Book Two

RAPHAEL: Well, the island is broadest in the middle, where it measures about two hundred miles across. It's never much narrower than that, except towards the very ends, which gradually taper away and curve right round, just as if they'd been drawn with a pair of compasses, until they almost form a circle five hundred miles in circumference. So you can picture the island as a sort of crescent, with its tips divided by a strait approximately eleven miles wide. Through this the sea flows in, and then spreads out into an enormous lake—though it really looks more like a vast standing pool, for, as it's completely protected from the wind by the surrounding land, the water never gets rough. Thus practically the whole interior of the island serves as a harbour, and boats can sail across it in all directions, which is very useful for everyone.

The harbour mouth is alarmingly full of rocks and shoals. One of these rocks presents no danger to shipping, for it rises high out of the water, almost in the middle of the gap, and has a tower built on it, which is permanently garrisoned. But the other rocks are deadly, because you can't see them. Only the Utopians know where the safe channels are, so without a Utopian pilot it's practically impossible for a foreign ship to enter the harbour. It would be risky enough even for the local inhabitants, if it weren't for certain landmarks erected on the shore—and by simply shifting these landmarks they could lure any number of enemy warships to destruction. Of course, there are plenty of harbours on the other side of the island, but they're all so well fortified, either naturally or artificially, that a handful of men could easily prevent a huge invading force from landing at any of them.

They say, though, and one can actually see for oneself, that Utopia was originally not an island but a peninsula. However, it was conquered by somebody called Utopos, who gave it its present name—it used to be called Sansculottia—and was also responsible for transforming a pack of ignorant savages into what is now, perhaps, the most civilized nation in the world. The moment he landed and got control of the country, he immediately had a channel cut through the fifteen-mile isthmus connecting Utopia with the mainland, so that the sea could flow all round it. Fearing it might cause resentment if he made the local inhabitants do all the work, he put his whole army on the job as well. With this colossal labour force, he got it done incredibly quickly, to the great surprise and terror of the people on the mainland, who'd begun by making fun of the whole idea.

There are fifty-four splendid big towns on the island, all with the same language, laws, customs, and institutions. They're all built on the same plan, and, so far as the sites will allow, they all look exactly alike. The minimum distance between towns is twenty-four miles, and the maximum, no more than a day's walk.

Each town sends three of its older and more experienced citizens to an annual meeting at Aircastle, to discuss the general affairs of the island. Aircastle is regarded as the capital, because of its central position, which makes it easy to get at from every part of the country. The distribution of land is so arranged that the territory of each town stretches for at least twenty miles in every direction, and in one direction much farther—that is, where the distance between towns reaches its maximum. No town has the slightest wish to extend its boundaries, for they don't regard their land as property but as soil that they've got to cultivate.

At regular intervals all over the countryside there are houses supplied with agricultural equipment, and town dwellers take it in turns to go and live in them. Each house accommodates at least forty adults, plus two slaves who are permanently attached to it, and is run by a reliable, elderly married couple, under the supervision of a District Controller, who's responsible for thirty such houses. Each year twenty people from each house go back to town, having done two years in the country, and are replaced by twenty others. These new recruits are then taught farming by the ones who've had a year on the land already, and so know more about the job. Twelve months later the trainees become the instructors, and so on. This system reduces the risk of food shortages, which might occur if the whole agricultural population were equally inexperienced.

Two years is the normal period of work on the land, so that no one's forced to rough it for too long, but those who enjoy country life—and many people do—can get special permission to stay there longer. Landworkers are responsible for cultivating the soil, raising livestock, felling timber, and transporting it to the towns, either by land or sea, whichever is more convenient. They breed vast numbers of chickens by a most extraordinary method. Instead of leaving the hens to sit on the eggs, they hatch out dozens at a time by applying a steady heat to them—with the result that, when the chicks come out of the shells, they regard the poultryman as their mother, and follow him everywhere!

They keep very few horses, and no really tame ones, as they only use them for riding practice. Ploughing and pulling carts is done by oxen. Admittedly they can't go as fast as horses, but the Utopians say they're tougher and subject to fewer diseases. They're also less trouble and less expensive to feed, and, when they're finally past work, they're still useful as meat.

Corn is used solely for making bread, for they drink no beer, only wine, cider, perry, or water—sometimes by itself, but often flavoured with honey or liquorice, which are both very plentiful. The authorities of each town work out very accurately the annual food consumption of their whole area, but they always grow corn and breed livestock far in excess of their own requirements, so that they've plenty to spare for their neighbours.

Any necessary equipment which is not available in the country is got from one's home town—for there's a holiday once a month, when most people go there. You simply ask an official for what you want, and he hands it over, without any sort of payment.

Just before harvest-time District Controllers notify the urban authorities how much extra labour they'll need. So exactly that number of harvesters turns up punctually on the right day, and, if the weather's good, gets the whole job done in something like twenty-four hours.

But I must tell you some more about the towns. Well, when you've seen one of them, you've seen them all, for they're as nearly identical as local conditions will permit. So I'll just give you one example—it doesn't much matter which. However, the obvious choice is Aircastle, for the fact that Parliament meets there gives it a special importance, and it's the one I know best, having lived there for five years.

Aircastle is built on a gently sloping hill-side, and its ground-plan is practically square. It stretches from just below the top of the hill to the River Nowater, two miles away, and extends for two miles and a bit along the river-bank.

The source of the Nowater is quite a small spring eighty miles further inland, but it's joined by several tributaries, two of them pretty big ones, so by the time it gets to Aircastle it's already more than fifty yards wide. It then keeps on growing wider, until it reaches the sea sixty miles away. Right up to the town, and for several miles beyond it, there are strong tidal currents which change direction every six hours. At high tide the sea comes thirty miles inland, filling the whole river-bed and forcing the river back. The water turns brackish for some distance further up-stream, but after that the taste of salt gradually disappears, and the water which flows past Aircastle is absolutely fresh. At low tide the river chases the sea back, and continues pure and uncontaminated practically all the way to the coast.

The town is connected with the other bank of the river by a splendid arched bridge, with stone piers—not just wooden ones. That's at the landward end, so that ships can have unobstructed access to one whole side of the town. There's also another river, not very big, but delightfully calm and peaceful. It gushes out of the hill on which Aircastle is built, and flows down through the middle of it to join the Nowater. The fountain-head is just outside the town, but they've brought it within the circuit of the city wall, so that in case of invasion the enemy couldn't either cut off, divert, or poison their water supply. From that point water is run off to the lower districts of the town through a system of brickwork pipes. Where this method won't work, they have huge cisterns to collect rainwater—which serves the purpose equally well.

The town is surrounded by a thick, high wall, with towers and blockhouses at frequent intervals. On three sides of it there's also a moat, which contains no water, but is very broad and deep, and obstructed by a thornbush entanglement. On the fourth side the river serves as a moat. The streets are well designed, both for traffic and for protection against the wind. The buildings are far from unimpressive, for they take the form of terraces, facing one another and running the whole length of the street. The fronts of the houses are separated by a twenty-foot carriageway. Behind them is a large garden, also as long as the street itself, and completely enclosed by the backs of other streets. Each house has a front door leading into the street, and a back door into the garden. In both cases they're double swing-doors, which open at a touch, and close automatically behind you. So anyone can go in and out—for there's no such thing as private property. The houses themselves are allocated by lot, and changed round every ten years.

They're extremely fond of these gardens, in which they grow fruit, including grapes, as well as grass and flowers. They keep them in wonderful condition—in fact, I've never seen anything to beat them for beauty or fertility. The people of Aircastle are keen gardeners not only because they enjoy it, but because there are interstreet competitions for the best-kept garden. Certainly it would be hard to find any feature of the town more calculated to give pleasure and profit to the community—which makes me think that gardening must have been one of the founder's special interests.

By the founder I mean Utopos himself, who is said to have designed the whole layout of the town right from the start. However, he left posterity to embellish it and add the finishing touches, which he realized would take more than a single lifetime. According to their historical records, which cover a period of 1,760 years from the Conquest, and have always been most carefully written up, the original houses were merely small huts or cottages, built hurriedly with the first timber that came to hand. The walls were plastered with mud, the roofs ridged and thatched. But nowadays every house is an imposing three-storey structure. The walls are faced with flint or some other hard stone, or else with bricks, and lined with roughcast. The sloping roofs have been raised to the horizontal, and covered with a special sort of concrete which costs next to nothing, but is better than lead for resisting bad weather conditions, and is also fireproof. They keep out draughts by glazing the windows—oh yes, they use a great deal of glass there—or sometimes by fitting screens of fine linen treated with clear oil or amber, which has the effect of making it more transparent and also more airtight.

Now for their system of local government. The population is divided into groups of thirty households, each of which elects an official called a Styward every year. Styward is the Old Utopian title—the modern one is District Controller. For every ten Stywards and the households they represent there is a Bencheater, or Senior District Controller.

Each town has two hundred Stywards, who are responsible for electing the Mayor. They do it by secret ballot, after solemnly swearing to vote for the man that they consider best qualified. He has to be one of four candidates nominated by the whole electorate—for each quarter of the town chooses its own candidate and submits his name to the Council of Bencheaters. The Mayor remains in office for life, unless he's suspected of wanting to establish a dictatorship. Bencheaters are elected annually, but they're not normally changed. All other municipal appointments are for one year only.

Every three days, or more often if necessary, the Bencheaters have a meeting with the Mayor, at which they discuss public affairs, and promptly settle any private disputes—though these are very rare. They always invite two Stywards, a different pair each day, to attend their meetings, and there's a rule that no question affecting the general public may be finally decided until it has been debated for three days. It's a capital crime to discuss such questions anywhere except in the Council or the Assembly. Apparently this is to discourage the Mayor and Bencheaters from plotting to override the people's wishes and change the constitution. For the same reason any major issue is referred to the Assembly of Stywards, who explain it to all their households, talk it over among themselves, and then report their views to the Council. Occasionally the matter is referred to Parliament.

There's also a rule in the Council that no resolution can be debated on the day that it's first proposed. All discussion is postponed until the next well-attended meeting. Otherwise someone's liable to say the first thing that comes into his head, and then start thinking up arguments to justify what he has said, instead of trying to decide what's best for the community. That type of person is quite prepared to sacrifice the public to his own prestige, just because, absurd as it may sound, he's ashamed to admit that his first idea might have been wrong—when his first idea should have been to think before he spoke.

And now for their working conditions. Well, there's one job they all do, irrespective of sex, and that's farming. It's part of every child's education. They learn the principles of agriculture at school, and they're taken for regular outings into the fields near the town, where they not only watch farm-work being done, but also do some themselves, as a form of exercise.

Besides farming which, as I say, is everybody's job, each person is taught a special trade of his own. He may be trained to process wool or flax, or he may become a stonemason, a blacksmith, or a carpenter. Those are the only trades that employ any considerable quantity of labour. They have no tailors or dressmakers, since everyone on the island wears the same sort of clothes—except that they vary slightly according to sex and marital status—and the fashion never changes. These clothes are quite pleasant to look at, they allow free movement of the limbs, they're equally suitable for hot and cold weather—and the great thing is, they're all home-made. So everybody learns one of the other trades I mentioned, and by everybody I mean the women as well as the men—though the weaker sex are given the lighter jobs, like spinning and weaving, while the men do the heavier ones.

Most children are brought up to do the same work as their parents, since they tend to have a natural feeling for it. But if a child fancies some other trade, he's adopted into a family that practises it. Of course, great care is taken, not only by the father, but also by the local authorities, to see that the foster-father is a decent, respectable type. When you've learned one trade properly, you can, if you like, get permission to learn another—and when you're an expert in both, you can practise whichever you prefer, unless the other one is more essential to the public.

The chief business of the Stywards—in fact, practically their only business—is to see that nobody sits around doing nothing, but that everyone gets on with his job. They don't wear people out, though, by keeping them hard at work from early morning till late at night, like cart-horses. That's just slavery—and yet that's what life is like for the working classes nearly everywhere else in the world. In Utopia they have a six-hour working day—three hours in the morning, then lunch—then a two-hour break—then three more hours in the afternoon, followed by supper. They go to bed at 8 p.m., and sleep for eight hours. All the rest of the twenty-four they're free to do what they like—not to waste their time in idleness or self-indulgence, but to make good use of it in some congenial activity. Most people spend these free periods on further education, for there are public lectures first thing every morning. Attendance is quite voluntary, except for those picked out for academic training, but men and women of all classes go crowding in to hear them—I mean, different people go to different lectures, just as the spirit moves them. However, there's nothing to stop you from spending this extra time on your trade, if you want to. Lots of people do, if they haven't the capacity for intellectual work, and are much admired for such public-spirited behaviour.

After supper they have an hour's recreation, either in the gardens or in the communal dining-halls, according to the time of year. Some people practise music, others just talk. They've never heard of anything so silly and demoralizing as dice, but they have two games rather like chess. The first is a sort of arithmetical contest, in which certain numbers 'take' others. The second is a pitched battle between virtues and vices, which illustrates most ingeniously how vices tend to conflict with one another, but to combine against virtues. It also shows which vices are opposed to which virtues, how much strength vices can muster for a direct assault, what indirect tactics they employ, what help virtues need to overcome vices, what are the best methods of evading their attacks, and what ultimately determines the victory of one side or the other.

