Page:Aristopia (1895).pdf/92

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and not the cunning and calculating selfishness which such a course might seem to indicate.

One of the books which had given Ralph Morton many ideas of a model commonwealth was Thomas More's Utopia. This book has long been misunderstood and misrepresented. It has generally been spoken of as the scheme of a mild lunatic for upsetting all the good old order of society, and instituting in its place something as impossible for human beings with their sinful nature to attain (without first dying) as it would be for those same gross mortals to live (without first dying) in the Elysian Fields above the sunset clouds. In fair truth, More's book contained only the sane, wise ideas of a man centuries ahead of his age, a lover of humanity more than of self. One by one, as the centuries wore away, his wild imaginings, as they seemed to be, became the accomplished facts of history. Human nature was found to be capable of better things than bigoted theologians or sneering cynics thought possible. That great seer's splendid visions yet unfulfilled are no more impossible than what has been accomplished. But let us hope that the accomplishment will be accelerated, so