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OF THEIR TRADES, AND MANNER OF LIFE
"Agriculture is that which is so universally understood among them
that no person, either man or woman, is ignorant of it; they are
instructed in it from their childhood, partly by what they learn at
school, and partly by practice, they being led out often into the
fields about the town, where they not only see others at work but
are likewise exercised in it themselves. Besides agriculture,
which is so common to them all, every man has some peculiar trade
to which he applies himself; such as the manufacture of wool or
flax, masonry, smith's work, or carpenter's work; for there is no
sort of trade that is in great esteem among them. Throughout the
island they wear the same sort of clothes, without any other
distinction except what is necessary to distinguish the two sexes
and the married and unmarried. The fashion never alters, and as it
is neither disagreeable nor uneasy, so it is suited to the climate,
and calculated both for their summers and winters. Every family
makes their own clothes; but all among them, women as well as men,
learn one or other of the trades formerly mentioned. Women, for
the most part, deal in wool and flax, which suit best with their
weakness, leaving the ruder trades to the men. The same trade
generally passes down from father to son, inclinations often
following descent: but if any man's genius lies another way he is,
by adoption, translated into a family that deals in the trade to
which he is inclined; and when that is to be done, care is taken,
not only by his father, but by the magistrate, that he may be put
to a discreet and good man: and if, after a person has learned one
trade, he desires to acquire another, that is also allowed, and is
managed in the same manner as the former. When he has learned
both, he follows that which he likes best, unless the public has
more occasion for the other.
The chief, and almost the only, business of the Syphogrants is to
take care that no man may live idle, but that every one may follow
his trade diligently; yet they do not wear themselves out with
perpetual toil from morning to night, as if they were beasts of
burden, which as it is indeed a heavy slavery, so it is everywhere
the common course of life amongst all mechanics except the
Utopians: but they, dividing the day and night into twenty-four
hours, appoint six of these for work, three of which are before
dinner and three after; they then sup, and at eight o'clock,
counting from noon, go to bed and sleep eight hours: the rest of
their time, besides that taken up in work, eating, and sleeping, is
left to every man's discretion; yet they are not to abuse that
interval to luxury and idleness, but must employ it in some proper
exercise, according to their various inclinations, which is, for
the most part, reading. It is ordinary to have public lectures
every morning before daybreak, at which none are obliged to appear
but those who are marked out for literature; yet a great many, both
men and women, of all ranks, go to hear lectures of one sort or
other, according to their inclinations: but if others that are not
made for contemplation, choose rather to employ themselves at that
time in their trades, as many of them do, they are not hindered,
but are rather commended, as men that take care to serve their
country. After supper they spend an hour in some diversion, in
summer in their gardens, and in winter in the halls where they eat,
where they entertain each other either with music or discourse.
They do not so much as know dice, or any such foolish and
mischievous games. They have, however, two sorts of games not
unlike our chess; the one is between several numbers, in which one
number, as it were, consumes another; the other resembles a battle
between the virtues and the vices, in which the enmity in the vices
among themselves, and their agreement against virtue, is not
unpleasantly represented; together with the special opposition
between the particular virtues and vices; as also the methods by
which vice either openly assaults or secretly undermines virtue;
and virtue, on the other hand, resists it. But the time appointed
for labour is to be narrowly examined, otherwise you may imagine
that since there are only six hours appointed for work, they may
fall under a scarcity of necessary provisions: but it is so far
from being true that this time is not sufficient for supplying them
with plenty of all things, either necessary or convenient, that it
is rather too much; and this you will easily apprehend if you
consider how great a part of all other nations is quite idle.