But here's a point that requires special attention, or you're liable to get the wrong idea. Since they only work a six-hour day, you may think there must be a shortage of essential goods. On the contrary, those six hours are enough, and more than enough to produce plenty of everything that's needed for a comfortable life. And you'll understand why it is, if you reckon up how large a proportion of the population in other countries is totally unemployed. First you have practically all the women—that gives you nearly fifty per cent for a start. And in countries where the women do work, the men tend to lounge about instead. Then there are all the priests, and members of so-called religious orders—how much work do they do? Add all the rich, especially the landowners, popularly known as nobles and gentlemen. Include their domestic staffs—I mean those gangs of armed ruffians that I mentioned before. Finally, throw in all the beggars who are perfectly hale and hearty, but pretend to be ill as an excuse for being lazy. When you've counted them up, you'll be surprised to find how few people actually produce what the human race consumes.

And now just think how few of these few people are doing essential work—for where money is the only standard of value, there are bound to be dozens of unnecessary trades carried on, which merely supply luxury goods or entertainment. Why, even if the existing labour force were distributed among the few trades really needed to make life reasonably comfortable, there'd be so much over-production that prices would fall too low for the workers to earn a living. Whereas, if you took all those engaged in non-essential trades, and all who are too lazy to work—each of whom consumes twice as much of the products of other people's labour as any of the producers themselves—if you put the whole lot of them on to something useful, you'd soon see how few hours' work a day would be amply sufficient to supply all the necessities and comforts of life—to which you might add all real and natural forms of pleasure.

But in Utopia the facts speak for themselves. There, out of all the able-bodied men and women who live in a town, or in the country round it, five hundred at the most are exempted from ordinary work. This includes the Stywards, who, though legally exempt, go on working voluntarily to set a good example. It also includes those who are permanently relieved of other duties so that they can concentrate on their studies. This privilege is only granted on the recommendation of the priests, confirmed by the Stywards in a secret ballot—and, if such a student produces disappointing results, he's sent back to the working class. On the other hand, it's not at all unusual for a manual worker to study so hard in his spare time, and make such good progress, that he's excused from practising his trade, and promoted to the intelligentsia.

This is the class from which the diplomats, priests, Bencheaters, and, of course, mayors are recruited. The old-fashioned word for a mayor, by the way, is Barzanes, though nowadays he's usually called a Nopeople. As hardly any other member of the population is either unemployed or non-productively employed, you can guess how much good work they get done in a few hours. Their labour problem is also reduced by the fact that they tackle essential jobs with more economy of effort than we do. For instance, the reason why the building trade usually absorbs so much labour is that people put up houses which their improvident heirs allow to tumble down. So the next generation has to start building all over again, which costs infinitely more than it would have cost to keep the original houses standing. In fact, what often happens is this: A builds a very expensive house, which then fails to satisfy B's fastidious taste. B therefore neglects it so badly that it's soon in ruins, and builds himself an equally expensive house elsewhere. But in Utopia, where everything's under state control, houses are very seldom built on entirely new sites, and repairs are carried out immediately they become necessary, if not before. Thus they achieve maximum durability with the minimum of labour, which means that builders sometimes have practically nothing to do. On such occasions they're sent home to saw up planks and get stones ready squared, so that if they do have to build anything it can go up all the faster.

Then think how much labour they save on clothes. Their working clothes are just loose-fitting leather overalls, which last for at least seven years. When they go about in public, they cover these rough garments with a sort of cloak, which is always the same colour—the natural colour of wool. Thus not only is their consumption of woollen fabric the lowest in the world, but so are their production costs for this material. Linen is even easier to produce, and therefore more often used—but, as long as the linen is white and the wool is clean, they don't care how fine or coarse the thread is. So whereas in other countries you won't find anyone satisfied with less than five or six suits and as many silk shirts, while dressy types want over ten of each, your Utopian is content with a single piece of clothing every two years. For why should he want more? They wouldn't make him any warmer—or any better looking.

With everybody doing useful work, and with such work reduced to a minimum, they build up such large reserves of everything that from time to time they can release a huge labour force to mend any roads which are in bad condition. And quite often, if there's nothing of that sort to be done, the authorities announce a shorter working day. They never force people to work unnecessarily, for the main purpose of their whole economy is to give each person as much time free from physical drudgery as the needs of the community will allow, so that he can cultivate his mind—which they regard as the secret of a happy life.

Now I'd better explain their social arrangements—how society is organized, how they behave towards one another, how goods are distributed, and so on. Well, the smallest social unit is the household, which is virtually synonymous with the family. When a girl grows up and gets married, she joins her husband's household, but the boys of each generation stay at home, under the control of their oldest male relative—unless he becomes senile, in which case the next oldest takes over.

Each town consists of six thousand households, not counting the country ones, and to keep the population fairly steady there's a law that no household shall contain less than ten or more than sixteen adults—as they can't very well fix a figure for children. This law is observed by simply moving supernumerary adults to smaller households. If the town as a whole gets too full, the surplus population is transferred to a town that's comparatively empty. If the whole island becomes over-populated, they tell off a certain number of people from each town to go and start a colony at the nearest point on the mainland where there's a large area that hasn't been cultivated by the local inhabitants. Such colonies are governed by the Utopians, but the natives are allowed to join in if they want to. When this happens, natives and colonists soon combine to form a single community with a single way of life, to the great advantage of both parties—for, under Utopian management, land which used to be thought incapable of producing anything for one lot of people produces plenty for two.

If the natives won't do what they're told, they're expelled from the area marked out for annexation. If they try to resist, the Utopians declare war—for they consider war perfectly justifiable, when one country denies another its natural right to derive nourishment from any soil which the original owners are not using themselves, but are merely holding on to as a worthless piece of property.

Should any town become so depopulated that it can't be brought up to strength by transfers from elsewhere on the island, without reducing the population of some other town below the prescribed minimum—a thing which is said to have happened only twice in their history, each time as the result of a violent epidemic—they recall colonists to fill the gap, on the principle that it's better to lose a colony than to weaken any part of Utopia itself.

But let's get back to their social organization. Each household, as I said, comes under the authority of the oldest male. Wives are subordinate to their husbands, children to their parents, and younger people generally to their elders. Every town is divided into four districts of equal size, each with its own shopping centre in the middle of it. There the products of every household are collected in warehouses, and then distributed according to type among various shops. When the head of a household needs anything for himself or his family, he just goes to one of these shops and asks for it. And whatever he asks for, he's allowed to take away without any sort of payment, either in money or in kind. After all, why shouldn't he? There's more than enough of everything to go round, so there's no risk of his asking for more than he needs—for why should anyone want to start hoarding, when he knows he'll never have to go short of anything? No living creature is naturally greedy, except from fear of want—or in the case of human beings, from vanity, the notion that you're better than people if you can display more superfluous property than they can. But there's no scope for that sort of thing in Utopia.

These shopping centres include provision markets, to which they take meat and fish, as well as bread, fruit and vegetables. But there are special places outside the town where all blood and dirt are first washed off in running water. The slaughtering of livestock and cleaning of carcasses are done by slaves. They don't let ordinary people get used to cutting up animals, because they think it tends to destroy one's natural feelings of humanity. It's also forbidden to bring anything dirty or unhygienic inside the town, for fear of polluting the atmosphere and so causing disease.

Every so often, as you walk down a street, you come to a large building, which has a special name of its own. That's where the Styward lives, and where his thirty households—fifteen from one direction and fifteen from the other—have their meals. The caterers for such dining-halls go off at a certain time each day to the provision market, where they report the number of people registered with them, and draw the appropriate rations.

But hospital patients get first priority—oh yes, there are four hospitals in the suburbs, just outside the walls. Each of them is about the size of a small town. The idea of this is to prevent overcrowding, and facilitate the isolation of infectious cases. These hospitals are so well run, and so well supplied with all types of medical equipment, the nurses are so sympathetic and conscientious, and there are so many experienced doctors constantly available, that, though nobody's forced to go there, practically everyone would rather be ill in hospital than at home.

However, once the caterers for the hospital have got what the doctors have ordered, all the best food that's left is divided equally among the dining-halls—that is, in proportion to the number registered at each—except that certain people receive preferential treatment, such as the Mayor, the Bishop, Bencheaters, and diplomats. The same applies to foreigners—not that there often are any; but, when there are, they're provided with special furnished accommodation.

At lunch-time and supper-time a bugle is blown, and the whole Sty assembles in the dining-hall—except for anyone who's in hospital or ill at home. However, you're quite at liberty to take food home from the market, once the dining-halls have been supplied, for everyone knows you wouldn't do it unless you had to. I mean, no one likes eating at home, although there's no rule against it. For one thing, it's considered rather bad form. For another, it seems silly to go to all the trouble of preparing an inferior meal, when there's an absolutely delicious one waiting for you at the dining-hall just down the street.

In these dining-halls all the rough and dirty work is done by slaves, but the actual business of preparing and cooking the food, and planning the menus, is left entirely to the women of the household on duty—for a different household is responsible for providing the meals every day. The rest of the adults sit at three tables or more, according to their numbers, with the men against the wall and the women on the outside—so that if they suddenly feel sick, as pregnant women do from time to time, they can get up without disturbing anyone else, and retire to the nursery.

By the nursery I mean a room reserved for nursing mothers and their babies, where there's always a good fire and plenty of clean water. There are also plenty of cots, so that mothers can either put their babies to bed, or, if they like, undress them and let them play in front of the fire. Babies are always breast-fed by their mothers, except when death or illness makes this impossible, in which case the Styward's wife takes immediate steps to find a wet-nurse. This presents no problem, for any woman who's in a position to do so will be only too glad to volunteer for the job. You see, such acts of mercy are universally admired, and the child itself will always regard her as its real mother.

The nursery is also the place where the under-fives have their meals. The other children, that is, all boys and girls who aren't old enough to be married, wait at table in the dining-room, or if they're too young for that, just stand there and keep absolutely quiet. In neither case do they have a separate meal-time—they're fed from the tables of the grown-ups.

The place of honour is the centre of the high table, which is on a platform across the end of the hall, and so commands a view of the whole company. Here sit the Styward and his wife, with two of the oldest residents—for the seating is always arranged in groups of four. If there happens to be a church in the Sty, the priest and his wife automatically take precedence, and sit with the Styward. On either side of them are four younger people, then four more older ones, and so on right round the hall. In other words, you sit with your contemporaries, but you're also made to mix with a different age group. The theory of this, I'm told, is that respect for the older generation tends to discourage bad behaviour among the younger ones—since everything they say or do is bound to be noticed by the people sitting just beside them.

When they're handing out food, they don't work straight along the table from one end to the other. They start by giving the best helpings to the older groups, whose places are clearly marked, and then serve equal portions to the others. However, if there's not enough of some particular delicacy to go round, the older ones share their helpings, as they think fit, with their neighbours. Thus the privilege of age is duly respected—but everyone gets just as much in the end.

Lunch and supper begin with a piece of improving literature read aloud—but they keep it quite short, so that nobody gets bored. Then the older people start discussing serious problems, but not in a humourless or depressing way. Nor do they monopolize the conversation throughout the meal. On the contrary, they enjoy listening to the young ones, and deliberately draw them out, so that they can gauge each person's character and intelligence, as they betray themselves in a relaxed, informal atmosphere.

Lunch is pretty short, because work comes after it, but over supper they rather spread themselves, since it's followed by a whole night's sleep, which they consider more conducive to sound digestion. During supper they always have music, and the meal ends with a great variety of sweets and fruit. They also burn incense, and spray the hall with scent. In fact, they do everything they can to make people enjoy themselves—for they're rather inclined to believe that all harmless pleasures are perfectly legitimate.

Well, that's what life is like in the towns. In the country, because of the greater distances involved, everyone eats at home. Of course, they have just as good food as they'd have in town—for they're the ones who produce what the town-dwellers eat.

Now about travel facilities. If you want to visit friends in some other town, or would simply like to see the town itself, you can easily get permission to go there, unless you're urgently needed at home, by applying to your Styward and your Bencheater. You'll be sent with a party of people travelling on a group passport, signed by the Mayor, which says when you've got to be back. You'll be offered some sort of vehicle, with a slave to drive the oxen and look after them—but, unless there are women in the party, most people find this more trouble than it's worth, and prefer to do without. You needn't take any luggage, for wherever you go you'll be equally at home, and able to get everything you want. If you stay in any place for more than twenty-four hours, you'll be expected to carry on with your ordinary work—and be welcomed with open arms by the other people who do it there.

If you're caught without a passport outside your own district, you're brought home in disgrace, and severely punished as a deserter. For a second offence the punishment is slavery. However, if you feel the urge to go wandering about the countryside near the town, there's nothing to stop your doing so, provided your father gives his permission, and your wife doesn't object. Of course, you won't be able to get a meal anywhere, until you've done either a morning's or an afternoon's work there—but, apart from that, you're free to go wherever you like within the territory of your own town, and you're just as useful a member of society as if you'd stayed at home.

You see how it is—wherever you are, you always have to work. There's never any excuse for idleness. There are also no wine-taverns, no ale-houses, no brothels, no opportunities for seduction, no secret meeting-places. Everyone has his eye on you, so you're practically forced to get on with your job, and make some proper use of your spare time.

Under such a system, there's bound to be plenty of everything, and, as everything is divided equally among the entire population, there obviously can't be any poor people or beggars. Each town, you remember, sends three representatives to the annual Lietalk, or Parliament, at Aircastle. There they collect details of the year's production, and as soon as it's clear which products are plentiful in each area, and which are in short supply, they arrange for a series of transfers to equalize distribution. These transfers are one-way transactions, requiring nothing in return—but in practice the free gifts that Town A makes to Town B are balanced by the free gifts that it receives from Town C. So the whole island is like one big household.

