or lucre, but only of a godly zeal.' The design may have failed through
the disappearance of Hythloday, concerning whom we have 'very uncertain
news' after his departure. There is no doubt, however, that he had told
More and Giles the exact situation of the island, but unfortunately at
the same moment More's attention, as he is reminded in a letter from
Giles, was drawn off by a servant, and one of the company from a cold
caught on shipboard coughed so loud as to prevent Giles from hearing.
And 'the secret has perished' with him; to this day the place of Utopia
remains unknown.

The words of Phaedrus, 'O Socrates, you can easily invent Egyptians or
anything,' are recalled to our mind as we read this lifelike fiction.
Yet the greater merit of the work is not the admirable art, but the
originality of thought. More is as free as Plato from the prejudices
of his age, and far more tolerant. The Utopians do not allow him
who believes not in the immortality of the soul to share in the
administration of the state (Laws), 'howbeit they put him to no
punishment, because they be persuaded that it is in no man's power to
believe what he list'; and 'no man is to be blamed for reasoning in
support of his own religion ('One of our company in my presence was
sharply punished. He, as soon as he was baptised, began, against our
wills, with more earnest affection than wisdom, to reason of Christ's
religion, and began to wax so hot in his matter, that he did not only
prefer our religion before all other, but also did despise and condemn
all other, calling them profane, and the followers of them wicked and
devilish, and the children of everlasting damnation. When he had thus
long reasoned the matter, they laid hold on him, accused him, and
condemned him into exile, not as a despiser of religion, but as a
seditious person and a raiser up of dissension among the people').'
In the public services 'no prayers be used, but such as every man
may boldly pronounce without giving offence to any sect.' He says
significantly, 'There be that give worship to a man that was once of
excellent virtue or of famous glory, not only as God, but also the
chiefest and highest God. But the most and the wisest part, rejecting
all these, believe that there is a certain godly power unknown, far
above the capacity and reach of man's wit, dispersed throughout all the
world, not in bigness, but in virtue and power. Him they call the Father
of all. To Him alone they a