Woodcut map from the first edition of Utopia (Louvain, 1516)

Utopian alphabet from the first edition of Utopia (Louvain, 1516)

 Book Two

Of the Discussion which

Raphael Hythloday Held
Concerning the Best State
of a Commonwealth, by
Way of Thomas More,
Citizen and Undersheriff
of LONDON
 utopia

their own reputation, or venture the being suspected

to have wanted foresight in the expedients that they at
“To sleep on a first proposed; and therefore, to prevent this, they take
decision,” as the old
care that they may rather be deliberate than sudden in
proverb is meant to
be understood their motions.

Their Occupations
Agriculture, which Agriculture is that which is so universally understood
we now cast upon
among them that no person, either man or woman, is
a few contemptible
men, is shared ignorant of it; they are instructed in it from their child-
among all 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, which is so common to them
Trades that all, every man has some peculiar trade to which he
are learned for
applies himself; such as the manufacture of wool or flax,
necessity, not
luxury masonry, smith’s work, or carpenter’s work; for there is
no sort of trade that is in great esteem among them.
Similarity in Throughout the island they wear the same sort of
clothing
clothes, without any other distinction 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 uneasy, so it is suited to the
climate, and calculated both for their summers and
winters. Every family makes their own clothes.
No citizen lacks All among them, women as well as men, learn one
a trade
or other of the trades formerly mentioned. Women, for

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the most 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 Let each man learn
that art to which he
man’s genius lies another way he is, by adoption, trans-
is assigned by his
lated into a family that deals in the trade to which he nature
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, unless the public
has more occasion for the other.
The chief, and almost the only, business of the
Syphogrants is to take care that no man may live idle, Idle men must be
driven from the
but that every one may follow his trade diligently; yet
Commonwealth
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 toil of the
workers must be
the common course of life amongst all mechanics except
kept within reason
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;

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 utopia

yet they are not to abuse that interval 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
An eagerness for literature; yet a great many, both men and women, of all
learning
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 themselves
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 supper they spend an hour in some diversion,
Entertainment at in summer in their gardens, and in winter in the halls
supper
where they eat, where they entertain each other either
with music or discourse. They do not so much as know
Yet now dice is the dice, or any such foolish and mischievous games. They
game of princes
have, however, two sorts of games not unlike our chess;
the one is between several numbers, in which one num-
ber, as it were, consumes another; the other resembles
Games are also a battle between the virtues and the vices, in which the
beneficial
enmity in the vices among themselves, and their agree-
ment against virtue, is not unpleasantly represented;
together with the special opposition between the par-
ticular virtues and vices; as also the methods by which
vice either openly assaults or secretly undermines vir-
tue; and virtue, on the other hand, resists it.

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But 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 sup-
plying 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 gener- Types of idle people
ally 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 retainers, Spear-bearers of
noblemen
made up of idle persons, that are kept more for show
than use; add to these all those strong and lusty beg-
gars 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 Said most
knowingly
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: for if those who work were
employed only in such things as the conveniences of
life require, there would be such an abundance of them

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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
employments, and if all they that languish out their
lives in sloth and idleness (every one of whom con-
sumes 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 pleasure 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 capable of labor, that are not
Not even the engaged in it. Even the Syphogrants, though excused by
magistrates hold
the law, yet do not excuse themselves, but work, that by
back from work
their examples they may excite 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 mechanic that so employs his
leisure hours as to make a considerable advancement in
learning is eased from being a tradesman and ranked
Only the learned among their learned men. Out of these they choose
are called to official
their ambassadors, their priests, their Tranibors, and
posts

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the Prince himself, anciently called their Barzenes, but

is called of late their Ademus.*
And thus from the great numbers among them that
are neither suffered to be idle nor to be employed in any
fruitless 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 suf-
fers 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 men 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 O in what manner
could the costs
decay, so that their buildings are preserved very long
in buildings be
with but very little labor, and thus the builders, to whom avoided!
that care belongs, are often without employment, except
* “Barzanes,” or Son of Zeus, is from the Hebrew for son and a poet-
ic Greek derivative of Zeus. “Ademus” is a bit more clever: a-demos,
meaning “people-less,” or “a prince without a people” as More slyly
refers to the leader of Utopia in his second letter to Giles.

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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, cut carelessly about them, which
O in what manner will last seven years, and when they appear in public
could the costs in
they put on an upper garment which hides the other;
clothing be avoided!
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 anywhere 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 whiteness 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 different colous, 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
two 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 jot the better
appearance for it.
And thus, since they are all employed in some use-
ful 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,

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for want of other work, vast numbers are sent out to

mend the highways; but when no public undertaking
is to be performed, the hours of working are lessened.
The magistrates never engage the people in unneces-
sary labor, since the chief end of the constitution is to
regulate labor by the necessities of the public, and to
allow the people as much time as is necessary for the
improvement of their minds, in which they think the
happiness of life consists.

Their Social Relations

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
families are made up of those that are nearly related
to one another. Their women, when they grow up,
are married out, but all the males, both children and
grand-children, live still in the same house, in great
obedience to their common parent, unless age has
weakened his understanding, and in that case he that is
next to him in age comes 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 The number of
citizens
of the country around it. No family may have less than
ten and more than sixteen persons in it, but there can
be no determined number for the children under age;

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 The End of Book Two

The End of the Afternoon

Discourse of Raphael
Hythloday on the Laws
and Institutions of the
Island of Utopia, Hitherto
Known but to Few, as
Reported by the Most
Distinguished and
Most Learned Man,
Mr Thomas More,
Citizen and Undersheriff
of London

Finis