When they've made adequate provision for their own needs—which they don't consider they've done, until their reserves are big enough to last them for a year, no matter what happens during the next twelve months—the remainder is exported. Such exports include vast quantities of corn, honey, wool, flax, timber, scarlet and purple cloth, rawhide, wax, tallow, leather, and livestock. One seventh of their total exports to any country go as a free gift to the poor—the rest they sell at reasonable prices. This foreign trade not only pays for essential imports—which normally means just iron—but also brings in a great deal of money. In fact, over a long period they've built up incredibly large reserves of gold and silver. So nowadays they don't much care whether they sell for cash or on credit, and nearly all their trade is of the second kind. However, when giving credit, they're not content with private securities, but insist on having a legal contract signed, sealed, and delivered by the local authority of the importing area. When payment becomes due, this authority collects the money from the individuals concerned, puts it in the public funds, and enjoys the use of it until such time as the Utopians call it in—which they practically never do, for they think it unfair to deprive other people of anything that's useful to them, if one doesn't need it oneself.

However, if they find it necessary to lend part of this capital to another country, then they do ask for it back—and so they do in wartime, for war is the one thing they have in mind when accumulating all that wealth. You see, it's meant to protect them in the event of any major crisis or emergency. Its chief function is to provide colossal rates of pay for foreign mercenaries—whose lives they risk more willingly than their own. They're also well aware that even enemies can be bribed, if you offer them enough, to betray one another or start fighting among themselves. And that's the only reason why they keep such huge stocks of precious metals. Not that they regard them as precious. In fact, I hardly like to tell you how they do regard them, for fear you shouldn't believe me—a fear which seems all the more reasonable when I think how difficult I'd have found it to believe myself, if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. For things always sound incredible if they're remote from one's own habits of thought. Still, I suppose it's rather illogical to be surprised at the way they use silver and gold, considering how different all their other customs are from ours. I'm thinking particularly of the fact that they don't use money themselves, but merely keep it for use in an emergency which may or may not arise.

In the meantime silver and gold, the raw materials of money, get no more respect from anyone than their intrinsic value deserves—which is obviously far less than that of iron. Without iron human life is simply impossible, just as it is without fire or water—but we could easily do without silver and gold, if it weren't for the idiotic concept of scarcity-value. And yet kind Mother Nature has deliberately placed all her greatest blessings, like earth, air, and water, right under our noses, and tucked away out of sight the things that are no use to us.

Now if they locked these metals up in a strong-room, the man in the street might get some silly idea into his head—you know what a talent he has for that kind of thing—that the Mayor and the Bencheaters were cheating him, and somehow making a profit out of the stuff. It could, of course, be converted into ornamental bowls or other objets d'art. But then people would grow so fond of them that, if they ever had to melt them down and pay soldiers with them, it would be a terrible wrench.

To get around these difficulties, they've devised a system which, while perfectly consistent with their other conventions, is diametrically opposed to ours—especially to the way we treasure up gold. So you'll probably think it incredible, until you've actually seen it for yourselves. According to this system, plates and drinking-vessels, though beautifully designed, are made of quite cheap stuff like glass or earthenware. But silver and gold are the normal materials, in private houses as well as communal dining-halls, for the humblest items of domestic equipment, such as chamber-pots. They also use chains and fetters of solid gold to immobilize slaves, and anyone who commits a really shameful crime is forced to go about with gold rings on his ears and fingers, a gold necklace round his neck, and a crown of gold on his head. In fact they do everything they can to bring these metals into contempt. This means that if they suddenly had to part with all the gold and silver they possess—a fate which in any other country would be thought equivalent to having one's guts torn out—nobody in Utopia would care two hoots.

It's much the same with jewels. There are pearls to be found on the beaches, diamonds and garnets on certain types of rock—but they never bother to look for them. However, if they happen to come across one, they pick it up and polish it for some toddler to wear. At first, children are terribly proud of such jewellery—until they're old enough to register that it's only worn in the nursery. Then, without any prompting from their parents, but purely as a matter of self-respect, they give it up—just as our children grow out of things like dolls, and conkers, and lucky charms. This curious convention is liable to cause some equally curious reactions, as I realized most vividly in the case of the Flatulentine diplomats.

These diplomats visited Aircastle while I was there, and, as they were coming to discuss a matter of great importance, each town had sent its three Members of Parliament to meet them. Now all foreign diplomats who'd been there before had come from places just across the channel, and were therefore quite familiar with Utopian ideas. They knew it was a country where expensive clothes were not admired, silk was despised, and gold was a dirty word, so they'd dressed as simply as they could for the occasion. But these Flatulentines lived too far away to have had much contact with the Utopians. All they knew was that everyone in Utopia wore the same sort of clothes, and pretty crude ones at that—presumably because they'd nothing better to wear. So they adopted a policy more arrogant than diplomatic, which was to array themselves in positively godlike splendour, and dazzle the wretched Utopians with their magnificence.

When the legation arrived, it consisted of only three men, but these were escorted by a hundred retainers, all wearing multi-coloured clothes, mostly made of silk. As for the great men themselves—for they were great men in their own country—they wore cloth of gold, with great gold chains round their necks, gold ear-rings dangling from their ears, and gold rings on their fingers. Their very hats were festooned with glittering ropes of pearls and other jewels. In fact they were fully equipped with all the things used in Utopia for punishing slaves, humiliating criminals, or amusing small children.

Well, I wouldn't have missed it for anything. There were these three gentlemen, looking terribly pleased with themselves, as they compared their own appearance with that of the local inhabitants—for of course the streets were packed with people. And there was the actual effect that they were producing—so very unexpected and disappointing. You see, from the Utopians' point of view—apart from a few who'd had occasion to go abroad—all that splendour was merely degrading. So they reserved their most respectful greeting for the least distinguished members of the party, and completely ignored the diplomats themselves, assuming from their gold chains that they must be slaves.

Oh, but you should have seen the faces of the older children, who'd grown out of things like pearls and jewels, when they saw the ones on the envoys' hats. They kept nudging their mothers and whispering:

'I say, Mother, just look at that great baby! Fancy wearing jewellery at his age!'

To which the mother would reply, very seriously:

'Sh, dear! I imagine he must be a clown attached to the embassy.'

The gold chains also came in for a lot of criticism.

'I don't think much of that chain,' someone would say. 'It's so thin, the slave could easily break it. Besides, it's far too loose. He could wriggle out of it any time he liked, and run off scot-free!'

But when they'd been there for a day or two, the Flatulentines began to realize the situation. They saw that gold was plentiful, and held extremely cheap—in fact despised as heartily as they themselves admired it. They also noticed that a single runaway slave carried more silver and gold on his person than the three of them put together. So eventually they stopped trying to show off, and, feeling rather ashamed of themselves, abandoned all the finery that they'd been so proud of—especially after a few friendly talks with their hosts, which gave them some insight into local conventions and attitudes. For instance, the Utopians fail to understand why anyone should be so fascinated by the dull gleam of a tiny bit of stone, when he has all the stars in the sky to look at—or how anyone can be silly enough to think himself better than other people, because his clothes are made of finer woollen thread than theirs. After all, those fine clothes were once worn by a sheep, and they never turned it into anything better than a sheep.

Nor can they understand why a totally useless substance like gold should now, all over the world, be considered far more important than human beings, who gave it such value as it has, purely for their own convenience. The result is that a man with about as much mental agility as a lump of lead or a block of wood, a man whose utter stupidity is paralleled only by his immorality, can have lots of good, intelligent people at his beck and call, just because he happens to possess a large pile of gold coins. And if by some freak of fortune or trick of the law—two equally effective methods of turning things upside down—the said coins were suddenly transferred to the most worthless member of his domestic staff, you'd soon see the present owner trotting after his money, like an extra piece of currency, and becoming his own servant's servant. But what puzzles and disgusts the Utopians even more is the idiotic way some people have of practically worshipping a rich man, not because they owe him money or are otherwise in his power, but simply because he's rich—although they know perfectly well that he's far too mean to let a single penny come their way, so long as he's alive to stop it.

They get these ideas partly from being brought up under a social system which is directly opposed to that type of nonsense, and partly from their reading and education. Admittedly, no one's allowed to become a full-time student, except for the very few in each town who appear as children to possess unusual gifts, outstanding intelligence, and a special aptitude for academic research. But every child receives a primary education, and most men and women go on educating themselves all their lives during those free periods that I told you about. Everything's taught in their own language, for it has quite a rich vocabulary. It's also quite pleasant to listen to, and extremely expressive. People are beginning to speak it all over that part of the world—though always in a more or less debased form.

Until we arrived, they didn't even know the name of any famous European philosopher. And yet they'd discovered much the same principles, in music, logic, arithmetic, and geometry, as those early authorities of ours. But though in most things they're on a par with the Ancients, they're no match for the Moderns when it comes to logic. For instance, they've still failed to invent a single one of those rules about Restrictions, Amplifications, and Suppositions which have been so cleverly worked out in A Short Introduction to Logic, for all our schoolboys to learn by heart. And so far from being equal to investigating Second Intentions, they're even blind to the existence of that notorious Universal, M A N. Now he, as you know, is a pretty conspicuous figure, bigger than any giant you ever heard of—but, though we pointed him out quite clearly, none of them could see him.

On the other hand they're great experts in astronomy, and have invented several ingenious instruments for determining the precise positions and movements of the sun and moon, and of all other heavenly bodies visible in their hemisphere. But as for astrology—friendships and quarrels between the planets, fortune-telling by the stars, and all the rest of that humbug—they've never even dreamt of such a thing.

They've learnt by long experience to recognize the signs of approaching rain, wind, and other changes in the weather. But if you asked them to explain the theory of such phenomena, or to say why the sea is salt, or what causes tides, or to give a general account of the origin and nature of the universe, you'd get various different answers. Some of them would be in line with the views of our ancient philosophers. However, as these weren't always unanimous, you won't be surprised to hear that the Utopians have produced some entirely new theories of their own, which aren't wholly consistent with one another either.

In ethics they discuss the same problems as we do. Having distinguished between three types of 'good', psychological, physiological, and environmental, they proceed to ask whether the term is strictly applicable to all of them, or only to the first. They also argue about such things as virtue and pleasure. But their chief subject of dispute is the nature of human happiness—on what factor or factors does it depend? Here they seem rather too much inclined to take a hedonistic view, for according to them human happiness consists largely or wholly in pleasure. Surprisingly enough, they defend this self-indulgent doctrine by arguments drawn from religion—a thing normally associated with a more serious view of life, if not with gloomy asceticism. You see, in all their discussions of happiness they invoke certain religious principles to supplement the operations of reason, which they think otherwise ill-equipped to identify true happiness.

The first principle is that every soul is immortal, and was created by a kind God, Who meant it to be happy. The second is that we shall be rewarded or punished in the next world for our good or bad behaviour in this one. Although these are religious principles, the Utopians find rational grounds for accepting them. For suppose you didn't accept them? In that case, they say, any fool could tell you what you ought to do. You should go all out for your own pleasure, irrespective of right and wrong. You'd merely have to make sure that minor pleasures didn't interfere with major ones, and avoid the type of pleasure that has painful after-effects. For what's the sense of struggling to be virtuous, denying yourself the pleasant things of life, and deliberately making yourself uncomfortable, if there's nothing you hope to gain by it? And what can you hope to gain by it, if you receive no compensation after death for a thoroughly unpleasant, that is, a thoroughly miserable life?

Not that they identify happiness with every type of pleasure—only with the higher ones. Nor do they identify it with virtue—unless they belong to a quite different school of thought. According to the normal view, happiness is the summum bonum towards which we're naturally impelled by virtue—which in their definition means following one's natural impulses, as God meant us to do. But this includes obeying the instinct to be reasonable in our likes and dislikes. And reason also teaches us, first to love and reverence Almighty God, to Whom we owe our existence and our potentiality for happiness, and secondly to get through life as comfortably and cheerfully as we can, and help all other members of our species to do so too.

The fact is, even the sternest ascetic tends to be slightly inconsistent in his condemnation of pleasure. He may sentence you to a life of hard labour, inadequate sleep, and general discomfort, but he'll also tell you to do your best to ease the pains and privations of others. He'll regard all such attempts to improve the human situation as laudable acts of humanity—for obviously nothing could be more humane, or more natural for a human being, than to relieve other people's sufferings, put an end to their miseries, and restore their joie de vivre, that is, their capacity for pleasure. So why shouldn't it be equally natural to do the same thing for oneself?

Either it's a bad thing to enjoy life, in other words, to experience pleasure—in which case you shouldn't help anyone to do it, but should try to save the whole human race from such a frightful fate—or else, if it's good for other people, and you're not only allowed, but positively obliged to make it possible for them, why shouldn't charity begin at home? After all, you've a duty to yourself as well as to your neighbour, and, if Nature says you must be kind to others, she can't turn round the next moment and say you must be cruel to yourself. The Utopians therefore regard the enjoyment of life—that is, pleasure—as the natural object of all human efforts, and natural, as they define it, is synonymous with virtuous. However, Nature also wants us to help one another to enjoy life, for the very good reason that no human being has a monopoly of her affections. She's equally anxious for the welfare of every member of the species. So of course she tells us to make quite sure that we don't pursue our own interests at the expense of other people's.

On this principle they think it right to keep one's promises in private life, and also to obey public laws for regulating the distribution of 'goods'—by which I mean the raw materials of pleasure—provided such laws have been properly made by a wise ruler, or passed by common consent of a whole population, which has not been subjected to any form of violence or deception. Within these limits they say it's sensible to consult one's own interests, and a moral duty to consult those of the community as well. It's wrong to deprive someone else of a pleasure so that you can enjoy one yourself, but to deprive yourself of a pleasure so that you can add to someone else's enjoyment is an act of humanity by which you always gain more than you lose. For one thing, such benefits are usually repaid in kind. For another, the mere sense of having done somebody a kindness, and so earned his affection and good will, produces a spiritual satisfaction which far outweighs the loss of a physical one. And lastly—a belief that comes easily to a religious mind—God will reward us for such small sacrifices of momentary pleasure, by giving us an eternity of perfect joy. Thus they argue that, in the final analysis, pleasure is the ultimate happiness which all human beings have in view, even when they're acting most virtuously.

