V. THE PURPOSE OF THE "UTOPIA"

" All great literature," says Matthew Arnold, " is at
bottom a criticism of life " ; but in the greatest this
criticism is indirect rather than direct. The writer
puts before his readers a fairer and nobler ideal, and
thus virtually criticises the life actually around him.

In the Utopia we have both kinds of criticism of
life ; the direct in the preliminary portion, the indirect

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in the account of the Utopians and their life. It must
be borne in mind, however, that the Utopia does not
set forth More's ideal of a commonwealth as the
Republic sets forth Plato's. The latter is entirely
theoretical. " Were we n6t professing to construct
in theory the pattern of a perfect state ? " Socrates
is made to say ; " Can a theoretical sketch be perfectly
realized in practice? Do not impose upon me the
duty of exhibiting all our theory realized with precise
accuracy in fact." More, on the other hand, gives
what purports to be an accurate account of the actual
government and life in a country really existing. It
is but one of those visited by Hythloday that had
" decrees and ordinances " " well and wittily provided
and enacted/' and More suggests that at some future
time he may give accounts of some of the others (25 : 11).
Naturally, then, to give verisimilitude to his sketch,
with much of which it is evident he highly approves,
he introduces features to which he does not give his
sanction and some that are hardly more than exercises
of fancy. To think that he was putting forward an
ideal that he would have been glad to have seen
adopted at once in all its details in his native land
would be a great error. In the words of Professor
Brewer, " More hovers so perpetually on the confines

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of jest and earnest, passes so naturally from one to
the other, that the reader is in constant suspense
whether his jest be serious, or his seriousness a jest"
(cf. note on 217: 18).

But, on the other hand, to think that the Utopia
is a mere exercise of fancy without any practical pur-
pose, as is sometimes done, is to make a mistake
almost as great. The earliest readers clearly appreci-
ated that back of the fun and the extravagance there
is a serious purpose. Erasmus in 1517 advised a
correspondent to read the Utopia, if he wished to see
the true source of all political evils ; and Bude*, in the
letter to Lupset printed in the second edition of the
work, wrote, " In his history our age and those which,
succeed it will have a nursery, so to speak, of polite
and useful institutions ; from which men may borrow
customs, and introduce and adapt them each to his
own state." Again to quote Brewer, "Though the
Utopia was not to be literally followed, — was no
more than an abstraction at which no one would have
laughed more heartily than More himself, if interpreted
too strictly, — Utopia might serve to show to a corrupt
Christendom what good could be effected by the natural
instincts of men when following the dictates of natural
prudence and justice."

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That More intended some such practical application
of his book is indicated by the detailed picture of the
misery in England in the first part, and the many
points of similarity between Utopia and England,
Amaurote and London, in the second. The first part
shows what the English had made of their island, the
second what the Utopians had made of a similar one
similarly situated. No sixteenth century Londoner could
have read the book without noticing how much the
physical environment of the Amaurotians resembled
his own nor without appreciating how much more
they took advantage of their insular position and the
location of their capital, how much better they were
governed, and how much more truly Utopia was a
commonwealth. The Utopia shows what More thought
might be made of his native country and native city
if a desire for peace and internal improvement took
the place of that for war and national aggrandizement,
and private greed were supplanted by unselfish labor
for the public weal. But that he was not sanguine
that any great changes would ensue on the publication
of his work is shown by his closing statement, " Many
things be-in the Utopian weal public which in our
cities I may rather wish for than hope after."

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