Excerpts taken from
Utopia
by Sir Thomas More
On agriculture
They have built farm-houses over the whole country, which are well contrived and furnished with every necessary.
Inhabitants for them are sent in rotation from the cities. No family in the country hath fewer than forty men and women in
it, beside two slaves. A master and mistress preside over every family, and over thirty families a magistrate. Every year
twenty of the family return to town after having been two years in the country, and in their place other twenty are sent to
learn country business of those who have been there only one year, and must, in their turn, teach the next comers. Thus,
those who live on the farms are never ignorant of agriculture, and commit no fatal errors, such as causing a scarcity of
corn.
On trades
Beside agriculture, so common to them, every man hath some peculiar trade, as the manufacture of wool or flax, masonry,
smith's or carpenter's work. No other trade is in great esteem among them. Throughout the island they wear one sort of
clothes, without any other distinction than what is necessary for different sexes, and the married and unmarried. The
fashion, never changes, is easy and agreeable, suited to the climate, and for summer as well as winter.
On the games of the Utopians
After supper, they spend an hour in some diversion, in summer in the garden, and in winter in their halls, entertaining each
other with music or discourse. They have no idea of dice, or of any foolish and mischievous game. They have, however,
two games not unlike our chess. The one, a battle of numbers, in which number consumes number. The other, a contest
between the virtues and vices, in which the discord among the vices themselves and their union against virtue is not
unpleasantly represented; together with the particular opposition between certain virtues and vices, and the methods in
which vice openly assaults, or secretly undermines virtue, and virtue resists.
On Laws and Government
If a man aspire ambitiously to any office, he loseth it for certain. They live in loving intercourse with each other, the
magistrates never behaving either insolently or cruelly to the people. They affect rather to be called fathers, and by really
being such, well merit the appellation. The people pay them all marks of honour, the more freely because none are exacted
from them. The prince himself hath no distinction either of garments or a crown; a sheaf of corn only is carried before
him, and a wax-light before the high-priest.
They have few laws and such is their constitution, they require not many. They much condemn other countries, whose
laws, with the commentaries on them, swell so many volumes; esteeming it unreasonable to oblige men to obey a body of
laws so large and intricate, as not to be read and understood by every subject.
On Religion
Though there be many different forms of religion among them, all agree in the main point of worshipping the divine
essence. 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 the rites peculiar to it in their private houses, and there is nothing in the public worship
which contradicts their peculiarities. There are no images of God in their temples, therefore every one may represent him
to his thoughts in his own way; nor do they use for him any other name than Mithras, their term in common for the divine
essence, whatever otherwise they think of it; nor have they any forms of prayer, but such as every one of them may use
without prejudice to his private opinion.
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The Growth of the American Republic by Samuel Eliot Morison (1930)
In the following paragraphs, Morison summarizes More’s Utopia and explains its impact on the development of the American character.
The ideal commonwealth of that saintly mind is described as an island set in the Ocean Sea somewhere in the New World.
It is in the northern zone, the air soft, temperate, and gentle; the ground covered with green grass, full of people, governed
by good and wholesome laws (but no lawyers) where everyone is honestly employed, and no one exploited or
overworked. Planted not less than a day’s journey apart, are the cities where the handicraftsmen and men of learning dwell. Each city possesses a great rural district studded with cooperative farms. Burghers and farmers change places
every two years, so that each has his share of necessary labor, and nobody becomes bored. All alike labor six hours a day
leaving ample time for recreation. Husbandry is made pleasant and easy by having oxen do the heavy work, and by
inventions such as incubators for raising chickens. In the cities the streets are laid out “very commodious and handsome,” and the houses are each three stories, fireproof, amply windowed, and provided with a garden. Government is carried on
by a series of town meetings. Free and compulsory education is continued for adults by daily lectures, which all attend
except such as wish ‘to bestow the time well and thriftily upon some other science, as shall please them’: Greek literature is the favorite study of these workers’ educational classes.
Utopia cultivates community life as well as individual achievement. Medicine is socialized. Whoever wishes to make a
pleasure trip is provided by the government with an ox wagon, but he has to work on the farms or in the cities he visits.
The Utopians hate warfare ‘as a thing very beastly,’ yet men and women submit to compulsory military training in the case other and less happy people seek to invade them, or attack countries that are their friends. All their wars heretofore
have been in defense of friendly countries, the Utopians knowing that if these were conquered by tyrants their turn would
come next. The Utopians enjoy complete religious liberty; although they cultivate virtue, they mean not ‘sharp and painful virtue,’ or to ‘banish the pleasure of life.’
Thus, out of the welter of misery, insecurity, and corruption that were the lot of common man in the England of
1516, came this vision of a new and better society: the American dream. One constant thread of American history
has been this quest for peace, liberty, and security; this effort, often frustrated, never realized but in part, yet ever
hopeful, ever renewed, to make true the Utopian dream of the blessed Thomas More.