Pleasure they define as any state or activity, physical or mental, which is naturally enjoyable. The operative word is naturally. According to them, we're impelled by reason as well as an instinct to enjoy ourselves in any natural way which doesn't hurt other people, interfere with greater pleasures, or cause unpleasant after-effects. But human beings have entered into an idiotic conspiracy to call some things enjoyable which are naturally nothing of the kind—as though facts were as easily changed as definitions. Now the Utopians believe that, so far from contributing to happiness, this type of thing makes happiness impossible—because, once you get used to it, you lose all capacity for real pleasure, and are merely obsessed by illusory forms of it. Very often these have nothing pleasant about them at all—in fact, most of them are thoroughly disagreeable. But they appeal so strongly to perverted tastes that they come to be reckoned not only among the major pleasures of life, but even among the chief reasons for living.

In the category of illusory pleasure-addicts they include the kind of person I mentioned before, who thinks himself better than other people because he's better dressed than they are. Actually he's just as wrong about his clothes as he is about himself. From a practical point of view, why is it better to be dressed in fine woollen thread than in coarse? But he's got it into his head that fine thread is naturally superior, and that wearing it somehow increases his own value. So he feels entitled to far more respect than he'd ever dare to hope for, if he were less expensively dressed, and is most indignant if he fails to get it.

Talking of respect, isn't it equally idiotic to attach such importance to a lot of empty gestures which do nobody any good? For what real pleasure can you get out of the sight of a bared head or a bent knee? Will it cure the rheumatism in your own knee, or make you any less weak in the head? Of course, the great believers in this type of artificial pleasure are those who pride themselves on their 'nobility'. Nowadays that merely means that they happen to belong to a family which has been rich for several generations, preferably in landed property. And yet they feel every bit as 'noble' even if they've failed to inherit any of the said property, or if they have inherited it and then frittered it all away.

Then there's another type of person I mentioned before, who has a passion for jewels, and feels practically superhuman if he manages to get hold of a rare one, especially if it's a kind that's considered particularly precious in his country and period—for the value of such things varies according to where and when you live. But he's so terrified of being taken in by appearances that he refuses to buy any jewel until he's stripped off all the gold and inspected it in the nude. And even then he won't buy it without a solemn assurance and a written guarantee from the jeweller that the stone is genuine. But my dear sir, why shouldn't a fake give you just as much pleasure, if you can't, with your own eyes, distinguish it from a real one? It makes no difference to you whether it's genuine or not—any more than it would to a blind man!

And now, what about those people who accumulate superfluous wealth, for no better purpose than to enjoy looking at it? Is their pleasure a real one, or merely a form of delusion? The opposite type of psychopath buries his gold, so that he'll never be able to use it, and may never even see it again. In fact, he deliberately loses it in his anxiety not to lose it—for what can you call it but lost, when it's put back into the earth, where it's no good to him, or probably to anyone else? And yet he's tremendously happy when he's got it stowed away. Now, apparently, he can stop worrying. But suppose the money is stolen, and ten years later he dies without ever knowing it has gone. Then for a whole ten years he has managed to survive his loss, and during that period what difference has it made to him whether the money was there or not? It was just as little use to him either way.

Among stupid pleasures they include not only gambling—a form of idiocy that they've heard about but never practised—but also hunting and hawking. What on earth is the fun, they ask, of throwing dice on to a table? Besides, you've done it so often that, even if there was some fun in it at first, you must surely be sick of it by now. How can you possibly enjoy listening to anything so disagreeable as the barking and howling of dogs? And why is it more amusing to watch a dog chasing a hare than to watch one dog chasing another? In each case the essential activity is running—if running is what amuses you. But if it's really the thought of being in at the death, and seeing an animal torn to pieces before your eyes, wouldn't pity be a more appropriate reaction to the sight of a weak, timid, harmless little creature like a hare being devoured by something so much stronger and fiercer?

So the Utopians consider hunting below the dignity of free men, and leave it entirely to butchers, who are, as I told you, slaves. In their view hunting is the vilest department of butchery, compared with which all the others are relatively useful and honourable. An ordinary butcher slaughters livestock far more sparingly, and only because he has to, whereas a hunter kills and mutilates poor little creatures purely for his own amusement. They say you won't find that type of blood-lust even among animals, unless they're particularly savage by nature, or have become so by constantly being used for this cruel sport.

There are hundreds of things like that, which are generally regarded as pleasures, but everyone in Utopia is quite convinced that they've got nothing to do with real pleasure, because there's nothing naturally enjoyable about them. Nor is this conviction at all shaken by the argument that most people do actually enjoy them, which would seem to indicate an appreciable pleasure-content. They say this is a purely subjective reaction caused by bad habits, which can make a person prefer unpleasant things to pleasant ones, just as pregnant women sometimes lose their sense of taste, and find suet or turpentine more delicious than honey. But however much one's judgement may be impaired by habit or ill health, the nature of pleasure, as of everything else, remains unchanged.

Real pleasures they divide into two categories, mental and physical. Mental pleasures include the satisfaction that one gets from understanding something, or from contemplating truth. They also include the memory of a well-spent life, and the confident expectation of good things to come. Physical pleasures are subdivided into two types. First there are those which fill the whole organism with a conscious sense of enjoyment. This may be the result of replacing physical substances which have been burnt up by the natural heat of the body, as when we eat or drink. Or else it may be caused by the discharge of some excess, as in excretion, sexual intercourse, or any relief of irritation by rubbing or scratching. However, there are also pleasures which satisfy no organic need, and relieve no previous discomfort. They merely act, in a mysterious but quite unmistakable way, directly on our senses, and monopolize their reactions. Such is the pleasure of music.

Their second type of physical pleasure arises from the calm and regular functioning of the body—that is, from a state of health undisturbed by any minor ailments. In the absence of mental discomfort, this gives one a good feeling, even without the help of external pleasures. Of course, it's less ostentatious, and forces itself less violently on one's attention than the cruder delights of eating and drinking, but even so it's often considered the greatest pleasure in life. Practically everyone in Utopia would agree that it's a very important one, because it's the basis of all the others. It's enough by itself to make you enjoy life, and unless you have it, no other pleasure is possible. However, mere freedom from pain, without positive health, they would call not pleasure but anaesthesia.

Some thinkers used to maintain that a uniformly tranquil state of health couldn't properly be termed a pleasure since its presence could only be detected by contrast with its opposite—oh yes, they went very thoroughly into the whole question. But that theory was exploded long ago, and nowadays nearly everybody subscribes to the view that health is most definitely a pleasure. The argument goes like this—illness involves pain, which is the direct opposite of pleasure, and illness is the direct opposite of health, therefore health involves pleasure. They don't think it matters whether you say that illness is or merely involves pain. Either way it comes to the same thing. Similarly, whether health is a pleasure, or merely produces pleasure as inevitably as fire produces heat, it's equally logical to assume that where you have an uninterrupted state of health you cannot fail to have pleasure.

Besides, they say, when we eat something, what really happens is this. Our failing health starts fighting off the attacks of hunger, using the food as an ally. Gradually it begins to prevail, and, in this very process of winning back its normal strength, experiences the sense of enjoyment which we find so refreshing. Now, if health enjoys the actual battle, why shouldn't it also enjoy the victory? Or are we to suppose that when it has finally managed to regain its former vigour—the one thing that it has been fighting for all this time—it promptly falls into a coma, and fails to notice or take advantage of its success? As for the idea that one isn't conscious of health except through its opposite, they say that's quite untrue. Everyone's perfectly aware of feeling well, unless he's asleep or actually feeling ill. Even the most insensitive and apathetic sort of person will admit that it's delightful to be healthy—and what is delight, but a synonym for pleasure?

They're particularly fond of mental pleasures, which they consider of primary importance, and attribute mostly to good behaviour and a clear conscience. Their favourite physical pleasure is health. Of course, they believe in enjoying food, drink, and so forth, but purely in the interests of health, for they don't regard such things as very pleasant in themselves—only as methods of resisting the stealthy onset of disease. A sensible person, they say, prefers keeping well to taking medicine, and would rather feel cheerful than have people trying to comfort him. On the same principle it's better not to need this type of pleasure than to become addicted to it. For, if you think that sort of thing will make you happy, you'll have to admit that your idea of perfect felicity would be a life consisting entirely of hunger, thirst, itching, eating, drinking, rubbing, and scratching—which would obviously be most unpleasant as well as quite disgusting. Undoubtedly these pleasures should come right at the bottom of the list, because they're so impure. For instance, the pleasure of eating is invariably diluted with the pain of hunger, and not in equal proportions either—for the pain is both more intense and more prolonged. It starts before the pleasure, and doesn't stop until the pleasure has stopped too.

So they don't think much of pleasures like that, except in so far as they're necessary. But they enjoy them all the same, and feel most grateful to Mother Nature for encouraging her children to do things that have to be done so often, by making them so attractive. For just think how dreary life would be, if those chronic ailments, hunger and thirst, could only be cured by foul-tasting medicines, like the rarer types of disease!

They attach great value to special natural gifts such as beauty, strength, and agility. They're also keen on the pleasures of sight, hearing, and smell, which are peculiar to human beings—for no other species admires the beauty of the world, enjoys any sort of scent, except as a method of locating food, or can tell the difference between a harmony and a discord. They say these things give a sort of relish to life.

However, in all such matters they observe the rule that minor pleasures mustn't interfere with major ones, and that pleasure mustn't cause pain—which they think is bound to happen, if the pleasure is immoral. But they'd never dream of despising their own beauty, overtaxing their strength, converting their agility into inertia, ruining their physique by going without food, damaging their health, or spurning any other of Nature's gifts, unless they were doing it for the benefit of other people or of society, in the hope of receiving some greater pleasure from God in return. For they think it's quite absurd to torment oneself in the name of an unreal virtue, which does nobody any good, or in order to steel oneself against disasters which may never occur. They say such behaviour is merely self-destructive, and shows a most ungrateful attitude towards Nature—as if one refused all her favours, because one couldn't bear the thought of being indebted to her for anything.

Well, that's their ethical theory, and short of some divine revelation, they doubt if the human mind is capable of devising a better one. We've no time to discuss whether it's right or wrong—nor is it really necessary, for all I undertook was to describe their way of life, not to defend it.

But one thing I'm quite sure of. Whatever you may think of their doctrines, you won't find a more prosperous country or a more splendid lot of people anywhere on earth. Physically, they're very active, full of energy, and stronger than their height would suggest—though you couldn't call them exactly short. Their land isn't always very fertile, and their climate's not too good, but by a well-balanced diet they build up their resistance to bad weather conditions, and by careful cultivation they correct the deficiencies of the soil. The result is that they've beaten all records for the production of corn and livestock, their expectation of life is the highest in the world, and their disease-rate the lowest. Thus, by scientific methods, they've done wonders with a country that's naturally rather barren. Not that their talents are confined to ordinary farming. You'll also find them uprooting whole forests and replanting them elsewhere, not to increase the yield, but to facilitate the transport of timber, by bringing it nearer to the sea, or to a river, or to a town—for it's not so easy to carry timber long distances by roads as corn. The people themselves are friendly and intelligent, with a good sense of humour. Though fond of relaxation, they're capable of hard physical work when necessary. Otherwise they don't much care for it—but they never get tired of using their brains.

When I told them about Greek literature and philosophy—for I didn't think there was anything in Latin that they'd like very much—they became extraordinarily anxious to study the original texts, under my tuition. So I started giving them lessons, at first merely because I didn't like to refuse, rather than from any hope of getting good results. But I soon realized that with such hardworking pupils my own efforts wouldn't be wasted. They had so little difficulty with the letters and pronunciation, learned things so quickly by heart and repeated them so accurately, that I'd have thought it quite miraculous, if I hadn't known that everyone who'd volunteered for the course, and got permission from the Council to join it, was a mature scholar of outstanding intelligence. So in less than three years they knew the language perfectly, and, apart from corruptions in the text, there was nothing to stop them from reading straight through any good author.

My own guess is that Greek somehow came naturally to them, and that's why they found it so easy to learn. You see, I can't help thinking they must be of Greek extraction, since their language, though otherwise more like Persian, contains some traces of Greek in place-names and official titles. I presented them with several Greek texts—for when I started out on the fourth voyage I didn't intend to come back for a very long time, if at all, so, instead of packing a lot of things to sell, I took on board a pretty large trunk full of books. I gave them most of Plato, even more of Aristotle, and Theophrastus's work on botany—but this, I'm sorry to say, was in rather poor condition, as I'd carelessly left it lying around while we were at sea, and a monkey had got hold of it. He'd amused himself by playfully ripping out odd pages here and there, and tearing them to pieces. The only grammar I could let them have was the one by Lascaris, for I hadn't brought my Theodorus with me, and their only dictionaries are those of Hesychius and Dioscorides. They've also got Plutarch, who is their favourite author, and Lucian, whom they find delightfully entertaining. The poets are represented by Aristophanes, Homer, and Euripides—oh yes, and Sophocles—in the miniature Aldine edition, and the historians by Thucydides and Herodotus, not to mention Herodianus.

