they reckon that Nature sets all people on to seek after pleasure as the end of all they do.

They do also observe, that in order to the supporting the pleasures of life, Nature inclines us to enter into society; for there is no man so much raised above the rest of mankind, that he should be the only favorite of Nature, which on the contrary seems to have levelled all those together that belong to the same species. Upon this they infer that no man ought to seek his own conveniences so eagerly, that thereby he should prejudice others; and therefore they think that not only all agreements between private persons ought to be observed, but likewise that all those laws ought to be kept, which either a good prince has published in due form, or to which a people, that is neither oppressed with tyranny nor circumvented by fraud, has consented, for distributing those conveniences of life which afford us all our pleasures.

They think it is an evidence of true wisdom for a man to pursue his own advantages, as far as the laws allow it. They account it piety to prefer the public good to one's private concerns; but they think it unjust for a man to seek for his own pleasure, by snatching another man's pleasures from him. And on the contrary, they think it a sign of a gentle and good soul, for a man to dispense with his own advantage for the good of others; and that by so doing, a good man finds as much pleasure one way as he parts with another; for as he may expect the like from others when he may come to need it, so if that should fail him, yet the sense of a good action, and the reflections that one makes on the love and gratitude of those whom he has so obliged, give the mind more pleasure than the body could have found in that from which it had restrained itself.

Thus upon an inquiry into the whole matter, they reckon that all our actions, and even all our virtues, terminate in pleasure, as in our chief end and greatest happiness: and they call every motion or state, either of body or mind, in which Nature teaches us to delight, a pleasure. And thus they cautiously limit pleasure, only to those appetites to which Nature leads us; for they reckon that Nature leads us only to those delights to which reason as well as

sense carries us, and by which we neither injure any other person, nor let go greater pleasures for it, and which do not draw troubles on us after them: but they look upon those delights which men, by a foolish, though common mistake, call pleasure, as if they could change. the nature of things as well as the use of words, as things that not only do not advance our happiness, but do rather obstruct it very much, because they do so entirely possess the minds of those that once go into them with a false notion of pleasure, that there is no room left for truer and purer pleasures.

And yet that sort of men, as if they had some real advantages beyond others, and did not owe it wholly to their mistakes, look big, and seem to fancy themselves to be the more valuable on that account, and imagine that a respect is due to them for the sake of a rich garment, to which they would not have pretended if they had been more meanly clothed; and they resent it as an affront if that respect is not paid them. It is also a great folly to be taken with these outward marks of respect which signify nothing; for what true or real pleasure can one find in this, that another man stands bare, or makes legs to him? Will the bending another man's thighs give you any ease? And will his head's being bare cure the madness of yours? And yet it is wonderful to see how this false notion of pleasure bewitches many who delight themselves with the fancy of their nobility, and are pleased with this conceit, that they are descended from ancestors who have been held for some successions rich, and that they have had great possessions; for this is all that makes nobility at present.

Among those foolish pursuers of pleasure they reckon all those that delight in hunting, or birding, or gaming; of whose madness they have only heard, for they have no such things among them. But they have asked us, what sort of pleasure it is that men can find in throwing the dice? For, if there were any pleasure in it, they think the doing it so often should give one a surfeit of it.

If the pleasure lies in seeing the hare killed and torn by the dogs, this ought rather to stir pity, when a weak, harmless, and fearful hare is devoured by a strong, fierce,

and cruel dog. Therefore all this business of hunting is, among the Utopians, turned over to their butchers; and those are all slaves, as was formerly said; and they look on hunting as one of the basest parts of a butcher's work; for they account it both more profitable and inore decent to kill those beasts that are more necessary and useful to mankind; whereas the killing and tearing of so small and miserable an animal, which a huntsman proposes to himself, can only attract him with the false show of pleasure; for it is of so little use to him. They look on the desire of the bloodshed even of beasts as a mark of a mind that is already corrupted with cruelty, or that at least by the frequent returns of so brutal a pleasure must degenerate into it.

