ab db THOMAS MORE* & ak = Thomas More (1478-1535), who was Lord Chancellor of England under Henry VIIL, was also one of the greatest hu- " manists, a friend of Erasmus and Vives, His Utopia starts a new philosophical and literary genre. PA ery rsscums encosn every year 8 mepstrate, who wat anciently called the Syphogrant, but is now called the Philarch; and over every ten Syphogrants, with the families subject to ‘them, there is another magistrate, who was anciently called the Tranibor, but of late the Archphilarch. All the Sypho- grants, who are in number two hundred, choose the Prince Sy at of a list of four, who are named by the people of the four divisions of the city; but they take an oath before they proceed to an election, that they will choose him whom they think most fit for the office. They give their voices secretly, so that it is not known for whom every one gives his suffrage. The Prince is for life, unless he is temoved upon suspicion of some design to enslave the people. The Trani- bors are new chosen every year, but yet they are for the most part continued. All their other magistrates are only annual. ‘The Tranibors meet every third day, and oftener if neces- sary, and consult with the Prince, either concerning the affairs of the state in general, or such private differences as may arise sometimes among the people; though that falls out but seldom. There are always two Syphogrants called into the council chamber and these are changed every day. It is a fundamental rule of their government, that no conclusion can ‘be made in anything that relates to the public, till it has been first debated three several days in their council. It is death for any to meet and consult concerning the state, unless it be either in their ordinary council, or in the assembly of the whole body of the people. THOMAS MORE 117 Agriculture is that which is so universally understood among them, that no person, either man or woman, is ig- norant 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. Through- out 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 their weakness, leaving the ruder trades to the men. The same trades gen- erally pass down from father to son, inclinations often follow- ing 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 per- son 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 Sypho- grants, is to take care that no man may live idle, but that everyone 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, count4 7 THE NATURE OF MAN 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 terval to luxury and idleness, but must employ it in some proper exercise according to their various inclinations, which 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 litera- 5 yet a great many, both men and women of all ranks, to hear lectures of one sort or other, according to their i Clinations. But if others, that are not made for contempla- ion, choose rather to employ themselves at that time in their rades, as many of them do, they are not hindered, but are Yather commended, as men that take care to serve their es After supper, they spend an hour in some diver- ion, in summer in their gardens, and in winter in the where they eat; where they entertain each other, either ith music or discourse. =" Utopia doa kh Vives, Joaquin Xirau, Buenos Aires, 1944, specially translated for the present volume by Dennis Rodriguez. JUAN LUIS VIVES* - & Juan Luis Vives (1492-1540) was born in Spain but spent most of his life in Brussels. A friend of More and Erasmus, he can be considered as the founder of experimental psy- chology and one of the first to propose a scientific approach to mental illness. Ir WE DEEPLY analyze man, this holy animal, we find that he is not only born capable of a religion concerning God and of a society concerning man, but that he is made, shaped, gifted for this. Man looks upon all human beings as partners, given that in contemplating the unity of nature: he knows that they have been born to communicate with everyone and that he cannot evade an opportunity to do good to others because hhe knows that such an omission cannot take place without violating the laws of nature, that is to say, God, its Author. So, to remove oneself from the commands of nature is equal to affronting God, because it is something that He has shown us to be wicked. All the expressed ideas are clear indicators of sociability, but there-is none more evident than language, which the animals lack: It is evident that this was not necessary in our relations with God, because He sees into the most intimate corners of our soul and we are more familiar to Him than to our- selves. Neither was it necessary for an individual life, be- cause no one speaks to himself. He gave language to men in consideration of men. In order to show man what the society of the future was to be, He sent him into this world completely defenseless. * The following text is from El Pensamlento Vivo de Juan LuisRENE DESCARTES* S René Descartes (1596-1650) was born at La Haye, province ‘of Tours. He studied under the Jesuits at the School of La Flache, lived in Holland, and died in Stockholm. As a math- ‘ematician he is famous for the discovery of analytical geome- try; Discourse on Method shed a new light on the problems of deduction and the metaphysical concept of man. Des- cartes’ influence can be felt especially in the Philosophie sys tems of Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, Berkeley, and Hume. The problems he posed have been of interest to such disparate twentieth century philosophers as Husserl and Sartre, and Ryle and Wittgenstein. Goop sENsE 15, of all things among men, the most equally distributed; for everyone thinks himself so abundantly pro- vided with it, that those even who are the most difficult to satisfy in everything else, do not usually desire a larger meas ure of this quality than they already possess. And in this it is not likely that all are mistaken: the conviction is rather to be held as testifying that the power of judging aright and of dis- ‘tinguishing truth from error, which is properly what is called good sense or reason, is by nature equal in all men; and that the diversity of our opinions, consequently, does not arise from some being endowed with a larger share of reason than