This eBook was produced by David Widger
THERE is a large class of men, not in Europe alone, but in this countryalso, whose constitutional conservatism inclines them to regard anyorganic change in the government of a state or the social condition ofits people with suspicion and distrust. They admit, perhaps, the evilsof the old state of things; but they hold them to be inevitable, thealloy necessarily mingled with all which pertains to fallible humanity.Themselves generally enjoying whatever of good belongs to the politicalor social system in which their lot is cast, they are disposed to lookwith philosophic indifference upon the evil which only afflicts theirneighbors. They wonder why people are not contented with theirallotments; they see no reason for change; they ask for quiet and peacein their day; being quite well satisfied with that social condition whichan old poet has quaintly described:—
"The citizens like pounded pikes;
The lesser feed the great;
The rich for food seek stomachs,
And the poor for stomachs meat."
This class of our fellow-citizens have an especial dislike of theorists,reformers, uneasy spirits, speculators upon the possibilities of theworld's future, constitution builders, and believers in progress. Theyare satisfied; the world at least goes well enough with them; they sit ascomfortable in it as Lafontaine's rat in the cheese; and why should thosewho would turn it upside down come hither also? Why not let well enoughalone? Why tinker creeds, constitutions, and laws, and disturb the goodold-fashioned order of things in church and state? The idea of makingthe world better and happier is to them an absurdity. He who entertainsit is a dreamer and a visionary, destitute of common sense and practicalwisdom. His project, whatever it may be, is at once pronounced to beimpracticable folly, or, as they are pleased to term it, Utopian.
The romance of Sir Thomas More, which has long afforded to theconservatives of church and state a term of contempt applicable to allreformatory schemes and innovations, is one of a series of fabulouswritings, in which the authors, living in evil times and unable toactualize their plans for the well-being of society, have resorted tofiction as a safe means of conveying forbidden truths to the popularmind. Plato's "Timaeus," the first of the series, was written after thedeath of Socrates and the enslavement of the author's country. In thisare described the institutions of the Island of Atlantis,—the writer'sideal of a perfect commonwealth. Xenophon, in his "Cyropaedia," has alsodepicted an imaginary political society by overlaying with fictionhistorical traditions. At a later period we have the "New Atlantis" ofLord Bacon, and that dream of the "City of the Sun" with which Campanellasolaced himself in his long imprisonment.
The "Utopia" of More is