My friend Tommy Rot had also brought some medical text-books with him, a few short works by Hippocrates, and Galen's Handbook. The Utopians think very highly of them, for, though nobody in the world needs medicine less than they do, nobody has more respect for it. They consider it one of the most interesting and important departments of science—and, as they see it, the scientific investigation of nature is not only a most enjoyable process, but also the best possible method of pleasing the Creator. For they assume that He has the normal reactions of an artist. Having put the marvellous system of the universe on show for human beings to look at—since no other species is capable of taking it in—He must prefer the type of person who examines it carefully, and really admires His work, to the type that just ignores it and like the lower animals remains quite unimpressed by the whole astonishing spectacle.

By applying their trained intelligence to scientific research, they've become amazingly good at inventing things that are useful in everyday life. Two inventions, however, they owe to us—though even there much of the credit should go to them. For the moment we showed them some books that Aldus had printed, and talked a bit about printing and paper-making—we couldn't explain them properly, as none of us knew much about either process—they immediately made a shrewd guess how the things were done. Up till then they'd only produced skin, bark, or papyrus manuscripts, but now they instantly started to manufacture paper, and print from type. At first they weren't too successful, but after repeated experiments they soon mastered both techniques so thoroughly that, if it weren't for the shortage of original texts, they could have all the Greek books they wanted. As it is, they have only the works I mentioned, but of these they've already printed and published several thousand copies.

They welcome foreign tourists with open arms, if they've any special talents to recommend them, or have done a lot of travelling and know about many different countries. That's why they were so glad to see us, for they love hearing what goes on in other parts of the world. But traders don't often call there, for apart from gold and silver, which most traders would rather take home with them, the Utopians import nothing but iron. As for their own export trade, they prefer to deliver things themselves than have people come and fetch them, as this gives them more experience of the outside world, and more practice in navigation.

By the way, the slaves that I've occasionally referred to are not, as you might imagine, non-combatant prisoners-of-war, slaves by birth, or purchases from foreign slave markets. They're either Utopian convicts or, much more often, condemned criminals from other countries, who are acquired in large numbers, sometimes for a small payment, but usually for nothing. Both types of slaves are kept hard at work in chaingangs, though Utopians are treated worse than foreigners. The idea is that it's all the more deplorable if a person who has had the advantage of a first-rate education and a thoroughly moral upbringing still insists on becoming a criminal—so the punishment should be all the more severe.

Another type of slave is the working-class foreigner who, rather than live in wretched poverty at home, volunteers for slavery in Utopia. Such people are treated with respect, and with almost as much kindness as Utopian citizens, except that they're made to work harder, because they're used to it. If they want to leave the country, which doesn't often happen, they're perfectly free to do so, and receive a small gratuity.

As I told you, when people are ill, they're looked after most sympathetically, and given everything in the way of medicine or special food that could possibly assist their recovery. In the case of permanent invalids, the nurses try to make them feel better by sitting and talking to them, and do all they can to relieve their symptoms. But if, besides being incurable, the disease also causes constant excruciating pain, some priests and government officials visit the person concerned, and say something like this:

'Let's face it, you'll never be able to live a normal life. You're just a nuisance to other people and a burden to yourself—in fact you're really leading a sort of posthumous existence. So why go on feeding germs? Since your life's a misery to you, why hesitate to die? You're imprisoned in a torture-chamber—why don't you break out and escape to a better world? Or say the word, and we'll arrange for your release. It's only common sense to cut your losses. It's also an act of piety to take the advice of a priest, because he speaks for God.'

If the patient finds these arguments convincing, he either starves himself to death, or is given a soporific and put painlessly out of his misery. But this is strictly voluntary, and, if he prefers to stay alive, everyone will go on treating him as kindly as ever. Officially sanctioned euthanasia is regarded as an honourable death—but if you commit suicide for reasons which the priests and the Bencheaters do not consider adequate, you forfeit all rights to either burial or cremation, and your body is just thrown unceremoniously into a pond.

Girls aren't allowed to marry until they're eighteen—boys have to wait four years longer. Any boy or girl convicted of premarital intercourse is severely punished, and permanently disqualified from marrying, unless this sentence is remitted by the Mayor. The man and woman in charge of the household in which it happens are also publicly disgraced, for not doing their jobs properly. The Utopians are particularly strict about that kind of thing, because they think very few people would want to get married—which means spending one's whole life with the same person, and putting up with all the inconveniences that this involves—if they weren't carefully prevented from having any sexual intercourse otherwise.

When they're thinking of getting married, they do something that seemed to us quite absurd, though they take it very seriously. The prospective bride, no matter whether she's a spinster or a widow, is exhibited stark naked to the prospective bridegroom by a respectable married woman, and a suitable male chaperon shows the bridegroom naked to the bride. When we implied by our laughter that we thought it a silly system, they promptly turned the joke against us.

'What we find so odd,' they said, 'is the silly way these things are arranged in other parts of the world. When you're buying a horse, and there's nothing at stake but a small sum of money, you take every possible precaution. The animal's practically naked already, but you firmly refuse to buy until you've whipped off the saddle and all the rest of the harness, to make sure there aren't any sores underneath. But when you're choosing a wife, an article that for better or worse has got to last you a lifetime, you're unbelievably careless. You don't even bother to take it out of its wrappings. You judge the whole woman from a few square inches of face, which is all you can see of her, and then proceed to marry her—at the risk of finding her most disagreeable, when you see what she's really like. No doubt you needn't worry, if moral character is the only thing that interests you—but we're not all as wise as that, and even those who are sometimes find, when they get married, that a beautiful body can be quite a useful addition to a beautiful soul. Certainly those wrappings may easily conceal enough ugliness to destroy a husband's feelings for his wife, when it's too late for a physical separation. Of course, if she turns ugly after the wedding, he must just resign himself to his fate—but one does need some legal protection against marriage under false pretences!'

In their case, some such precautions are particularly necessary, since unlike all their neighbours they're strictly monogamous. Most married couples are parted only by death, except in the case of adultery or intolerably bad behaviour, when the innocent party may get permission from the Council to marry someone else—the guilty party is disgraced, and condemned to celibacy for life. But in no circumstances can a man divorce his wife simply because, through no fault of her own, she has deteriorated physically. Quite apart from the cruelty of deserting a person at the very time when she most needs sympathy, they think that, if this sort of thing were allowed, there'd be no security whatever for old age, which not only brings many diseases with it, but is really a disease in itself.

Occasionally, though, divorce by mutual consent is allowed on grounds of incompatibility, when both husband and wife have found alternative partners that seem likely to make them happier. But this requires special permission, which can only be got after a thorough investigation by the Bencheaters and their wives. Even then they're rather reluctant to give it, for they think there's nothing less calculated to strengthen the marriage tie than the prospect of easy divorce.

Adulterers are sentenced to penal servitude of the most unpleasant type. If both offenders are married, their injured partners may, if they like, obtain a divorce and marry one another, or anyone else they choose. But if they continue to love their undeserving mates, they're allowed to stay married to them, provided they're willing to share their working conditions. In such cases the Mayor is sometimes so touched by the guilty party's remorse and the innocent party's loyalty that he lets them both go free. But a second conviction means capital punishment.

Otherwise there are no fixed penalties prescribed by law—the Council decides in each case what sentence is appropriate. Husbands are responsible for punishing their wives, and parents for punishing their children, unless the offence is so serious that it has to be dealt with by the authorities, in the interests of public morality. The normal penalty for any major crime is slavery. They say it's just as unpleasant for the criminals as capital punishment, and more useful to society than getting rid of them right away, since live workers are more valuable than dead ones, and have a more prolonged deterrent effect. However, if convicts prove recalcitrant under this treatment, and don't respond to any sort of prison discipline, they're just slaughtered like wild beasts. But the prospects of those who accept the situation aren't absolutely hopeless. If, after being tamed by years of hardship, they show signs of feeling really sorry, not merely for themselves, but for what they've done, their sentence is either reduced or cancelled altogether, sometimes at the discretion of the Mayor, and sometimes by a general plebiscite.

Attempted seduction is punished no less severely than actual seduction. The same applies to every other type of offence—anyone who deliberately tries to commit a crime is legally assumed to have committed it. It's no fault of his, they argue, that he didn't bring it off, so why give him credit for his failure?

They're extremely fond of people who are mentally deficient and, though it's considered very bad form to insult them, it's quite in order to find their silly behaviour amusing. In fact, it's thought better for them that you should, for, if you haven't enough sense of humour to see anything funny about the things they say and do, you're obviously not the right person to look after them. I mean, if you don't value them even as a source of entertainment, which is the only thing they're good for, you won't treat them kindly enough.

But if you start laughing at anyone who's ugly or deformed everyone will start laughing at you. You'll have made an awful fool of yourself by implying that people are to blame for things they can't help—for, although one's thought very lazy if one doesn't try to preserve one's natural beauty, the Utopians strongly disapprove of make-up. Actually, they've found by experience that what husbands look for in their wives is not so much physical beauty, as modesty and a respectful attitude towards themselves. A pretty face may be enough to catch a man, but it takes character and good nature to hold him.

The Utopian system includes not only deterrents from crime, but also incentives to good behaviour in the form of public honours. For instance, they put up statues in the market-place of people who've distinguished themselves by outstanding services to the community, partly to commemorate their achievements, and partly to spur on future generations to greater efforts, by reminding them of the glory of their ancestors. But anyone who deliberately tries to get himself elected to a public office is permanently disqualified from holding one. Social relations are uniformly friendly, for officials are never pompous or intimidating in their manner. They're normally addressed as 'Father', and that's how they behave. Everyone treats them with proper respect, but nobody's forced to do so. Even the Mayor himself wears perfectly ordinary clothes, without any special headdress. His only badge of office is a bunch of corn that he carries—just as a Bishop carries a taper.

They have very few laws, because, with their social system, very few laws are required. Indeed, one of their great complaints against other countries is that, although they've already got books and books of laws and interpretations of laws, they never seem to have enough. For, according to the Utopians, it's quite unjust for anyone to be bound by a legal code which is too long for an ordinary person to read right through, or too difficult for him to understand. What's more, they have no barristers to be over-ingenious about individual cases and points of law. They think it better for each man to plead his own cause, and tell the judge the same story as he'd otherwise tell his lawyer. Under such conditions, the point at issue is less likely to be obscured, and it's easier to get at the truth—for, if nobody's telling the sort of lies that one learns from lawyers, the judge can apply all his shrewdness to weighing the facts of the case, and protecting simple-minded characters against the unscrupulous attacks of clever ones.

This arrangement wouldn't work very well in other countries, because there's such a mass of complicated legislation to deal with. But in Utopia everyone's a legal expert, for the simple reason that there are, as I said, very few laws, and the crudest interpretation is always assumed to be the right one. They say the only purpose of a law is to remind people what they ought to do, so the more ingenious the interpretation, the less effective the law, since proportionately fewer people will understand it—whereas the simple and obvious meaning stares everyone in the face. From the point of view of the lower orders, who form the largest section of the community, and are most in need of such reminders, you might just as well not make a law at all, as make one and then interpret it in a sense that can only be established after a lot of clever argument—for the ordinary person who's busy earning his living hasn't either the time or the mental capacity for that type of research.

Because of their many good qualities, the Utopians are asked by several of their neighbours to supply them with government officials, some on an annual and some on a quinquennial basis. Of course, this only happens where the people are free to make their own decisions—but the Utopians liberated most of the countries round them from dictatorships long ago. When their tour of duty expires, these officials are repatriated with every mark of honour and esteem, and replaced by other Utopians. It's certainly a very wise move on the part of the countries concerned, for the welfare of a state depends entirely on the quality of its administrators, and the Utopians are obviously ideal for the job. They can't be bribed to do anything dishonest, as they'll soon be going home, where money is no use to them. And as they don't know any of the local inhabitants, they're never tempted by private likes or dislikes to make a wrong decision. These qualifications are particularly important for a judge, because personal prejudice and financial greed are the two great evils that threaten courts of law, and once they get the upper hand they immediately hamstring society, by destroying all justice.

When the Utopians talk about their 'allies' they mean these countries which they supply with administrators. 'Friendly powers' are countries that they've helped in any other way. But they never make any actual treaties of the kind that are so constantly being made, broken, and renewed by other nations. What, they ask, is the good of a treaty? Aren't all human beings natural allies already? And if a person's prepared to ignore a fundamental bond like that, is he likely to pay much attention to a mere form of words? They take this view mainly because, in their part of the world, kings aren't very scrupulous about observing pacts and agreements. In Europe, of course, especially the Christian parts of it, treaties are universally regarded as sacred and inviolate, partly because our kings are so good and just themselves, and partly because they're so much in awe of the Popes. They, as we know, not only discharge their own obligations most religiously, but command all other rulers to keep their promises whatever happens, and administer stern pastoral rebukes to any who fail to do so. They evidently think, quite rightly, that it looks extremely bad for the so-called 'faithful' to break faith in such matters.

But in their part of the world, which is diametrically opposed to ours, no less in a social and moral than in a geographical sense, you can't rely on treaties at all. The more solemnly they're made, the sooner they're violated, by the simple process of discovering some loophole in the wording. Indeed, such loopholes are often incorporated deliberately in the original text, so that, no matter how binding one's commitments appear to be, one can always wriggle out of them, thus breaking both treaty and faith simultaneously. The fact is, such diplomacy is downright dishonest. If the very people who pride themselves on suggesting such tricks to their rulers found the same sort of thing going on in connection with a private contract, they'd be the first to denounce it, in shrill, self-righteous tones, as sacrilegious and criminal. The implication seems to be that honesty is a low plebeian virtue, far beneath the dignity of royalty—or at least that there are two kinds of honesty. One is suitable for ordinary people, a plodding hack which is kept securely tethered, so that it can't go leaping any fences. The other, reserved for kings, is a far nobler animal which enjoys far greater freedom—for it's allowed to do exactly what it likes.

