CITIES IN THE CLOUDS.

Some Famous Utopia-Builders.

By Erewhon.

"THERE are two ways of writing about the future, the scientific and the Utopian," says Bertrand Russell, the English philosopher, in his "Sceptical Essays." The Utopian, he says, sets out what the writer would like, while the scientific way tries to discover what is probable. Sir Thomas More, author of the first English Utopia, who is to be canonised at Rome on Easter day, confessed frankly "that many things be in the vtopian weal publique, which in our cities I may rather wisshe for then hoope after." His book, which gave the generic name Utopias to this kind of writing, describes the state of the Utopians, where a communistic economy provides for the wants of all, and compares it with the evils and miseries of the European commonwealths he knew. More was a student, a humanist, a lawyer, a churchman and a politician. When Utopia was written the internal affairs of England were in a deplorable condition. The wholesale conversion of arable land into pasture land for the purpose of breeding sheep for wool had almost ruined agriculture. Thousands of able bodied men and their families were turned adrift to starve or beg or steal. If they chose the latter alternative and were caught, the penalty was death. Many took the risk and it was not uncommon to see 20 at a time swinging from the gallows. The nobility, rich merchants and abbots, who flourished by the infliction of this misery, were merciless in their administration of the law. Conditions were so bad that More made his hero, Hythlodaye, say that in Christian Commonwealths he "could see nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the Commonwealth."

More was greatly interested in the political and economic state of England and Europe. His aim was to write a book which would point out the faults of the European commonwealths and he decided to do so by the now familiar method of describing the evils he saw about him, analysing them as best he could and comparing this state of affairs with a more perfect organisation. Plato's "Republic," St. Augustine's "De Civitate Dei," and other classical and religious works suggested to him many improvements on society as he knew it. The framework of his "Utopia" was provided by a small book entitled "Cosmographia Introductio," to which was appended Amerigo Vespucci's account of his four voyages westward. Vespucci described how, on his second voyage, he explored the Cape Verde region and found a people who lived in a sort of communistic commonwealth and where the precious metals and precious stones were not prized. In the account of his fourth voyage Vespucci told of a small garrison of 24 men which he left at Cape Frio, in South America, and who explored some of the surrounding country. More made his hero Hythlodaye one of these men, but he ingeniously leaves it a mystery whether Hythlodaye visited Utopia on his journeys about Cape Frio or whether on some previous voyage with his captain Vespucci.

A Satire on Men.

More was master of the art of feigning. No one knew more than he the peril he incurred by publishing such a satire on men and governments in Europe, but he left ample loopholes for the assertion that he had merely written an ingenious fable with no more serious import than a parody on far-fetched travellers' tales. Hytholdaye means "skilled in babble," Utopia is "Nusquamla" or "no-place land," its capital Amaurote is a "phantom city" and its river, Anyder, "a river which is no water." That More actually had a serious purpose In mind when he wrote the book there can be no doubt, but it is debatable whether he meant all the suggestions made in it to be taken seriously. Brewer, in his "Reign of Henry VIII," says that "Utopia was not to be literally followed — was no more than an abstraction at which no one would have laughed more heartily than More him self, if interpreted too strictly." Brewer then goes on to suggest that More meant to suggest no more than the reforms which were brought about in Victorian times, a typically Victorian verdict with which More himself might not have agreed. In "Utopia" everybody works six hours a day. There is no money or exchange. Each takes what he makes to market and brings away what he needs. Every man is given free liberty to believe what he will. There are few priests "bicause they thinke it harde to find many so good as to be meet for that dignity." The attitude of the Utopians to war is modern, particularly if compared with Francis Bacon's almost contemporary es says on statecraft. They detest war and battle and "contrarye to the custome almost of all other natyons, they cownte nothinge so much against glorie, as glory goten in warre." The poor of the nations with which they trade receive a seventh part of all the goods exported. Titles and ancestry are held in contempt and the monarchy is elective. The advice given on sanitary arrangements and town planning, if not everywhere followed to day, have become commonplaces and most of the other matters proposed and discussed in "Utopia" are still topical and matter of controversies. Save for the wording and contemporary references the book might be a modern satire. The "Utopia" was written in Latin and printed at Louvain in 1516. The first translation into English was by Ralph Robynson and it was published by Abraham Vele, at the sign of the "Lambe" in St. Paul's Churchward.' in 1551.
More had Plato's "Republic," the first description of Utopia ever written, to guide him. Although, written before the Christian era this book is extraordinarily modern in some of its suggestions and discussions. In a democracy, Plato says, men do what they like, say what they like and anyone who waves a national flag is a statesman. Plato sees hope for a better ordered world when kings are philosophers or philosophers kings. For the ruling class he proposes a communistic state of life, in which men and women must be mated with the utmost care for procreation, "the best being paired at due seasons, nominally by lot and for the occasion." Children are taken from the parents and brought up by the State, trained in the way they should go to, become philosopher rulers. To Plato the good of the whole is what matters, not whether one or another may suffer hardship for the sake of the whole. But, despite his communistic ideals and social philosophy, Plato is far from modern equalitarians in that his regulation and education are for the rulers; the mass of the people retain the family, their property and benefit from the enlightened government of the elect. Nevertheless, he says that men must take rank according to the metal whereof they are made.

