Page 41 - UTOPIA

ful physician that cannot cure one disease without casting
his patient into another. So he that can find no other way for
correcting the errors of his people but by taking from them
the conveniences of life, shows that he knows not what it is
to govern a free nation. He himself ought rather to shake off
his sloth, or to lay down his pride, for the contempt or ha-
tred that his people have for him takes its rise from the vices
in himself. Let him live upon what belongs to him without
wronging others, and accommodate his expense to his rev-
enue. Let him punish crimes, and, by his wise conduct, let
him endeavour to prevent them, rather than be severe when
he has suffered them to be too common. Let him not rashly
revive laws that are abrogated by disuse, especially if they
have been long forgotten and never wanted. And let him
never take any penalty for the breach of them to which a
judge would not give way in a private man, but would look
on him as a crafty and unjust person for pretending to it. To
these things I would add that law among the Macarians—a
people that live not far from Utopia—by which their king,
on the day on which he began to reign, is tied by an oath,
confirmed by solemn sacrifices, never to have at once above
a thousand pounds of gold in his treasures, or so much silver
as is equal to that in value. This law, they tell us, was made
by an excellent king who had more regard to the riches of
his country than to his own wealth, and therefore provided
against the heaping up of so much treasure as might impov-
erish the people. He thought that moderate sum might be
sufficient for any accident, if either the king had occasion
for it against the rebels, or the kingdom against the inva-

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