Anyway, that's how kings behave out there, and that, as I was saying, is presumably why the Utopians make no treaties. Perhaps if they lived in Europe they'd change their minds—though actually they disapprove of treaties on principle, however scrupulously they're observed. They say treaties make people regard one another as natural enemies. The mere fact of living on different sides of a small hill or river is supposed to sever all ties of humanity, and justify two nations in trying to destroy each other, unless there's a special treaty to forbid it. And even if there is such a treaty, it still doesn't mean that they're friends, for they always retain the right to rob one another, in so far as the drafters of the treaty have carelessly failed to include enough provisions to the contrary. The Utopians take precisely the opposite view. They think no one should be regarded as an enemy who hasn't done you any harm. Human nature constitutes a treaty in itself, and human beings are far more effectively united by kindness than by contracts, by feelings than by words.

And that brings us to the subject of war. Well, fighting is a thing they absolutely loathe. They say it's a quite subhuman form of activity, although human beings are more addicted to it than any of the lower animals. In fact, the Utopians are practically the only people on earth who fail to see anything glorious in war. Of course, both sexes are given military training at regular intervals, so that they won't be incapable of fighting if they ever have to do it. But they hardly ever go to war, except in self-defence, to repel invaders from friendly territory, or to liberate the victims of dictatorship—which they do in a spirit of humanity, just because they feel sorry for them. However, they give military support to 'friendly powers', not only in defensive wars, but also in attempts to make reprisals for acts of aggression. This is always on condition that they're consulted well in advance, that they think the casus belli adequate, that compensation has been demanded and refused, and that the control of operations is left entirely to them. Their idea of an adequate casus belli includes more than robbery by force of arms. They take even stronger action to protect the rights of traders who are subjected to any kind of legal injustice in foreign countries, either as a result of unfair laws, or of fair ones deliberately misinterpreted.

That's how the war with Blindland started, a little before our time. The Utopians gave military aid to the Cloudians, because some Cloudian businessmen operating in Blindland had been the victims of some sort of legal fraud—or so the Utopians thought. Whether they were right or wrong, the result was a major war, for the bitterness of the original conflict was stepped up by the intervention of all the surrounding countries. By the time it was over, the strength of several great powers had been shattered, and others had sustained crippling losses. As for the Blindlanders, after a series of disasters they finally had to give in. The Utopians got nothing out of it—their motives were quite disinterested throughout—but the Blindlanders became the slaves of the Cloudians, who in the old days had been no match for them at all.

So you see how quick the Utopians are to avenge injuries done to their friends, even in money matters. But they're far more tolerant of injuries done to themselves. If a Utopian trader is cheated out of his goods, but suffers no physical injury, the strongest action they take is to suspend trade relations with the country concerned, until they receive compensation. Not that they care less about their own people—it's just that members of other nations are far more vulnerable to fraud, since it means the loss of their own private property, whereas a Utopian in similar circumstances loses nothing whatever. The loss is borne by the state. Besides, any goods lost are surplus to home requirements, or they'd never have been exported. So nobody feels any the worse for it—and they think it would be cruel to kill large numbers of people in revenge for something which hasn't made the slightest difference to the life or the livelihood of a single Utopian. But they take a very different line if one of their citizens is physically disabled or killed, either by a foreign government or by an individual foreigner. The moment they get news of such an incident through diplomatic channels, they immediately declare war. No form of appeasement has any effect, except the surrender of the people responsible—in which case they're sentenced to death or slavery.

They don't like bloody victories—in fact they feel ashamed of them, for they consider it stupid to pay too high a price for anything, however valuable it is. What they're really proud of is outwitting the enemy. They celebrate any success of this kind by a triumphal procession, and by putting up a trophy, as for some feat of heroism. You see, their idea of quitting themselves like men is to achieve victory by means of something which only man possesses, that is, by the power of the intellect. They say any animal can fight with its body—bears, lions, boars, wolves, dogs can all do it, and most of them are stronger and fiercer than we are—but what raises us above them is our reason and intelligence.

Their one aim in wartime is to get what they've previously failed to get by peaceful means—or, if that's out of the question, to punish the offenders so severely that nobody will ever dare to do such a thing again. They make for these objectives by the shortest possible route—but always on the principle of safety first, and national prestige second. So the moment war's declared they arrange through secret agents for lots of posters to go up simultaneously at all points on enemy territory where they're most likely to be seen. These posters carry the official seal of the Utopian government, and offer a huge reward for killing the enemy king. They also offer smaller, but still very considerable sums for killing certain individuals, whose names appear on a list, and who are presumed to be the chief supporters, after the king, of anti-Utopian policies. The reward for bringing such people in alive is twice as much as for killing them—and they themselves are offered the same amount of money, plus a free pardon, for turning against their own associates.

The immediate result is that everyone mentioned on the list becomes suspicious of everything in human shape. They all stop trusting one another, and stop being trustworthy. They live in a constant state of terror, which is perfectly justified—for it's often been known to happen that all of them, including the king himself, are betrayed by the very person that they pinned most faith on. The fact is, people will do anything for money, and there's no limit to the amount of money that the Utopians are prepared to give. Bearing in mind the risks that they're inviting each traitor to run, they're very careful to offer him compensating advantages. So, in addition to vast quantities of gold, they also promise him the freehold of a valuable estate in safe and friendly territory—and such promises they invariably keep.

This system of making take-over bids for the enemy is generally considered mean and cruel, but the Utopians are very proud of it. They say it's extremely sensible to dispose of major wars like this without fighting a single battle, and also most humane to save thousands of innocent lives at the cost of a few guilty ones. They're thinking of all the soldiers who would have been killed in action, on one side or the other—for they feel almost as much sympathy for the mass of the enemy population as they do for their own. They realize that these people would never have started a war if they hadn't been forced into it by the insanity of their rulers.

If this method fails, they sow and foster the seeds of discord among their enemies, by encouraging the king's brother or some other member of the aristocracy to aspire to the throne. If internal dissension shows signs of flagging, they inflame hostility in some adjacent country by digging up one of those ancient claims that kings are always so well provided with. They promise to support the claimant's war effort, and do it by supplying plenty of money and very little manpower—for they're much too fond of one another to be willing to sacrifice a single Utopian citizen, even in exchange for the enemy king himself. But they're perfectly happy to hand out silver and gold, because that's all they keep it for, and they know it won't make any difference to their standard of living if they spend the whole lot. Besides, quite apart from their capital at home, they possess vast foreign assets, for, as I explained before, a great many countries owe them money.

So most of their fighting is done by mercenaries. They recruit them from all over the world, but especially from a place called Venalia, which is about five hundred miles to the east of Utopia. The Venalians are extremely primitive and savage—like the wild forests and rugged mountains among which they grow up. They're very tough, and can stand any amount of heat, cold, and physical hardship. They've no idea of enjoying themselves, never do any farming, and are equally careless about their clothes and their houses. Apart from looking after cattle, they live mostly by hunting and stealing. In fact, they seem naturally designed for nothing but war. They're always looking for a war to fight in, and when they succeed in finding one they go rushing off in their thousands to offer their services cheap to anyone who needs soldiers. For taking lives is the only method they know of earning a living.

They fight for their employers with great loyalty and zeal, but won't guarantee how long they'll continue to do so. They join you on the understanding that they'll join your enemy tomorrow, if he'll pay them better, and be back with you the day after that, if you'll give them a little bit more. There aren't many wars in which you won't find that most of the soldiers on each side are Venalians. So you can imagine the sort of thing that's always happening. Two members of a family enlist in the same army. For a while they're the best of friends—the next moment they're on opposite sides, and going for one another like deadly enemies. All ties of blood and friendship are forgotten, and they're busy cutting each other's throats. And yet their only motive for mutual destruction is the fact that different kings are paying them small sums of money—and money means such a lot to them that an extra halfpenny a day is quite enough to make them change sides. But although they yield so quickly to the temptations of avarice, they get nothing out of it, for what they earn by bloodshed they immediately spend on debauchery of the most squalid type.

These people will fight for the Utopians against any nation in the world, because no one else is prepared to pay them so much. You see, the Utopians are just as anxious to find wicked men to exploit as good men to employ. So when necessary they tempt Venalians with lavish promises to engage in desperate enterprises, from which most of them never come back to claim their earnings. But those who do are always paid in full, so that they'll think it worth while to take similar risks in future. For the Utopians don't care how many Venalians they send to their deaths. They say, if only they could wipe the filthy scum off the face of the earth completely, they'd be doing the human race a very good turn.

Their second source of manpower is the nation for whose benefit they've gone to war. Next come contingents supplied by other friendly powers, and last of all their own citizens, from whom they choose a man of proved ability to command the combined forces. They also keep two others standing by, who have no particular duties so long as the general is all right. But if he's killed or taken prisoner, one of them inherits his command—and, if necessary, the other takes over from him. This is to allow for the changing fortunes of war, and ensure that the whole army won't become disorganized, no matter what happens to the general.

The Utopian contingent is made up of volunteers from every town—for no one is conscripted for military service abroad. They feel that nervous people are not only unlikely to make good soldiers, but also apt to lower the morale of those around them. However, in case of invasion, able-bodied men of this type are either drafted into the navy, to serve alongside more reliable personnel, or posted at intervals on some city wall, where they've no chance of running away. When they actually come face to face with the enemy, respect for public opinion, combined with the fact that there's simply no escape, usually overcomes their fear, and in the last resort they often fight like heroes.

But nobody's forced to fight overseas, and similarly no wife is forced to stay at home, if she'd rather go with her husband to the front. On the contrary, that sort of thing is much encouraged and admired. Any such wife is stationed immediately beside her husband on the battlefield, along with his children and the rest of his relations. The idea is that those who have the strongest natural instinct to help one another should be enabled to do so, by being kept as close together as possible. It's a terrible disgrace for a husband to come back without his wife, or a wife without her husband, or a child without its parents. This means that once their forces are engaged, they go on fighting to the bitter end—that is, if the enemy is prepared to stick it out. So long as they're able to wage war by proxy, the Utopians do everything they can to keep out of action, but when they're finally compelled to fight their courage is fully equal to their previous caution.

They don't fly into a fury at the first attack, but gradually, as time goes on, they grow more and more determined, until they'd rather die than yield an inch. They know there's no need to worry about food for their families, or about their children's future—two sources of anxiety that usually tend to undermine a soldier's morale—and this gives them a lofty contempt for the very idea of defeat. Their confidence is also increased by their military training. And finally they're fortified by the sound principles which they absorbed in childhood, both from their education and from their social environment. These ensure that they value life too much to throw it recklessly away, but not enough to cling on to it in a mean and cowardly manner, when it's their duty to give it up.

When the battle is at its height, a group of specially selected young men, who have sworn to stick together, try to knock out the enemy general. They keep hammering away at him by every possible method—frontal attacks, ambushes, long-range archery, hand-to-hand combat. They bear down on him in a long, unbroken wedge-formation, the point of which is constantly renewed as tired men are replaced by fresh ones. As a result, the general is nearly always killed or taken prisoner—unless he saves his skin by running away.

If the Utopians win a battle, they don't go in for any massacres. Once they've got the enemy on the run they prefer capturing to killing. They also make it a rule never to start off in pursuit, unless they can keep at least one line of troops drawn up in battle formation. They're so strict about this that, if they fail to win a battle until their rearguard goes into action, they're prepared to let the whole enemy army escape rather than establish a precedent for breaking ranks in order to pursue it. You see, they never forget a trick that they've played several times themselves. On each of these occasions the main Utopian army had been totally defeated, and the enemies were triumphantly chasing stragglers about in all directions. At this point the entire outcome of the battle was reversed by a handful of Utopians who'd been stationed in reserve. Watching for their opportunity, they suddenly counter-attacked the scattered enemy troops, who were taking no precautions, because they thought they were safe. Thus certain victory was wrested from the enemy's grasp, and the vanquished became the victors.

It's hard to say which are more cunning, their offensive or their defensive tactics. You may think they're going to retire, when it's the last thing they have in mind—and when they've really decided to do so, you'd never think it to look at them. If they feel seriously outnumbered or handicapped by the terrain, they decamp during the night without a sound, or find some other method of deluding the enemy. Or else they withdraw in daylight, but do it so gradually, and preserve such perfect formation, that they're just as dangerous to attack while retreating as while advancing.

They're always careful to fortify their camp with a very deep, broad trench, throwing the earth from inside to form a rampart. For this job they don't rely on slave labour. The soldiers do it themselves, which means every soldier in the army, except for a few armed sentries who are posted in front of the rampart to watch out for emergencies. With so many hands at work, they can get a large area effectively fortified in an incredibly short time.

Their armour is strong enough to give adequate protection, but yields to every movement of the body. It doesn't even interfere with swimming—in fact they practise swimming in armour from a very early stage of their military training. Their long-range weapons are arrows, which cavalry as well as infantry learn to discharge with great force and accuracy. For close combat they use not swords but battle-axes, which because of their weight and sharpness are equally deadly for slashing or for stabbing. They also invent and manufacture most ingenious mechanical weapons, which are carefully kept out of sight until it's time to put them into action—otherwise such things are liable to be treated as a joke, and are therefore less effective. In designing this type of apparatus they concentrate particularly on making it mobile and easy to operate.

