaque and Idoménée (whose city it is), the incidence of the advice is designed to be on the young Duke of Burgundy. Foreign merchandise, tending to luxury, is forbidden; ornaments of gold and silver are banished. A noble and frugal simplicity is restored, and this applies to the delights of the table as to other things. Idoménée (who, after all, is king) is allowed a little vin du pays— ‘mais en fort petite quantité.’ Indeed Fénelon, perhaps with his eye on the young Duke, is habitually rather prejudiced in the matter of wine, of which a more inspired and impartial writer has said that it turneth every thought into jollity and mirth, so that a man remembereth neither sorrow nor debt. Effeminate music, superfluous merchants, top-heavy furniture, are all sacrificed to austerity. In consequence, the Salentins, who had complained of their poverty, begin to have the sensation of well-being. ‘Deceptive riches had impoverished them, and they became effectively rich in proportion as they had the courage to do without them.’ That a feeling of well-being may be attained by restricting the scope of our desires is an old economico-moral lesson which remains ever fresh.

All this would not justify Fénelon's inclusion here; but more importance attaches to certain features, illustrative of Utopian muddle-headedness, confronting us when we turn to the repercussions of these changes on the country around Salente. Here we have an agrarian philosophy, reaching forward to the Physiocrats. The soil has been neglected, and therefore all the superfluous inhabitants of Salente are to be moved back to the land, reinforced by citizens drawn from neighbouring states—to do the hard work, seeing that the banished clerk from the capital would probably not be the most efficient agriculturalist. If they are well treated in the matter of taxes, and encouraged to marry, all will be well. And in support of this, Fénelon argues in a passage which seems to have strayed from a physiocratic treatise:

The earth is never ungrateful; it always nourishes with its fruits those who cultivate it carefully; and it refuses its gifts only to those who fear to devote their efforts to it. The more children the workers have, the wealthier they are... for the children, from their earliest years begin to help them.

There follows a moving picture of rustic felicity, in which not even the shepherd's flute is forgotten. Never, on any stage, was rural life so attractive. And apparently there is no limit to this: ‘Nature alone would draw from her fertile bosom all that would be required for an infinite number of moderate and hardworking men.’ Could anything be more extravagant? Could there be an easier path to Utopia?

Yet within two pages, Utopia (including, inferentially, the shepherd's flute) is shattered. For Idoménée, pestered by unconscious Malthusian qualms and doubtings, asks whether, if they are thus placed in peace and abundance, they may not be corrupted by délices, and turn against their king. To which Mentor, giving evidence of a remarkably short memory, replies that though they will have abundance, they will have only what is necessary; this abundance, moreover, will be diminished by the facility of marriages and by the multiplication of families. Each family, being itself numerous and having little land, will have to cultivate it by ‘un travail sans relâche.’ In an illuminating phrase, he adds: ‘Ils auront du pain, à la vérité, et assez largement; mais ils n'auront que du pain, et des fruits de leur propre terre, gagnés à la sueur de leur visage.’

On all this confused thought Malthus would have thrown himself with glee, inviting the good Archbishop to continue the story of his Salentins for a further trifling period of fifty years. Yet if there is little of positive substance in Fénelon—on this side—he is of interest as showing the natural end of those who make their Utopias too easy. If in your assumptions you are allowed to invoke a miraculous climate and thus increase without limit the bounty of nature; if you may postulate that men, on high moral grounds, are prepared to cut down their enjoyments to unremitting labour and sufficient bread, Utopia should not be so difficult to establish in the imagination. In essence the lesson which Fénelon would seek to convey (and it should never be forgotten that the dish is seasoned for a future King of France) is that luxury is an evil thing, that simplicity is much to be desired, that a prosperous agriculture is essential for a healthy State, and that a large population, living on the land and not in the cities, should be the aim of national policy. Teaching that the plough should be held in honour, he is, on this side of his genius, a Physiocrat born out of due season.

It would be unprofitable, though not uninteresting, to follow further the primrose path leading to a large choice of assorted Utopias. From the time of More to the present day, the years are strewn with them, and not unnaturally most of these are tinged with ideas borrowed from one or other of the schools of socialism. Morris's News from Nowhere is wholly charming as a work of literature; Bellamy's Looking Backward presents a rather vulgar and unattractive world of state socialism run mad. In Cabet's Voyage en Icarie, in its time so influential, the propaganda almost drowns the tale. Hertzka's Freiland is another monument of propaganda for a specific purpose, which (judging by sales) made an appeal somewhat incomprehensible to-day. Lord Lytton, who tried everything, had perforce to write a Utopia; and Mr. H. G. Wells is also of the company.

While stoutly refusing to extend this chapter further, one general point may be noted. Utopias tend to become not so much a criticism of our system of government and our social institutions, as a criticism of human nature. Men are so selfish as to prefer their own wives and children to the wives and children of other people; they are foolish and greedy and covetous, and given to unworthy enjoyments; they forget that

It's no in makin muckle, mair,
To make us truly blest.

Consequently the deviser of Utopias, when he is at it, presents not merely the perfect State, but, more or less, the perfect man. In one sense, this is almost ‘cheating,’ just because it simplifies matters so enormously for the architects of Utopia. On the other hand, this inferential criticism of human nature may perhaps point to the crux of the whole problem. We have an imperfect world, among other reasons, because we are very imperfect men and very imperfect women. We can have no earthly paradise until we are fit to five in an earthly paradise. Moral and political regeneration are not two problems, but one.