the
client trusts it to a counsellor. By this means they both cut off many
delays, and find out truth more certainly: for after the parties have
laid open the merits of the cause, without those artifices which lawyers
are apt to suggest, the judge examines the whole matter, and supports
the simplicity of such well-meaning persons, whom otherwise crafty men
would be sure to run down: and thus they avoid those evils which appear
very remarkably among all those nations that labour under a vast load of
laws. Every one of them is skilled in their law, for as it is a very
short study, so the plainest meaning of which words are capable is
always the sense of their laws. And they argue thus: all laws are
promulgated for this end, that every man may know his duty; and
therefore the plainest and most obvious sense of the words is that which
ought to be put upon them; since a more refined exposition cannot be
easily comprehended, and would only serve to make the laws become
useless to the greater part of mankind, and especially 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 capacity
requisite for such an inquiry.

Some of their neighbours, who are masters of their own liberties, having
long ago, by the assistance of the Utopians, 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
condition 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
engaged in any of their heats or animosities; and it is certain that
when public judicatories are swayed, either by