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also appeal to the exquisite and admirable work , of one of the greatest men that has adorned this or any other country , I mean Sir Thomas More , which has been disgracefully neglected and misunderstood by his countrymen , who have represented him as not having
been m earnest m what he wrote , and have even converted the word Utopian into a term of contempt and reproach , as implying something absurd and impracticable . With a few passages from his Utopia , in which there can be no doubt he expresses his real sentiments , I shall , therefore , conclude this essay .
" To speak plainly my real sentiments , I must freely own , that , as long as there is any private property , and while money is the standard of all other things , I cannot think that a nation can be governed either justly or happily ; not justly , because the best things will fall to the share of the
worst men ; nor happily , because all things will be divided amongst a few , ( and even these are not in all respects happy , ) the rest being left to be absolutely miserable . Therefore , when I reflect on the wise and good constitution of the Utopians , among whom all things
are so well governed and with so few laws ; where virtue hath its due reward , and yet there is such an equality that every man lives in plenty : when I compare with them so many other nations , that are still making new laws , and yet can never bring their constitution to a
right regulation ; where , notwithstanding every one has his property , yet all the laws that they can invent have not the power either to obtain or preserve it , or oven to enable men certainly to distinguish what is their own from what is another ' s ; of which the many law-suits
that every day break out and are eternally depending , give too plain a demonstration : when , I say , I balance all these things in my thoughts , I grow more favourable to Plato , and do not wonder that he resolved not to make any laws for such as would not submit to a
community of all things ; for so wise a man < ould not but foresee that the setting all upon a level was the only way to make a nation happy , which cannot be obtained so long as private property exists : for when every man draws to himself all that he can compass , by one title or another , it must needs follow , that how plentiful
Lower Classes ; " and " Mr . Owen ' s pro * posed Villages for the Poor shewn to be highly favourable to Christianity . "
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soever a nation may be , yet a few dividing the wealth of it among themselves , the rest must fall into indigence . So that there will be two sorts of people among them , who deserve that their fortunes should be interchanged ; the former useless , but wicked and ravenous ; and the latter , who by their constant industry serve the public more than themselves , sincere and modest men : from whence , 1 am persuaded , that , till property is taken away there can be no equitable or
just distribution of things , nor can the world be happily governed ; Joy as long as that is maintained , the greatest and the far "best part of mankind will be still oppressed with a load of cares and anxieties . I confess , without taking it quite away , those pressures that lie on a great part of mankind may be made lighter , but they can never be quite removed : for if laws were made to determine at
how great an extent in soil , and at how much money every man must stop , &c . these laws might have such effect as good diet and care might have on a sick man whose recovery is desperate , they might allay and mitigate the disease , but it could never be quite healed , nor the body politic be brought again to a good habit ,
as long as property remains ; and it will fall out as in a complication of diseases , that by applying a remedy to one sore you will provoke another ; and that which removes the one ill symptom produces others ; while the strengthening one part of the body weakens the rest . "—More , p . 60 . And , again , at the conclusion of his delightful work : cc Thus have I described to you , as particularly as I could , the constitution
of that commonwealth , which I do not only think the best in the world , but indeed the only commonwealth that truly deserves that name . In all other places it is visible , that while people talk of a commonwealth every man only seeks his own wealth ; but there , where no man has any property , all men zealously pursue the good of the public : and , indeed , it is no wonder to see men act so
differently ; for , in other commonwealths , every man knows that , unless he provides for himself , how flourishing soever the commonwealth may be , he must die of hunger , so that he sees the necessity of preferring his own concenifc to the public , but in Utopia , where every man has a right to every thing , they all know that if care is taken to keep the public stores full , no private man can want any thing ; for among them there is no unequal distribution , so that no man is poor
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The Nonconformist . No . XX . & 9
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1821, page 99, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2497/page/35/
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