Page 146 - UTOPIA

been distributed among them, none would have felt the ter-
rible effects of that scarcity: so easy a thing would it be to
supply all the necessities of life, if that blessed thing called
money, which is pretended to be invented for procuring
them was not really the only thing that obstructed their be-
ing procured!
‘I do not doubt but rich men are sensible of this, and that
they well know how much a greater happiness it is to want
nothing necessary, than to abound in many superfluities;
and to be rescued out of so much misery, than to abound
with so much wealth: and I cannot think but the sense
of every man’s interest, added to the authority of Christ’s
commands, who, as He was infinitely wise, knew what was
best, and was not less good in discovering it to us, would
have drawn all the world over to the laws of the Utopians, if
pride, that plague of human nature, that source of so much
misery, did not hinder it; for this vice does not measure hap-
piness so much by its own conveniences, as by the miseries
of others; and would not be satisfied with being thought a
goddess, if none were left that were miserable, over whom
she might insult. Pride thinks its own happiness shines the
brighter, by comparing it with the misfortunes of other per-
sons; that by displaying its own wealth they may feel their
poverty the more sensibly. This is that infernal serpent that
creeps into the breasts of mortals, and possesses them too
much to be easily drawn out; and, therefore, I am glad that
the Utopians have fallen upon this form of government, in
which I wish that all the world could be so wise as to imitate
them; for they have, indeed, laid down such a scheme and

146 Utopia