A Critical Essay On Sir Thomas

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social comment. Since Utopia is a work of many ideas, it is impossible of course to expand the book unless one has some notion of the hierarchy of conception in it. A caretul reading of Utopia does seem to me to reveal clearly the hierarchy of it author's ideas at the time he composed the book. Although the interpretation of Utopia which follows has no pretension to substantial novelty, but rather disavows it, my approach to the problem may seem singular and eccentric. The account of such an analysis will necessarily be a little dull, so I shall have to request the forbearance of the reader without being able to promise for his patience any large reward in the shape of a brand new insight.
The inconsistency between the prospectus in the curious paragraph and the subject matter that follows in the printed version of Utopia becomes intelligible if we make a few assumptions about the development of the books composition. The conclusion various scholars have come to about More's ...

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and rational consciousness. Now if anyone honestly wanted to uphold private property, surely he would rest his case with a mature, not with a palpably silly and insincere argument. Of course More could not put this serious argument against community of property at the end of Book II, because he had already used it near the end of Book I. It is a curious tactic for a man committed to the defense of private property, and one that surely calls for explanation. The argument against community of property at the end of Book I is neither novel nor remarkable, but it is venerable and durable. It raises two classical problems of egalitarian socialism: the problem of incentives and the problem of ...

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