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But never must I appear in the light of a reformer, political or religious; for to the introduction of new customs, apparently trivial, and the institution of new forms, however beneficial, the disgust of the semi-barbarous races may be traced. People settled like myself too often try to create a Utopia, and end with a general confusion.
Now I need hardly remark that the Mosaic narrative unquestionably professes a geographical exactness and a literal existence of the garden, as no fabled locality no Utopia or garden of the Hesperides. I need only refer to the data afforded to us by Gen. ii. 8-14. The Lord, it is said, planted a garden in Eden: it was "eastward;" but that does not directly indicate its site.
Sometimes More puts the case as of France when he means England. Sometimes there is ironical praise of the good faith of Christian kings, saving the book from censure as a political attack on the policy of Henry VIII. Erasmus wrote to a friend in 1517 that he should send for More's "Utopia," if he had not read it, and "wished to see the true source of all political evils."
Therefore, to speak of the abolishing of usury is idle. All states have ever had it, in one kind or rate, or other. So as that opinion must be sent to Utopia. "To speak now of the reformation and reiglement of usury; how the discommodities of it may be best avoided, and the commodities of it retained.
He passes, and for a little space we are left with his egoisms and idiosyncrasies more or less in suspense. But why was he intruded? you ask. Why could not a modern Utopia be discussed without this impersonation impersonally? It has confused the book, you say, made the argument hard to follow, and thrown a quality of insincerity over the whole.
'To the South Seas, replied the curate, his thin face lighting up with excitement; 'there, as Baltic tells us, missionaries are needed for the heathen. I shall become a missionary, father, and Bell will work by my side to expiate her father's sin by aiding me to bring light to those lost in darkness. 'My poor boy, you dream Utopia.
I believed that power was the supreme lever with which to move the world, and that money was but the fulcrum upon which that lever should rest. You gentlemen have shattered this belief, and have shown me that sordid gold is the controlling object of man's life. Still, I prefer to remain in my Utopia, alone if need be, but with your unwilling company so long as my present strength shall last."
He then said they were, and farewell to building castles in the air: he now says that moral restraint is to be coupled with these, and that its influence depends greatly on the state of laws and manners and Utopia stands where it did, a great way off indeed, but not turned topsy-turvy by our magician's wand!
And again, "A frame of government perfect in its principles has been brought down from the airy regions of Utopia, and has found a local habitation and a name in our country." Among my miscellaneous reading, I got hold of an American publication giving a detailed, and, indeed, an official account of the capture of Washington by the British, in 1814.
For in considering the after life of the Utopian child, I am entering a region in which the idea of education begins to merge itself in the larger idea of salvation; and though education, as begun in Utopia, is in its essence a life-long process, I must pay some heed to the limits which tradition and custom have imposed on the meaning of the word.
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