An Italian Utopia.

In 1626 Thomas Campanella, an Italian monk, published "Civitis Solis" or "The city of the Sun," a work which owed much to Plato and Sir Thomas More but which contained original suggestions which are still readable and some even topical in their application. The book is a political philosophy In the form of a dialogue. Communism, government control of population and something very like free love are characteristic features of the City of the Sun. Campanella was born in 1568 and entered the Dominican order. He took part In a rising against the Spaniards, was captured and spent 27 years in prison. At the request of Pope Urban VIII. he was sent to Rome, tried by the Inquisition and eventually set free but forbidden to remain In Italy. Cardinal Richelieu invited him to France and he died at Paris oh May 26, 1639.
A burst of Utopia building came with the social and scientific speculations of the nineteenth century. In England William Morris published "News from Nowhere," an idealistic picture of England under socialism. The skies are always blue, the machines are practically gone and everybody seems on a perpetual bank holiday with interludes of haymaking and similar fascinating pastimes. As an illustration of the Utopian as contrasted with the scientific way of writing about the future, "News from Nowhere" should be read in conjunction first with Knickerboker's "Five-Year Plan," an account of communism in practice, and Wells's "The Shape of Things to Come," a reasonable conjecture of future possibilities.
The satirical Utopia building of Samuel Butler in "Erewhon" and "Erewhon Revisited" is in a different category from "News from Nowhere" and Edward Bellamy's "Looking Backward." Butler, like Swift in "Gulliver's Travels," was more concerned with satirising the faults and failings of his contemporaries than in painting a future state of earthly bliss under a new regime. Butler was the spiritual father of George Bernard Shaw and his dry humour and shrewd eye for the qualities and possibilities of mankind saved him from picturing idealistic states in the naive manner of William Morris. The Erewhonians make us feel uncomfortable about ourselves whereas the lads and lassies of Morris's romance make us feel that there is a good time coming by-and-by and that circumstances and not men are fundamentally at fault.
The noblest Utopia-builder of them all is H. G. Wells. It is typical of him to declare, in his "A Modern Utopia" (1905), that no less than a planet will serve the purpose of a modern Utopia. Two inhabitants of earth upon some high pass of the Alps suddenly find themselves in an other world, physically and geographic ally like their own but where the wise samurai rule a planned Utopia in which a labouring and servile class has been abolished by invention and where men and women are able to develop to the best of their capabilities. The findings of science are utilised for the common good, though riches are not debarred to those who want them, and the economic possibilities of the world are exploited to the full by sane internationalism. The samurai is an order composed of those who will that order and Justice shall reign over the globe. Any intelligent adult may belong to the order provided he or she is prepared to undergo the discipline and proves that the necessary intellectual qualifications are present. The dull and the base are excluded and by public work and effort the samurai serve the common purpose of maintaining the state and order of the world.
The Utopia of Wells comes into the Utopian rather than the scientific category but the conveniences and organisation described are well within the range of modern invention, provided men were as reasonable as the Utopians. But men are not always reasonable. Mr. G. K. Chesterton, for instance, says he enjoys Christmas and the other feast days of the present world more than he would enjoy "the feast of reason and the flow of soul which the Futurist promises us in his Utopia." In Utopia, he says, everything is made easy whereas it is quite conceivable that some people would prefer to walk along the street than be wisked along by a moving platform. He projects a Utopia in which everything would be constructed on an opposite principle, that of making the dull parts of life more exciting by being made more difficult. The criticism is legitimate. The abolition of coal fires, the removal of dogs and horses from the streets, and a press-the-button existence in the house are not unmitigated pleasures but the wheel of progress turns and the vehicle of civilisation, for better or for worse, moves onward. It is when all is said and done, a healthier symptom on the part of our social philosophers to picture the possibility of a better life on earth, and thus urge us to effort, than to console us for present shortcomings with the promise of spiritual blessings in some remote here after.

 The West Australian 9 March 1935,