others, but solely from this, that we conduct our thoughts along different ways, and do not fix our attention on the same objects. For to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough; the prime requisite is rightly to apply it. The greatest minds, as.they are capable of the highest excellences, are open like- wise to the greatest aberrations; and those who travel very slowly may yet make far greater progress, provided they keep * The following text is from Discourse on Method, translated ‘by John Veitch, Everyman's Library Edition (New York: E. P. a & Co, Inc. and London: J. M, Dent & Sons, Ltd., 1953). REN# DESCARTES 137 always to the straight road, than those who, while they run, forsake it Discourse on Method, Patt 1 I am in doubt as to the propriety of making my first medi- tations in the place above mentioned matter of discourse; for these are so metaphysical, and so uncommon, as not, perhaps, to be acceptable to everyone. And yet, that it may be deter- mined whether the foundations that I have laid are suffi- ciently secure, I find myself in a measure constrained to ad- vert to them. I had long before remarked that, in relation to practice, it is sometimes necessary to adopt, as if above doubt, opinions which we discern to be highly uncertain, as has been already said; but as I then desired to give my attention solely to the search after truth, I thought that a procedure exactly the opposite was called for, and that I ought to reject as abso- tutely false all opinions in regard to which I could suppose the least ground for doubt, in order to ascertain whether after that there remained aught in my belief that was wholly in- dubitable. Accordingly, seeing that our senses sometimes de- ceive us, I was willing to suppose that there existed nothing really such as they presented to us; and because some men err in reasoning, and fall into paralogisms, even on the simplest matters of geometry, I, convinced that I was as open to error as any other, rejected as false all the reasonings I had hitherto taken for demonstrations; and finally, when I considered that the very same thoughts (presentations) which we experience when awake may also be experienced when we are asleep, while there is at that timie-not one of them true, I supposed that all the objects (presentations) that had entered into my mind when awake, had in them no more truth than the illu- sions of my dreams. But immediately upon this I observed that, whilst I thus wished to think that all was false, it was absolutely necessary that I, who thus thought, should be some- what; and as I observed that this truth, I think, hence I am, ‘was so certain and of such evidence that no ground of doubt, however extravagant, could be alleged by the skeptics cap- able of shaking it, I concluded that I might, without scruple, accept it as the first principle of the philosophy of which I was in search.4 138 THE NATURE OF MAN In the next place, I attentively examined what I was, and as I observed that I could suppose that I had no body, and = that there was no world nor any place in which I might bes M but that I could not therefore suppose that I was not; and that, on the contrary, from the very circumstance that I thought to doubt of the truth of other things, it most clearly > and certainly followed that I was; while, on the other hand, if Thad only ceased to think, although all the other objects which I had ever imagined had been in reality existent, I 4 would have had no reason to believe that I existed; I thence "concluded that I was a substance whose whole essence or na- ture consists only in thinking, and which, that it may exist, SH has need of no place, nor is dependent on any material thing; 80 that “I,” that is to say, the mind by which I am what I am, is wholly distinct from the body, and is even more easily known than the latter, and is such, that although the latter ‘were not, it would still continue to be all that it is. And here I specially stayed to show that, were there such machines exactly resembling in organs and outward form an ape or any other irrational animal, we could have no means of knowing that they were in any respect of a different nature from these animals; but if there were machines bearing the image of our bodies, and capable of imitating our actions as far as it is morally possible, there would still remain two most certain tests whereby to know that they were not therefore really men. Of these the first is that they could never use words or other signs arranged in such a manner as is compe- tent to us in order to declare our thoughts to others: for we may easily conceive a machine to be so constructed that it emits vocables, and even that it emits some correspondent to the action upon it of external objects which cause a change in its organs; for example, if touched in a particular place it may demand what we wish to say to it; if in another it may ery out that it is hurt, and such like; but not that it should arrange them variously so as appositely to reply to what is said in its Presence, as men of the lowest grade of intellect can do. The second test is that although such machines might execute many things with equal or perhaps greater perfection than any of us, they would, without doubt, fail in certain others from which it could be discovered that they did not act from RENE DESCARTES 139 knowledge, but solely from the disposition of their organs; for while reason is an universal instrument that is alike available on every occasion, these organs, on the contrary, need a par- ticular arrangement for each particular action; whence it must ‘be morally impossible that there should exist in any machine a diversity of organs sufficient to enable it to act in all the oc- currences of life, in the way in which our reason enables us to act. Again, by means of these two tests we may, likewise, know the difference between men and brutes. For it is highly deserving of remark, that there are no men so dull and stu- pid, not even idiots, as to be incapable of joining together dif- ferent words, and therby constructing a declaration by which to make their thoughts understood; and that on the other hand, there is no other animal, however perfect or happily cireumstanced, which can do the like. Discourse on Method, Part V