First, women generally do little, who are the half of mankind; and
if some few women are diligent, their husbands are idle: then
consider the great company of idle priests, and of those that are
called religious men; add to these all rich men, chiefly those that
have estates in land, who are called noblemen and gentlemen,
together with their families, made up of idle persons, that are
kept more for show than use; add to these all those strong and
lusty beggars that go about pretending some disease in excuse for
their begging; and upon the whole account you will find that the
number of those by whose labours mankind is supplied is much less
than you perhaps imagined: then consider how few of those that
work are employed in labours that are of real service, for we, who
measure all things by money, give rise to many trades that are both
vain and superfluous, and serve only to support riot and luxury:
for if those who work were employed only in such things as the
conveniences of life require, there would be such an abundance of
them that the prices of them would so sink that tradesmen could not
be maintained by their gains; if all those who labour about useless
things were set to more profitable employments, and if all they
that languish out their lives in sloth and idleness (every one of
whom consumes as much as any two of the men that are at work) were
forced to labour, you may easily imagine that a small proportion of
time would serve for doing all that is either necessary,
profitable, or pleasant to mankind, especially while pleasure is
kept within its due bounds: this appears very plainly in Utopia;
for there, in a great city, and in all the territory that lies
round it, you can scarce find five hundred, either men or women, by
their age and strength capable of labour, that are not engaged in
it. Even the Syphogrants, though excused by the law, yet do not
excuse themselves, but work, that by their examples they may excite
the industry of the rest of the people; the like exemption is
allowed to those who, being recommended to the people by the
priests, are, by the secret suffrages of the Syphogrants,
privileged from labour, that they may apply themselves wholly to
study; and if any of these fall short of those hopes that they
seemed at first to give, they are obliged to return to work; and
sometimes a mechanic that so employs his leisure hours as to make a
considerable advancement in learning is eased from being a
tradesman and ranked among their learned men. Out of these they
choose their ambassadors, their priests, their Tranibors, and the
Prince himself, anciently called their Barzenes, but is called of
late their Ademus.
"And thus from the great numbers among them that are neither
suffered to be idle nor to be employed in any fruitless labour, you
may easily make the estimate how much may be done in those few
hours in which they are obliged to labour. But, besides all that
has been already said, it is to be considered that the needful arts
among them are managed with less labour than anywhere else. The
building or the repairing of houses among us employ many hands,
because often a thriftless heir suffers a house that his father
built to fall into decay, so that his successor must, at a great
cost, repair that which he might have kept up with a small charge;
it frequently happens that the same house which one person built at
a vast expense is neglected by another, who thinks he has a more
delicate sense of the beauties of architecture, and he, suffering
it to fall to ruin, builds another at no less charge. But among
the Utopians all things are so regulated that men very seldom build
upon a new piece of ground, and are not only very quick in
repairing their houses, but show their foresight in preventing
their decay, so that their buildings are preserved very long with
but very little labour, and thus the builders, to whom that care
belongs, are often without employment, except the hewing of timber
and the squaring of stones, that the materials may be in readiness
for raising a building very suddenly when there is any occasion for
it. As to their clothes, observe how little work is spent in them;
while they are at labour they are clothed with leather and skins,
cut carelessly about them, which will last seven years, and when
they appear in public they put on an upper garment which hides the
other; and these are all of one colour, and that is the natural
colour of the wool. As they need less woollen cloth than is used
anywhere else, so that which they make use of is much less costly;
they use linen cloth more, but that is prepared with less labour,
and they value cloth only by the whiteness of the linen or the
cleanness of the wool, without much regard to the fineness of the
thread. While in other places four or five upper garments of
woollen cloth of different colours, and as many vests of silk, will
scarce serve one man, and while those that are nicer think ten too
few, every man there is content with one, which very often serves
him two years; nor is there anything that can tempt a man to desire
more, for if he had them he would neither be the, warmer nor would
he make one jot the better appearance for it. And thus, since they
are all employed in some useful labour, and since they content
themselves with fewer things, it falls out that there is a great
abundance of all things among them; so that it frequently happens
that, for want of other work, vast numbers are sent out to mend the
highways; but when no public undertaking is to be performed, the
hours of working are lessened. The magistrates never engage the
people in unnecessary labour, since the chief end of the
constitution is to regulate labour by the necessities of the
public, and to allow the people as much time as is necessary for
the improvement of their minds, in which they think the happiness
of life consists.
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