Page 110 - UTOPIA

easily comprehended, and would only serve to make the
laws become useless to the greater part of mankind, and es-
pecially to those who need most the direction of them; for it
is all one not to make a law at all or to couch it in such terms
that, without a quick apprehension and much study, a man
cannot find out the true meaning of it, since the generality
of mankind are both so dull, and so much employed in their
several trades, that they have neither the leisure nor the ca-
pacity requisite for such an inquiry.
‘Some of their neighbours, who are masters of their own
liberties (having long ago, by the assistance of the Utopi-
ans, shaken off the yoke of tyranny, and being much taken
with those virtues which they observe among them), have
come to desire that they would send magistrates to govern
them, some changing them every year, and others every five
years; at the end of their government they bring them back
to Utopia, with great expressions of honour and esteem,
and carry away others to govern in their stead. In this they
seem to have fallen upon a very good expedient for their
own happiness and safety; for since the good or ill condi-
tion of a nation depends so much upon their magistrates,
they could not have made a better choice than by pitching
on men whom no advantages can bias; for wealth is of no
use to them, since they must so soon go back to their own
country, and they, being strangers among them, are not en-
gaged in any of their heats or animosities; and it is certain
that when public judicatories are swayed, either by avarice
or partial affections, there must follow a dissolution of jus-
tice, the chief sinew of society.

110 Utopia