Which is partly owing to the justice and goodness of the princes themselves, and partly to the reverence that they pay to the popes; who, as they are most religious observers of their own promises, so they exhort all other princes to perform theirs ; and, when fainter methods do not prevail, they compel them to it by the severity of the pastoral censure; and think that it would be the most indecent thing possible, if men who are particularly designated by the title of the Faithful should not religiously keep the faith of their treaties. But in that new-found world, which is not more distant from us in situation than it is disagreeing from us in their manners and course of life, there is no trusting to leagues, even though they were made with all the pomp of the most sacred ceremonies that is possible. On the contrary, they are the sooner broken for that, some slight pretences being found in the words of the treaties, which are contrived in such ambiguous terms, and that on design, that they can never be so strictly bound but they will always find some loop-hole to escape at; and so they break both their leagues and their faith. And this is done with that impudence, that those very men who value themselves on having suggested these advices to their princes, would yet, with a haughty scorn, declaim against such craft, or, to speak plainer, such fraud and deceit, if they

of the faith of Christian princes, who, together with the pope, have probably on the subject of oaths outdone in profligacy all the tyrants of antiquity-which is saying a great deal for them. Sir Thomas's irony is transparent.

found private men make use of it in their bargains; and would readily say that they deserved to be hanged for it. 157

"By this means it is that all sort of justice passes in the world but for a low-spirited and vulgar virtue, which is far below the dignity of royal greatness. Or, at least, there are two sorts of justice set up. The one is mean, and creeps on the ground; and therefore becomes none but the baser sort of men, and so must be kept in severely by many restraints, that it may not break out beyond the bounds that are set to it. The other is the peculiar virtue of princes, which as it is more majestic than that which becomes the rabble, so takes a freer compass; and lawful or unlawful are only measured by pleasure and interest. 158 These practices among the princes that lie about Utopia, who make so little account of their faith, seem to be the reasons that determine them to engage in no confederacies; perhaps they would change their mind if they lived among us. But yet, though treaties were more religiously observed, they would still dislike the custom of making them; since the world has taken up a false maxim upon it, as if there were no tie of nature knitting one nation to an

157 This confirms what is said in the last note.

158 Kallikles, in the Gorgias of Plato, advocates this magnificent virtue, which Sir Thomas More rightly denominates royal justice; and which, by the vulgar, is called injustice. The name is nothing. Whatever appellation it be known by, it is the distinguishing attribute of princes, and of all those who surround them nearly, and profit most by their example.

other, that are only separated, perhaps, by a mountain or a river, and that all were born in a state of hostility,159 and so might lawfully do all that mischief to their neighbours, against which there is no provision made by treaties. And that, when treaties are made, they do not cut off the enmity, or restrain the licence of preying upon one another, if, by the unskilfulness of wording them, there are not effectual provisos made against them. They, on the other hand, judge that no man is to be esteemed our enemy that has never injured us; and that the partnership of the human nature that is among all men is instead of a league. And that kindness and goodnature unite men more effectually, and more forcibly than any agreements whatsoever; since thereby the engagements of men's hearts become stronger than anything can be to which a few words can bind them.

OF THEIR MILITARY DISCIPLINE.

"They detest war as a very brutal thing; and which, to the reproach of human nature, is more

159 As Hobbes contends they were. In fact, this doctrine constitutes the basis of his political philosophy, which is more widely spread, and has more advocates in the world than would readily be believed. It is founded, however, on a narrow view of human nature; as Dr. Adam Ferguson, among others, has shown. In fact, it is man's affections and sympathy which plunge him in hostility; for, "by enlisting him on the side of one tribe or community, they frequently engage him in war and contention with the rest of mankind.”—History of Civil Society, part I. §. 2. p. 17.

practised by men than any sorts of beasts: and they, against the custom of almost all other nations, think that there is nothing more inglorious than that glory that is gained by war. And, therefore, though they accustom themselves daily to military exercises, and the discipline of war, in which not only their men but their women160 likewise are trained up, that so, in cases of necessity, they may not be quite useless. Yet they do not rashly engage in war, unless it be either to defend themselves or their friends from any unjust aggressors; or out of good nature or in compassion to an oppressed nation, that they assist them to the shaking off the yoke of tyranny. They, indeed, help their friends not only in defensive but also in offensive wars: but they never do that unless they had been consulted with while the matter was yet entire; and that, being satisfied with the grounds on which they went, they had found that all demands of reparation were rejected, so that a war was necessary: which they do not think to be only just when one neighbour makes an inroad on another, by public order, and carries away

160 This is a very absurd crotchet of Plato's, which I am astonished to find adopted by any man who has had the advantage of considering the objections which phisiology and common sense have induced later philosophers to urge against it. The practice, if it could be followed up, would do more than anything else conceivable towards extinguishing the human race, and begin by obliterating from among men all that gentleness and suavity by which the best natures are distinguished, and which take their rise from female influence. To unsex women, and make rude soldiers of them," would be to banish from amongst us the well-spring of the highest and kindliest of our feelings.

their spoils but when the merchants of one country are oppressed in another, either under the pretence of some unjust laws, or by the perverse wresting of good ones; this they count a juster cause of war than the other, because those injuries are done under some colour of laws. This was the only ground of that war in which they engaged with the Nephelogetes against the Aleopolitanes, a little before our time: for the merchants of the former having, as they thought, met with great injustice among the latter, that, whether it was in itself right or wrong, did draw on a terrible war, many of their neighbours being engaged in it; and their keenness in carrying it on being supported by their strength in maintaining it, it not only shook some very flourishing states and very much afflicted others, but, after a series of much mischief, it ended in the entire conquest and slavery of the Aleopolitanes, who, though before the war they were in all respects much superior to the Nephelogetes, yet by it they fell under their empire. But the Utopians, though they had assisted them in the war, yet pretended to no share of the spoil.

"But, though they assist their friends so vigorously in taking reparations for injuries that are done them in such matters, yet if they themselves should meet with any such fraud, provided there were no violence done to their persons, they would only carry it so far that, unless satisfaction were made, they would give over trading with such a people. This is not done because they consider their neigh