ttribute the beginnings, the increasings, the
proceedings, the changes, and the ends of all things. Neither give they
any divine honours to any other than him.' So far was More from sharing
the popular beliefs of his time. Yet at the end he reminds us that he
does not in all respects agree with the customs and opinions of the
Utopians which he describes. And we should let him have the benefit of
this saving clause, and not rudely withdraw the veil behind which he has
been pleased to conceal himself.

Nor is he less in advance of popular opinion in his political and moral
speculations. He would like to bring military glory into contempt; he
would set all sorts of idle people to profitable occupation, including
in the same class, priests, women, noblemen, gentlemen, and 'sturdy and
valiant beggars,' that the labour of all may be reduced to six hours a
day. His dislike of capital punishment, and plans for the reformation of
offenders; his detestation of priests and lawyers (Compare his satirical
observation: 'They (the Utopians) have priests of exceeding holiness,
and therefore very few.); his remark that 'although every one may hear
of ravenous dogs and wolves and cruel man-eaters, it is not easy to find
states that are well and wisely governed,' are curiously at variance
with the notions of his age and indeed with his own life. There are many
points in which he shows a modern feeling and a prophetic insight like
Plato. He is a sanitary reformer; he maintains that civilized states
have a right to the soil of waste countries; he is inclined to the
opinion which places happiness in virtuous pleasures, but herein, as he
thinks, not disagreeing from those other philosophers who define virtue
to be a life according to nature. He extends the idea of happiness so as
to include the happiness of others; and he argues ingeniously, 'All men
agree that we ought to make others happy; but if others, how much more
ourselves!' And still he thinks that there may be a more excellent way,
but to this no man's reason can attain unless heaven should inspire him
with a higher truth. His ceremonies before marriage; his humane proposal
that war should be carried on by assassinating the leaders of the enemy,
may be compared to some of the paradoxes of Plato. He has a charming
fancy, like the affinities of Greeks and barbarians in the Timaeus, that
the Utopians learnt the language of the Greeks with the more readiness
because they were originally o