Once they've signed an armistice, they never break it, however much they've provoked. They never devastate enemy territory, or burn corn growing on it—for they regard such corn as being grown for their own benefit, so they do all they can to ensure that it's not trampled down either by their cavalry or by their infantry. They never hurt an unarmed man, unless he's a spy. They give protection to any town that surrenders, and even if they have to take it by storm they still don't loot it. They merely kill those responsible for its failure to surrender, and enslave the rest of the garrison. The whole civilian population remains untouched. Anyone known to have spoken in favour of surrender is given part of the property left by those condemned to death or slavery. The residue is presented to the allied forces—for nobody in Utopia gets any share of the spoil.

When the war's over, they send in the bill, not to the friendly powers for whose sake the expenses were incurred, but to the defeated enemy. They demand to be paid partly in cash, which is put aside for use in future wars, and partly in freeholds of valuable estates on enemy territory. Thus they've acquired property in many different countries, and the resultant income, built up gradually from various sources, has now reached the equivalent of more than £327,000 per annum. To each of these countries they send out Utopian citizens, nominally to act as rent-collectors, but actually to live there in grand style and play the part of distinguished local residents. Still, there's plenty of money left over to pay into the Exchequer, unless they prefer to lend it to the country concerned, which they often do, until such time as they actually need it themselves—and even then they very seldom call in the whole amount. Some of these estates they make over to individuals whom they've persuaded to take the sort of risks that I mentioned before.

If any king goes to war with them and prepares to invade their territory, they send off a large force to intercept him before he reaches the frontier—for they never fight on their own soil if they can help it, and in no circumstances will they allow allied troops to set foot on the island itself.

Finally, let me tell you about their religious ideas. There are several different religions on the island, and indeed in each town. There are sun-worshippers, moon-worshippers, and worshippers of various other planets. There are people who regard some great or good man of the past not merely as a god, but as the supreme god. However, the vast majority take the much more sensible view that there is a single divine power, unknown, eternal, infinite, inexplicable, and quite beyond the grasp of the human mind, diffused throughout this universe of ours, not as a physical substance, but as an active force. This power they call 'The Parent'. They give Him credit for everything that happens to everything, for all beginnings and ends, all growth, development, and change. Nor do they recognize any other form of deity.

On this point, indeed, all the different sects agree—that there is one Supreme Being, Who is responsible for the creation and management of the universe, and they all use the same Utopian word to describe Him: Mythras. What they disagree about is, who Mythras is. Some say one thing, some another—but everyone claims that his Supreme Being is identical with Nature, that tremendous power which is internationally acknowledged to be the sole cause of everything. However, people are gradually tending to drift away from all these inferior creeds, and to unite in adopting what seems to be the most reasonable religion. And doubtless the others would have died out long ago if it weren't for the superstitious tendency to interpret any bad luck, when one's thinking of changing one's religion, not as a coincidence, but as a judgement from heaven—as though the discarded god were punishing one's disloyalty.

But when we told them about Christ, His teaching, His character, His miracles, and the no less miraculous devotion of all the martyrs who, by voluntarily shedding their blood, converted so many nations to the Christian faith, you've no idea how easy it was to convert them too. Perhaps they were unconsciously influenced by some divine inspiration, or perhaps it was because Christianity seemed so very like their own principal religion—though I should imagine they were also considerably affected by the information that Christ prescribed of His own disciples a communist way of life, which is still practised today in all the most truly Christian communities. Anyway, whatever the explanation, quite a lot of Utopians adopted our religion, and were baptized.

Unfortunately none of us four was a priest—yes, there were only four of us left—the other two had died. So though they've been admitted to all the other rites of the Church, our converts haven't yet received the sacraments that only priests can administer. But they understand about them, and want them more than anything on earth. In fact, just now they're busy discussing whether it would be in order for one of them to be ordained priest, without sending for a Christian bishop to perform the ceremony. And it certainly looked as if they were going to choose a candidate for the job, though they hadn't actually done so by the time I left.

Of course, many Utopians refuse to accept Christianity, but even they make no attempt to discourage other people from adopting it, or to attack those who do—though there was one member of our congregation who got into trouble while I was there. Immediately after his baptism, in spite of all our advice to the contrary, this man started giving public lectures on the Christian faith, in which he showed rather more zeal than discretion. Eventually he got so worked up that, not content with asserting the superiority of our religion, he went so far as to condemn all others. He kept shouting at the top of his voice that they were all vile superstitions, and that all who believed in them were monsters of impiety, destined to be punished in hell-fire for ever. When he'd been going on like this for some time, he was arrested and charged, not with blasphemy, but with disturbance of the peace. He was duly convicted and sentenced to exile—for one of the most ancient principles of their constitution is religious toleration.

This principle dates right back to the time of the Conquest. Up till then there'd been constant quarrels about religion, and the various warring sects had refused to cooperate in the defence of their country. When Utopos heard how they'd behaved, he realized that this was why he'd been able to conquer the whole lot of them. So immediately after his victory he made a law, by which everyone was free to practise what religion he liked, and to try and convert other people to his own faith, provided he did it quietly and politely, by rational argument. But, if he failed to convince them, he was not allowed to make bitter attacks on other religions, nor to employ violence or personal abuse. The normal penalty for being too aggressive in religious controversy is either exile or slavery.

Utopos made this law, not only to preserve the peace, which he saw being completely destroyed by endless disputes and implacable feuds, but also because he thought it was in the best interests of religion itself. He didn't presume to say which creed was right. Apparently he considered it possible that God made different people believe different things, because He wanted to be worshipped in many different ways. But he was evidently quite certain that it was stupid and arrogant to bully everyone else into adopting one's own particular creed. It seemed to him perfectly obvious that, even if there was only one true religion, and all the rest were nonsense, truth would eventually prevail of its own accord—as long as the matter was discussed calmly and reasonably. But if it was decided by force of arms, the best and most spiritual type of religion would go down before the silliest forms of superstition, just as corn is liable to be overgrown by thorns and brambles—for the worst people are always the most obstinate.

So he left the choice of creed an open question, to be decided by the individual according to his own ideas—except that he strictly and solemnly forbade his people to believe anything so incompatible with human dignity as the doctrine that the soul dies with the body, and the universe functions aimlessly, without any controlling providence. That's why they feel so sure that there must be rewards and punishments after death. Anyone who thinks differently has, in their view, forfeited his right to be classed as a human being, by degrading his immortal soul to the level of an animal's body. Still less do they regard him as a Utopian citizen. They say a person like that doesn't really care a damn for the Utopian way of life—only he's too frightened to say so. For it stands to reason, if you're not afraid of anything but prosecution, and have no hopes of anything after you're dead, you'll always be trying to evade or break the laws of your country, in order to gain your own private ends. So nobody who subscribes to this doctrine is allowed to receive any public honour, hold any public appointment, or work in any public service. In fact such people are generally regarded as utterly contemptible.

They're not punished in any way, though, for no one is held responsible for what he believes. Nor are they terrorized into concealing their views, because Utopians simply can't stand hypocrisy, which they consider practically equivalent to fraud. Admittedly, it's illegal for any such person to argue in defence of his beliefs, but that's only in public. In private discussions with priests or other serious-minded characters, he's not merely allowed but positively encouraged to do so, for everyone's convinced that this type of delusion will eventually yield to reason.

Indeed there are some Utopians—quite a lot of them actually—who, so far from being materialists, go to the opposite extreme. Of course, there's no law against them, for they have a certain amount of reason on their side, and are quite decent characters in themselves. These people believe that animals have immortal souls too, though much inferior to ours, and designed for happiness on a lower plane. As for the infinite happiness in store for human beings, practically everyone feels so sure of it that, although they always mourn for an illness, they never mourn for a death—unless the person in question was obviously uneasy and unwilling to let go of life. This they regard as a very bad sign. It seems to suggest that the soul is conscious of its own guilt, and has gloomy forebodings of punishment to come—hence its terror of dying. Besides, they doubt if God will be at all pleased to see someone who, instead of running gladly to answer His summons, has to be dragged into His presence by force. So they shudder to see a death of this type, and perform the funeral rites in sorrowful silence. They merely say, 'God have mercy on his soul, and forgive his weaknesses.' Then they bury the body.

But when a person dies in a cheerful and optimistic mood, nobody mourns for him. They sing for joy at his funeral, and lovingly commend his soul to God. Finally, more in a spirit of reverence than of grief, they cremate the body, and mark the spot by a column engraved with an epitaph. Then they go home and discuss the dead man's character and career, and there's nothing in his life that they dwell on with such pleasure as the happy state of mind in which he left it. This method of recalling his good qualities is thought the best way of encouraging similar virtues in the living, and also of pleasing the dead—for the subject of these discussions is believed to be present at them, though invisible to human eyes. After all, perfect happiness implies complete freedom of movement, and no one with any feeling would stop wanting to see his friends when he died, if they'd been really fond of one another while he was alive. On the contrary, the Utopians assume that a good man's capacity for affection, like every other good thing about him, is increased rather than diminished by death. So they believe that the dead mix freely with the living, and observe everything they say and do. In fact they regard them almost as guardian angels, and this gives them greater confidence in tackling all their problems. Also, the sense of their ancestors' presence discourages any bad behaviour in private.

They pay no attention to omens, fortune-telling, or any of the superstitious practices that are taken so seriously in other countries. In fact they treat them as a joke. But they have a great respect for miracles which aren't attributable to natural causes, because they see them as evidence of God's presence and power. They say such miracles often happen there. Indeed at moments of crisis the whole country prays for a miracle, and their faith is so great that the prayer is sometimes answered.

Most Utopians feel they can please God merely by studying the natural world, and praising Him for it. But quite a lot of them are led by their religion to neglect the pursuit of knowledge. They're not interested in science—they simply have no time for that sort of thing, since they believe that the only way to earn happiness after death is to spend one's life doing good works. Some of them look after invalids, while others mend roads, clean out ditches, repair bridges, dig up turf, sand, or stone, cut down and saw up trees, or cart such things as timber and corn into the towns. In short, they behave like servants, and work harder than slaves, not only for the community, but also for private individuals. They cheerfully undertake all the rough, dirty, and difficult jobs that the average person fights shy of, either because of the physical effort involved, or just because he dislikes them, or despairs of ever getting them done. Thus they create leisure for other people by working ceaselessly themselves—and yet they take no credit for it. They never find fault with other ways of life, or boast about their own. So the more they make slaves of themselves, the more everybody respects them.

They're divided into two sects, of which one believes in celibacy. Its members are total abstainers, not only from sexual intercourse, but also from meat, and in some cases from every form of animal food. They renounce all the pleasures of this life, which they regard as sinful, and yearn only for the life to come. This they try to earn by the sweat of their brows, and by going without sleep—but the hope of reaching it any day now keeps them lively and cheerful. The other sect, though equally keen on hard work, approves of marriage, on the grounds that its comforts are not to be despised, and that procreation is a duty which one owes both to nature and to one's country. They have no objection to pleasure, so long as it doesn't interfere with work. On that principle they eat a lot of meat, because they think it enables them to work harder. They're generally considered more sensible than the others, though the others are thought more devout. Of course, if the members of the first sect tried to justify their behaviour on logical grounds, they'd merely be laughed at. But as they admit that their motives are religious rather than rational, they're regarded with great reverence—for Utopians are always extremely careful to avoid rash judgements in the matter of religion. People who belong to this sect are known in their own language as Cowparsons which may be roughly translated, Lay Brethren.

All their priests are exceptionally pious, which means that there are very few of them—normally thirteen per town, or one per church. But in wartime seven of the thirteen go off with the troops, and seven more priests are ordained as temporary substitutes. When the army chaplains return, they get back their old livings, and the extra priests remain on the staff of the Bishop—for one of the thirteen is given this status—until they succeed, one by one, to vacancies created by the death of the original incumbents.

Priests are elected by the whole community. The election is by secret ballot, as it is for all public appointments, to prevent the formation of pressure groups, and the successful candidates are then ordained by their colleagues. Priests are responsible for conducting services, organizing religions, and supervising morals. It's considered very shameful to be had up before an ecclesiastical court, or even reprimanded by a priest for bad behaviour. Of course, the actual suppression and punishment of crime is the job of the Mayor and other public officials. Priests merely give advice and warning—though they can also excommunicate persistent offenders, and there's hardly any punishment that people fear more. You see, a person who has been excommunicated is not only completely disgraced and racked with fears of divine vengeance. His physical security is threatened too, for, unless he can very soon convince the priests that he's a reformed character, he's arrested and punished by the Council for impiety.

Priests are also responsible for the education of children and adolescents, in which quite as much stress is laid on moral as on academic training. They do their utmost to ensure that, while children are still at an impressionable age, they're given the right ideas about things—the sort of ideas best calculated to preserve the structure of their society. If thoroughly absorbed in childhood, these ideas will persist throughout adult life, and so contribute greatly to the safety of the state, which is never seriously threatened except by moral defects arising from wrong ideas.

Male priests are allowed to marry—for there's nothing to stop a woman from becoming a priest, although women aren't often chosen for the job, and only elderly widows are eligible. As a matter of fact, clergymen's wives form the cream of Utopian society, for no public figure is respected more than a priest. So much so that, even if a priest commits a crime, he's not liable to prosecution. They just leave him to God and his own conscience, since, no matter what he has done, they don't think it right for any human being to lay hands on a man who has been dedicated as a special offering to God. They find this rule quite easy to keep, because priests represent such a tiny minority, and because they're so carefully chosen. After all, it's not really very likely that a man who has come out top of a list of excellent candidates, and who owes his appointment entirely to his moral character, should suddenly become vicious and corrupt. And even if we must accept that possibility—human nature being so very unpredictable—a mere handful of people without any executive power can hardly constitute a serious danger to the community. They keep the numbers down, in order not to lower the present high prestige of the priesthood, by making the honour less of a rarity—especially as they say it's hard to find many people suitable for a profession which demands considerably more than average virtues.

