more than doth my discourse; but your preachers seem to have learned the craft which you recommend. Observing that the world would not suit their lives to Christ's rules, they have adapted his doctrine (like a leaden ruler) to their lives, that they might agree some way or other. But this compliance hath had no other effect than that men become more secure in their wickedness by it. And this is all the success I can expect in a court; I must ever differ from the rest, so shall be of no signification; had I agreed with them, I should only have promoted their madness.

I comprehend not what you mean by casting about, or managing matters so dexterously, that if they go not well, they may go as little otherwise as may be; for in courts a man cannot hold his peace, or connive at the actions of others. He must openly approve the worst counsels, and consent to the blackest designs, so that, in your way, he would pass for a spy, or perhaps a traitor, who only coldly acquiesced in such practices. Engaged in such connections, he will be so far from mending matters by casting about, as you call it, that he will find no opportunities of doing good. His evil communicants will sooner corrupt him than be benefited by him, or, should he remain innocent, their folly and knavery will be imputed to him; and by joining in their counsels, he must bear his share of all the blame which belongeth wholly to others.

It is no bad simile by which Plato shewed, how unreasonable it is for a philosopher to meddle with government. VOL. II.

H

If a man,' he says, saw a company run daily into the rain with delight, and knew that it would be to no purpose to endeavour to persuade them to return home and avoid the storm, and that all he could expect would be to be as wet as they, it would be best for him to remain at home, and, since he could not correct the folly of others, take care of himself. But, to speak my real sentiment, I must own, as long as there is any property, and money is the standard of all things else, I cannot think that a country can be governed justly or happily. Not justly, for the best things will fall to the lot of the worst men; not happily, for all things will be divided among a few, who are not completely happy, while the rest are left in absolute misery.

When, therefore, I reflect on the wise and good constitution of the Utopians, among whom all things are so well regulated by so few laws; where virtue hath its reward, yet is there such an equality that every man liveth in plenty; when I compare with them so many other nations, which are ever making new laws, yet cannot bring their constitution to a due standard, though every one hath his property; where all the laws they can invent cannot obtain or preserve it, or even enable men to distinguish their own from another's, as the many law-suits, eternally depending, prove; when, I say, I weigh all these things, I incline more and more to Plato's opinion, and wonder not, that he resolved not to make any laws for such as would not submit to a community of all things..

So wise a man could not but foresce, that placing all upon a level was the only way to make a nation happy ; and this cannot be, so long as there is property. For, when every one draweth to himself all he can, by one claim or other, it must follow, that how rich soever a country may be, yet, a few dividing her wealth among themselves, the rest must become indigent. Thus there will be two descriptions of people among them who deserve an interchange of circumstances; one useless, but wicked and rapacious; the other sincere and modest, serving the public more than themselyes by their industry. Whence I am persuaded, that until property be destroyed, there can be no just distribution of things, nor can the world be happily governed; for while it is maintained, the greater and better part of mankind will be oppressed with care and anxiety.

I confess, that without destroying it entirely, the oppressions of many may be lightened, but they can never be quite removed. For if laws were enacted to determine at what extent of territory, and what amount of money every man must stop, to limit the prince that he grew not too great, and the people that they became not too insolent, and to prevent any from factiously aspiring to public employments which ought neither to be sold nor made burdensome (for then those who serve them would reimburse themselves by knavery and violence, and it would be necessary to find rich men for those places which ought rather to be holden by the wise); these laws, I say, might

have a similar effect with good diet and care upon a sick man, they might mitigate the disorder, but the body politic could never again be brought to a good habit while property remained; and it will happen, as in a complication of disorders, that, applying a remedy to one part, you will do harm elsewhere.'

common.

On the contrary,' answered I, it appeareth to me that men cannot live conveniently where all things are in How can there be any plenty where every man excuseth himself from labour? For the hope of gain exciteth him not, and his confidence in the industry of others may make him slothful. If men be pinched by want, yet cannot dispose of any thing as their own, what can follow but sedition and bloodshed, especially when the authority of magistrates is wanting, for I see not how that can exist among these equals.

• I do not wonder," he replied, that it appeareth so to you, since you have no notion, or at least no just one, of such a constitution. But had you been in Utopia with me and seen her laws and regulations as I did for five years, (during which I was so delighted with the place, that I should never have left it, but to make the discovery of that new world to Europeans), you would confess that you had never seen a people so well constituted.'

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• You will not easily persuade me,' said Peter, that any country in that new world is better governed than those

among us. For our understandings are not inferior to theirs, and our government being more ancient (if I mistake not), long practice hath holpen us to many conve niencies of life, and happy casualties have discovered other things which no human understanding could ever have in- . vented.'

As for the antiquity of either their government or ours,' said he, you cannot form a true judgment of it unless you had read their histories; for if these be entitled to credit, they had towns among them, before these parts had inhabitants. And as for those discoveries which chance or ingenuity hath made, they might have happened there as well as here. I deny not that we are more ingenious, but they greatly excel us in industry and application. They knew little of us before our arrival among them, and they call us, in general, the nations lying beyond the equinoctial.

Their chronicle recordeth a shipwreck which happened on their coast twelve hundred years ago, and some Romans and Egyptians reaching the shore, spent their lives among them. Their ingenuity was such, that they acquired from these men, as far as they knew them, all the useful arts then common among the Romans; and from their hints they found out more of those arts, less ably explained to them. But hath such an accident at any time brought any of them into Europe, we, so far from improving, do not even retain the memory of it; as hereafter it will probably