considered of more moment, hastens on to the development of manners, and the practical working of the machine. Not that such was his conviction; for as a statesman it must have been intimately known to him, that of political entities theory is the soul; but because prejudice is less alarmed by the following out of consequences, than by the bold enunciation of principles, which startle while naked, but, disguised in the material husk of circumstances, steal imperceptibly upon the mind, and become familiar to it before their true nature has perhaps been discovered.

Besides, to the vulgar it is more agreeable to behold difficulties overcome than to examine laboriously all the complicated machinery by which the effect is produced. They lack the patience to learn in detail the name and office of each wheel, and pulley, and spring, hidden in the understory of politics, by which the beautiful results they contemplate on the surface of society are originated, and pronounce insipid every attempt to introduce them to their knowledge. Consequently, politicians like Sir Thomas More and Lord Bacon blink the question of causes, at least in a great measure, and confine themselves to what is visible.

Pursuing this course of policy, More applies himself diligently to what may be termed political discipline. He shows by what arts and contrivances men should be trained to obedience and the practice of industry, regulates the processes of agriculture and trade, and even condescends, in imitation of the legislators of antiquity, to regulate the

costume and toilette of the ladies. From this minute attention to what so peculiarly belongs to their province, the ladies, however, had they been consulted, might probably have relieved him; especially as, by his regulations, their wardrobe is so unmercifully curtailed. But once engaged in the adjustment of scarfs and petticoats, the legislator knows not where to stop. He appears to have relished the topic. He returns to it again and again; but only at length to determine that they must content themselves with spinning their own raiment, and appear habited exactly the same at Christmas and in the dogdays.

All the property of the community is common, and applied to its use as the property of a family is applied to the use of all its members. The ma

gistrates watch over its production and distribution. Common tables are introduced, as at Sparta, at which both sexes are present. Indeed, the whole of this part of Utopian economics is nearly a transcript of those Doric institutions, as reformed and modified by Lycurgus, which prevailed in the great Peloponnesian republic; and, consequently, however liable to the charge of extravagance, can neither be called new nor impracticable, since they actually were reduced to practice during many centuries, and that, too, with the consent and approbation of the people.

The regulation interfering with the power of locomotion, and that curious machinery of passports since imitated to so great an extent on the continent, likewise originated among the Spartan

oligarchs, who by every means possible sought to cut off all intercourse between themselves and the rest of mankind. I may apply the same remark to their proscription of the precious metals, and all those enervating luxuries, their companions, which enfeeble and debase the mind, without being the parent of any healthful enjoyment. In all such luxuries as are harmless they delight; and from a remark which the legislator accidentally lets fall, it appears that even unlawful and forbidden pleasures are abstained from, not because they are in themselves base or hurtful, but because their religion prohibits them. This is a low and a dangerous doctrine. Religion forbids no pleasures not in themselves or in their consequences evil; and it forbids them simply because they are evil, and would diminish the happiness of those who taste them. It is superstition that proscribes the pleasant and proper use of any gift whatever bestowed by the Almighty upon man.

With regard to the religion of the Utopians, it may be said that it was a species of refined paganism, in some respects better than the corrupt Christianity of Sir Thomas More's contemporaries. Its cardinal tenets, he observes, were, "that the soul of man is immortal, and that God of his goodness has designed that it should be happy; and that he has therefore appointed rewards for good and virtuous actions, and punishments for vice, to be distributed after this life. And though these principles of religion are conveyed down among them by tradition, they think that even reason

itself determines a man to receive and acknowledge them."

However contrary to what might have been expected, the legislator throws aside in the matter of religion that uniformity which, in other respects, he seems so earnestly to covet. On this awful topic he refuses to dogmatise.

We know histori

cally how wofully he belied in practice the theory of toleration here developed; but we have to do, just now, with his work only, and in this his aversion to persecute for conscience sake is extreme. "There are several sorts of religions," he says, "not only in different parts of the island, but even in every town; some worshipping the sun, others the moon, or one of the planets. Some worship such men as have been eminent in former times for virtue or glory, not only as ordinary deities, but as the supreme God. Yet the greater and wiser sort of them worship none of these, but auore one eternal, invisible, infinite, and incomprehensible Deity, as a Being that is far above our apprehensions, that is spread over the whole universe, not by its bulk, but by its power and virtue : him they call the 'Father of all,' and acknowledge that the beginnings, the increase, the progress, the vicissitudes, and the end of all things, come only from him ; nor do they offer divine honours to any but to him alone. And, indeed, though they differ concerning other things, yet all agree in this-that they think there is one Supreme Being that made and governs the world, whom they call, in the language of their country, Mithras."

He enters at considerable length into the institutions of religion, but the above is the basis of the whole. At this period of his life, Sir Thomas More clearly belonged, in feelings and opinions, to the reformers; for he loses no opportunity of aiming deadly blows at Catholicism, which is only distinguished from Protestantism by its abuses. He more particularly abhorred his priests, and those swarms of monks, friars, and other vagabonds who spread themselves over the face of the Christian world, corrupting its doctrines, and perverting its discipline. He rises, by the mere force of reason, to the apprehension of those truths since made abundantly manifest by the spread of the Reformation, and is filled with a species of piety, not precisely that of Christianity, but what approaches it most nearly-the piety of philosophy. Sir Thomas More is scarcely a Christian in the Utopia. He believes, indeed, and believes earnestly, the cardinal doctrines of the Gospel; but, as yet, his faith was rather an unregenerate persuasion, than that conviction which kindles the soul, and raises it to a participation of all divine truth. He seems to admit Christianity like a system of philosophy. He is not penetrated by its spirit of charity; he has not imbibed all its tenderness for human life; his mind overflows not with that unspeakable benevolence which pervades the Sermon on the mount, and spreads a calm indescribable over all who hear it-for it still speaks. Nevertheless, throughout the Utopia, a high tone of religious feeling, and, with few