The reputation of Utopian priests is just as good abroad as it is at home. The evidence and, I think, the reason for this may be found in what happens on the battlefield. While the fighting is in progress, the priests kneel a short way off, wearing their holy vestments, and hold up their hands to heaven. They pray first for peace, and then for a bloodless victory—bloodless on both sides. As soon as their own troops start getting the best of it, the priests hurry on to the battlefield and stop all unnecessary violence. Once they appear on the scene, an enemy soldier can save his life simply by calling out to them, and, if he can manage to touch their flowing robes, his property too is safe from any sort of war damage. This earns them so much respect in every country, and gives them so much genuine authority, that they've often been able to protect their own soldiers quite as effectively as they normally protect the enemy's. Sometimes, at desperate moments when the Utopian forces were in full retreat, and their enemies were rushing after them, intent on killing and looting, the intervention of the priests has been known to prevent a massacre, part the combatants, and bring about the conclusion of a peace on equal terms. For the person of a Utopian priest is universally regarded as sacred and inviolable even among the most savage and barbarous nations.

They have religious festivals on the first and last days of each month, and also of each year—their calendar, by the way, is based on the solar year, divided into lunar months. These first days are called Dogdates in their language, and the last ones Turndates—in other words, Beginning Feasts and Ending Feasts.

Their churches look most impressive, not only because they're so beautifully built, but also because of their size. You see, as there are so few of them, they have to be capable of holding vast numbers of people. However, they're all rather dark, which is not, I'm told, a mistake on the part of the architects, but a matter of policy. The priests think that too much light tends to distract one's attention, whereas a sort of twilight helps one to collect one's thoughts, and intensifies religious feeling. Now this doesn't take the same form with everyone, though all its varieties lead by different routes, as it were, to the same destination: the worship of the Divine Being. For that reason, there's nothing to be seen or heard in their churches which can't equally well be applied to all religions. Any ceremonies which are peculiar to individual sects are performed privately at home, and public services are so arranged as not to detract in any way from these private ones.

On the same principle, their churches contain no visual representations of God, so that everyone's left free to imagine Him in whatever shape he chooses, according to which religion he thinks the best. Nor is God addressed by any special names there. He is simply called Mythras, a general term used by everybody to designate the Supreme Being, whoever He may be. Similarly, no prayers are said in which each member of the congregation cannot join without prejudice to his own particular creed.

At Ending Feasts they fast all day, and go to church in the evening, to thank God for bringing them safely to the end of the year or month in question. Next day, which is of course a Beginning Feast, they meet at church in the morning to pray for happiness and prosperity during the year or month which has just begun. But before going to church at an Ending Feast, wives kneel down at home before their husbands, and children before their parents, to confess all their sins of omission and commission, and ask to be forgiven. This gets rid of any little grudges that may have clouded the domestic atmosphere, so that everyone can attend divine service with an absolutely clear mind. To do so when one is feeling upset is thought positively blasphemous. For that reason, anyone who's conscious of feeling anger or resentment towards another person stays away from church until he's made it up, and purged himself of these unpleasant emotions, for fear of being promptly and severely punished otherwise.

As they enter the church, the men turn to the right and the women to the left, and the seating is so arranged that the males of each household are in front of the house-father, and the house-mother acts as a rearguard for the females. This ensures that everyone's conduct in public is watched by those who are responsible for his discipline at home. Here too they take great care to see that a young person always sits next to an older one—for if children are left to themselves they're apt to waste their time in church playing childish games, when they ought above all to be developing a sense of religious awe, the strongest, if not the only incentive to good behaviour.

They never sacrifice any animals, for they can't imagine a merciful God enjoying slaughter and bloodshed. They say God gave His creatures life, because He wanted them to live. But they do make certain burnt offerings—of incense and other aromatic substances, and of innumerable candles. Of course they realize that such things are no use to the Divine Being, but they see no harm in them as a form of tribute, and feel that these scents and lights and other elements of ritual somehow raise people's thoughts, and make them more eager to worship God.

The congregation is dressed in white, and the priest wears multi-coloured vestments, magnificent in workmanship and design, but made of quite cheap materials—for instead of being woven with gold thread, or encrusted with rare jewels, they're merely decorated with the feathers of various birds. On the other hand, their value as works of art is far greater than that of the richest material in the world. Besides, the feathers are arranged in special patterns which are said to symbolize certain divine truths, and the priests are careful to teach the meaning of these hieroglyphics, since they serve to remind worshippers of God's favours towards them, of their duty towards Him in return, and of their duty towards one another.

The moment the priest appears from the sanctuary wearing these vestments, everyone bows down to the ground in reverence, and there is deep silence throughout the building. The effect is so awe-inspiring that one almost seems to feel a divine presence. After a few minutes the priest gives a sign for the congregation to stand up. Then they sing hymns of praise to God, accompanied by musical instruments, which are generally quite different from anything to be seen in our part of the world. Most of these have a much sweeter tone than ours, though some of them simply won't bear comparison with European instruments. But in one respect they're undoubtedly far ahead of us. All their music, both vocal and instrumental, is wonderfully expressive of natural feelings. The sound is so well adapted to the sense that whether the theme is prayer or rejoicing, agitation or calm, sorrow or anger, the melodic line exactly represents the appropriate emotion. It therefore enters deeply into the hearer's consciousness, and has an extraordinarily stimulating effect.

The service ends with a set form of prayer repeated by both priests and congregation. It's worded in such a way that, while they're all saying it together, each person can apply it to himself. It goes something like this:

O God, I acknowledge Thee to be my creator, my governor, and the source of all good things. I thank Thee for all Thy blessings, but especially for letting me live in the happiest possible society, and practise what I hope is the truest religion. If I am wrong, and if some other religion or social system would be better and more acceptable to Thee, I pray Thee in Thy goodness to let me know it, for I am ready to follow wherever Thou shalt lead me. But if our system is indeed the best, and my religion the truest, then keep me faithful to both of them, and bring the rest of humanity to adopt the same way of life, and the same religious faith—unless the present variety of creeds is part of Thy inscrutable purpose. Grant me an easy death, when Thou takest me to Thyself. I do not presume to suggest whether it should be late or soon. But if it is Thy will, I would much rather come to Thee by a most painful death, than be kept too long away from Thee by the most pleasant of earthly lives.

After saying this prayer, they again bow down to the ground for a few moments, and then get up and go off to lunch. The rest of the day is spent in recreation and military training.

Well, that's the most accurate account I can give you of the Utopian Republic. To my mind, it's not only the best country in the world, but the only one that has any right to call itself a republic. Elsewhere, people are always talking about the public interest, but all they really care about is private property. In Utopia, where there's no private property, people take their duty to the public seriously. And both attitudes are perfectly reasonable. In other 'republics' practically everyone knows that, if he doesn't look out for himself, he'll starve to death, however prosperous his country may be. He's therefore compelled to give his own interests priority over those of the public; that is, of other people. But in Utopia, where everything's under public ownership, no one has any fear of going short, as long as the public storehouses are full. Everyone gets a fair share, so there are never any poor men or beggars. Nobody owns anything, but everyone is rich—for what greater wealth can there be than cheerfulness, peace of mind, and freedom from anxiety? Instead of being worried about his food supply, upset by the plaintive demands of his wife, afraid of poverty for his son, and baffled by the problem of finding a dowry for his daughter, the Utopian can feel absolutely sure that he, his wife, his children, his grand-children, his great-grandchildren, his great-great-grandchildren, and as long a line of descendants as the proudest peer could wish to look forward to, will always have enough to eat and enough to make them happy. There's also the further point that those who are too old to work are just as well provided for as those who are still working.

Now, will anyone venture to compare these fair arrangements in Utopia with the so-called justice of other countries?—in which I'm damned if I can see the slightest trace of justice or fairness. For what sort of justice do you call this? People like aristocrats, goldsmiths, or money-lenders, who either do no work at all, or do work that's really not essential, are rewarded for their laziness or their unnecessary activities by a splendid life of luxury. But labourers, coachmen, carpenters, and farmhands, who never stop working like cart-horses, at jobs so essential that, if they did stop working, they'd bring any country to a standstill within twelve months—what happens to them? They get so little to eat, and have such a wretched time, that they'd be almost better off if they were cart-horses. Then, at least, they wouldn't work quite such long hours, their food wouldn't be very much worse, they'd enjoy it more, and they'd have no fears for the future. As it is, they're not only ground down by unrewarding toil in the present, but also worried to death by the prospect of a poverty-stricken old age—since their daily wages aren't enough to support them for one day, let alone leave anything over to be saved up for when they're old.

Can you see any fairness or gratitude in a social system which lavishes such great rewards on so-called noblemen, goldsmiths, and people like that, who are either totally unproductive or merely employed in producing luxury goods or entertainment, but makes no such kind provision for farm-hands, coal-heavers, labourers, carters, or carpenters, without whom society couldn't exist at all? And the climax of ingratitude comes when they're old and ill and completely destitute. Having taken advantage of them throughout the best years of their lives, society now forgets all the sleepless hours they've spent in its service, and repays them for all the vital work they've done, by letting them die in misery. What's more, the wretched earnings of the poor are daily whittled away by the rich, not only through private dishonesty, but through public legislation. As if it weren't unjust enough already that the man who contributes most to society should get the least in return, they make it even worse, and then arrange for injustice to be legally described as justice.

In fact, when I consider any social system that prevails in the modern world, I can't, so help me God, see it as anything but a conspiracy of the rich to advance their own interests under the pretext of organizing society. They think up all sorts of tricks and dodges, first for keeping safe their ill-gotten gains, and then for exploiting the poor by buying their labour as cheaply as possible. Once the rich have decided that these tricks and dodges shall be officially recognized by society—which includes the poor as well as the rich—they acquire the force of law. Thus an unscrupulous minority is led by its insatiable greed to monopolize what would have been enough to supply the needs of the whole population. And yet how much happier even these people would be in Utopia! There, with the simultaneous abolition of money and the passion for money, how many other social problems have been solved, how many crimes eradicated! For obviously the end of money means the end of all those types of criminal behaviour which daily punishments are powerless to check: fraud, theft, burglary, brawls, riots, disputes, rebellion, murder, treason, and black magic. And the moment money goes, you can also say good-bye to fear, tension, anxiety, overwork, and sleepless nights. Why, even poverty itself, the one problem that has always seemed to need money for its solution, would promptly disappear if money ceased to exist.

Let me try to make this point clearer. Just think back to one of the years when the harvest was bad, and thousands of people died of starvation. Well, I bet if you'd inspected every rich man's barn at the end of that lean period you'd have found enough corn to have saved all the lives that were lost through malnutrition and disease, and prevented anyone from suffering any ill effects whatever from the meanness of the weather and the soil. Everyone could so easily get enough to eat, if it weren't for that blessed nuisance, money. There you have a brilliant invention which was designed to make food more readily available. Actually it's the only thing that makes it unobtainable.

I'm sure that even the rich are well aware of all this, and realize how much better it would be to have everything one needed, than lots of things one didn't need—to be evacuated altogether from the danger area, than to dig oneself in behind a barricade of enormous wealth. And I've no doubt that either self-interest, or the authority of our Saviour Christ—Who was far too wise not to know what was best for us, and far too kind to recommend anything else—would have led the whole world to adopt the Utopian system long ago, if it weren't for that beastly root of all evils, pride. For pride's criterion of prosperity is not what you've got yourself, but what other people haven't got. Pride would refuse to set foot in paradise, if she thought there'd be no under-privileged classes there to gloat over and order about—nobody whose misery could serve as a foil to her own happiness, or whose poverty she could make harder to bear, by flaunting her own riches. Pride, like a hellish serpent gliding through human hearts—or, shall we say, like a sucking-fish that clings to the ship of state?—is always dragging us back, and obstructing our progress towards a better way of life.

But as this fault is too deeply ingrained in human nature to be easily eradicated, I'm glad that at least one country has managed to develop a system which I'd like to see universally adopted. The Utopian way of life provides not only the happiest basis for a civilized community, but also one which, in all human probability, will last for ever. They've eliminated the root-causes of ambition, political conflict, and everything like that. There's therefore no danger of internal dissension, the one thing that has destroyed so many impregnable towns. And as long as there's unity and sound administration at home, no matter how envious neighbouring kings may feel, they'll never be able to shake, let alone to shatter, the power of Utopia. They've tried to do so often enough in the past, but have always been beaten back.

While Raphael was telling us all this, I kept thinking of various objections. The laws and customs of that country seemed to me in many cases perfectly ridiculous. Quite apart from such things as their military tactics, religions, and forms of worship, there was the grand absurdity on which their whole society was based, communism minus money. Now this in itself would mean the end of the aristocracy, and consequently of all dignity, splendour, and majesty, which are generally supposed to be the real glories of any nation.

However, I could see that he was tired after talking so much, and I was not quite sure how tolerant he would be of any opinion that contradicted his own—especially when I remembered his sarcastic reference to the sort of person who is afraid of looking a fool if he cannot pick holes in other people's ideas. So I just made some polite remarks about the Utopian system, and thanked him for his interesting talk—after which I took his arm and led him in to supper, saying:

'Well, I must think it over. Then perhaps we can meet again and discuss it at greater length.'

I certainly hope we shall, some day. In the meantime I cannot agree with everything that he said, for all his undoubted learning and experience. But I freely admit that there are many features of the Utopian Republic which I should like—though I hardly expect—to see adopted in Europe. xE1K6+4MyeI4swi4MqBwiazI/Bhm+QanbIcTm/kHQUe5zgyWTu/eY75u7NnIi7ie