They do not make slaves of prisoners of war, except those that are taken fighting against them; nor of the sons of their slaves, nor of the slaves of other nations. The slaves among them are only such as are condemned to that state of life for some crime that they had committed, or, which is more common, such as their merchants find condemned to die in those parts to which they trade, whom they redeem sometimes at low rates; and in other places they have them for nothing, and so they fetch them

away.

With what care they look after their sick, so that nothing is left undone that can contribute either to their ease or health and for those who are taken with fixed and incurable diseases, they use all possible ways to cherish them, and make their lives as comfortable as may be: they visit them often, and take great pains to make their time pass off easily. But when any is taken with a torturing and lingering pain, so that there is no hope, either of recovery or ease, the priests and magistrates come and exhort them, that since they are now unable to go on with the business of life, and are become a burden to themselves and to all about them, so that they have really outlived themselves, they would no longer nourish such a rooted distemper, but would choose rather to die, since they cannot live, but in much misery; being assured, that if they either deliver themselves from their prison and torture, or are willing that others should do it, they shall

be happy after their deaths: and since by their dying thus, they lose none of the pleasures, but only the troubles of life, they think they act not only reasonably in so doing, but religiously and piously, because they follow the advices that are given them by the priests, who are the expounders of the will of God to them. Such as are wrought on by these persuasions, do either starve themselves of their own accord, or they take opium, and so they die without pain. But no man is forced on this way of ending his life; and if they cannot be persuaded to it, they do not for that fail in their attendance and care of them.

In the way of choosing of their wives, they use a method that would appear to us very absurd and ridiculous, but is constantly observed among them, and accounted a wise and good rule. Before marriage, some grave matron presents the bride naked, whether she is a virgin or a widow, to the bridegroom; and after that, some grave man presents the bridegroom naked to the bride. We indeed both laughed at this, and condemned it as a very indecent thing. But they, on the other hand, wondered at the folly of the men of all other nations, who if they are but to buy a horse of a small value, are so cautious, that they will see every part of him, and take off both his saddle, and all his other tackle, that there may be no secret ulcer hid under any of them; and that yet in the choice of a wife, on which depends the happiness or unhappiness of the rest of his life, a man should venture upon trust, and only see about a hand-breadth of the face, all the rest of the body being covered, under which there may lie hid that which may be contagious, as well as

loathsome.

None are suffered to put away their wives against their wills, because of any great calamity that may have fallen on their person; for they look on it as the height of cruelty and treachery to abandon either of the married persons, when they need most the tender care of their consort; and that chiefly in the case of old age, which as it carries mary diseases along with it, so it is a disease of itself. But it falls often out, that when a married couple do not agree well together, they by mutual consent separate, and

find out other persons with whom they hope they may live more happily. Yet this is not done without obtaining leave of the senate, which never admits of a divorce, but upon a strict inquiry made, both by the senators and their wives, into the grounds upon which it proceeds; and even when they are satisfied concerning the reasons of it, they go on but slowly, for they reckon that too great easiness in granting leave for new marriages would very much shake the kindness of married persons.

For the most part, slavery is the punishment even of the greatest crimes; for as that is no less terrible to the criminals themselves than death, so they think the preserving them in a state of servitude is more for the interest of the commonwealth, than the killing them outright; since as their labor is a greater benefit to the public than their death could be, so the sight of their misery is a more lasting terror to other men, than that which would be given by their death.

They have but few laws, and such is their constitution that they need not many. They do very much condemn other nations whose laws, together with the commentaries on them, swell up to so many volumes; for they think it an unreasonable thing to oblige men to obey a body of laws that are both of such a bulk and so dark that they cannot be read or understood by every one of the subjects.

They have no lawyers among them, for they consider them as a sort of people whose profession it is to disguise matters as well as to wrest laws; and, therefore, they think it is much better that every man should plead his own cause, and trust it to the judge, as well as in other places the client does it to a counsellor. By this means they both cut off many delays and find out truth more certainly; for, after the parties have laid open the merits of their cause, without those artifices which lawyers are apt to suggest, the judge examines the whole matter, and supports the simplicity of such well-meaning persons whom otherwise crafty men would be sure to run down; and thus they avoid those evils which appear very remar kably among all those nations that labor under a vast load of laws. Every one of them is skilled in their law, for