1 Thomas More's eclecticism should be evident from Utopia alone, with its mixture of Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic, and Epicurean elements, but it also indicated by references throughout his writings to such thinkers as Democritus, Theophrastus, Lucretius, Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus, and Plutarch. More's contemporary Richard Pace writes, ‘There's no school of philosophy he [More] doesn't approve of in part. Whatever each one particularly excels in, that's what he particularly admires about it’ (Pace, Richard, De Fructu Qui ex Doctrina Percipitur, ed. and tr. Manley, Frank and Sylvester, Richard S. [New York, 1967], p. 105Google Scholar).

2 For example, Frederick Copleston writes, ‘under the influence of Plato's Republic, [More wrote] a kind of philosophical novel describing an ideal State on the island of Utopia’ (A History of Philosophy, vol. 3, pt. 2: Late Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy [1953; rpt. Garden City, N.Y., 1963], p. 134). Similarly, Windelband, Wilhelm notes, ‘The ideal picture of the perfect state of society upon the island of Utopia, which More sketches in contrast to the present condition, is in its main features an imitation of the ideal state of Plato’ (A History of Philosophy, tr. Tufts, James H. [1901; rpt. New York, 1859] II, 428).Google Scholar

3 Robert Adams, for example, briefly discusses Stoicism in his ‘Designs by Erasmus and More for a New Social Order,’ Studies in Philology, 42 (1945), 131-145; Martin Raitiere treats Augustine in ‘More's Utopia and The City of God,’ Studies in the Renaissance, 20 (1973), 144-168; and Proctor Fenn Sherwin also discusses The City of God (‘Some Sources of More's Utopia,’ Bulletin of the University of New Mexico, No. 88 [September, 1917], 167-191). Edward Surtz discusses Epicurus in The Praise of Pleasure (Cambridge, Mass., 1957). and he refers to a number of thinkers in his notes to Utopia, vol. 4 of The Yale Edition of the Complete Works of St. Thomas More, ed. Edward Surtz, s.j., and J. H. Hexter (New Haven, 1965). There is no comprehensive study of the possible influence of Aristotle on Utopia. Surtz makes a few references to Aristotle in The Praise of Pleasure; he offers some suggestions in his ‘Sources, Parallels, and Influences’ in Utopia, p. clxiii; and he notes many textual parallels in the commentary to the Yale edition. Hans Süssmuth also makes a couple of remarks in his Studien zur Utopia des Thomas Moms (Münster, 1967), pp. 46-48. All references to Utopia will be made to the Yale edition; page and line numbers will be given in parentheses in the body of this study, e.g., (103/26-30).

4 When More was at Oxford, the course of study in Arts was based on the medieval trivium and quadrivium, and philosophy was dominated by Aristotle. By the time More wrote Utopia, printed texts of this philosopher were quite accessible. Both medieval and Renaissance translations of the Politics, Nicomachean Ethics, Rhetoric, and the pseudo-Aristotelian Economics were available. In addition, the Greek Aristotle was completed in 1498 by Aldus Manutius. More certainly would have been able to read Aristotle in Greek before writing Utopia. During the early 1500's he studied Greek with William Grocyn and Thomas Linacre (More's letter to John Holt [Ep. 2, 1501] identifies Grocyn as his instructor, and he refers to Linacre as ‘studiorum praeceptor’ in an epistle to Colet [Ep. 3, 1504] [The Correspondence of Sir Thomas More, ed. Elizabeth Rogers (1947; rpt. Freeport, N.Y., 1970), pp. 4, 9]); he and William Lily made competing Latin translations of epigrams selected from the Greek Anthology; and in 1505 More and Erasmus began their translations of Lucian (More translated Lucian's Cynicus, Menippus, and Philopseudes, and he and Erasmus both translated and wrote replies to Tyrannidda [Thompson, C. R., The Translations of Lucian by Erasmus and St. Thomas More (Ithaca, 1940)Google Scholar]). See also Thompson's edition of the translations, Complete Works, 3, Part I (New Haven, 1974).

5 Correspondence, Rogers, Ep. 15, p. 65. St. Thomas More: Selected Letters, ed. Elizabeth Rogers (New Haven, 1961), Letter 4. Additional references to the letter to Dorp will be made to the Selected Letters, with the page number in parentheses following the quotation.

6 The Latin Epigrams of Thomas More, ed. and tr. Leicester Bradner and Charles Lynch (Chicago, 1953), pp. 48, 171. The editors note that this epigram is based on a phrase from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, 1102b 5-7.

7 Responsio ad Lutherum, vol. 5 of The Yale Edition of the Complete Works of St. Thomas More, ed. John M. Headley and tr. Sister Scholastica Mandeville (New Haven, 1969), pp. 335-339 and 585. Cf. Politics 1276b 16-1277b 32 and 1333a 11-12 and De Interpretatione 16a 27-29, respectively.

8 A Dialogue Concerning Heresies, in The English Works of Sir Thomas More, ed. W. E. Campbell (London, 1931), II, 150. Cf. Rhetoric, 1354a 31-1354b 22.

9 The Latin text here is ‘Aristotelis plura’ (180/28). This is rendered ‘several of Aristotle's’ in the Yale Utopia (181/34), but considering the fact that except for a lone volume by Theophrastus, Plato and Aristotle are the only philosophers carried by Raphael, an admitted student of Greek philosophy, the translation of this by ‘many of Aristotle's’ seems to be more reasonable.

10 Utopia's complexity has spawned a variety of interpretations of the work. For example, Karl Kautsky sees Utopia as a product of the social evils and economic tendencies of the time, and regards More as the father of modern socialism (Thomas More and His UTOPIA, tr. H. J. Stenning [London, 1927]); Russell Ames also pays attention to the historical, cultural, and economic milieu in which More lived, but interprets Utopia as part of capitalism's attack on feudalism, and asserts that the book is fundamentally republican, bourgeois, and democratic (Citizen Thomas More and His UTOPIA [Princeton, 1949]); C. S. Lewis sees it as no more than a jeu d'esprit (English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama, vol. 3 of The Oxford History of English Literature [Oxford, 1954]); R. W. Chambers stresses the rational foundation of More's ideal island and points to Utopia's function as a kind of conduct book for nominally Christian Europe of the sixteenth century (Thomas More [1935; rpt. Ann Arbor, 1958]); and Edward Surtz, who basically agrees with Chambers, further emphasizes the religious and humanistic features of the work (The Praise of Pleasure and The Praise of Wisdom [Chicago, 1957]).

11 Similarly, Utopia and Amaurotum may be shaped to some measure after the colony of Plato's Laws, Atlantis (in the Critias), or Aristotle's ideal city in the Politics, but it is obvious that geographical features of England and London were also very influential. In the same way, the picture of the king's councilors in Book 1 of Utopia (91/32-95/9) may in some way be indebted to the discussions in Plato and Aristotle about the good king and the tyrant, but the fact that such monarchs as Henry VII clearly practiced the deeds condemned by Raphael must also have been an important inspiration here for More. On the Utopians’ attraction to Christianity because of its communism see 219/5-10. J. H. Hexter has a fine discussion on the relationship between monasticism and Utopia in his More's UTOPIA: The Biography of an Idea (1952; rpt. New York, 1965), pp. 85-91. In a fine essay D. B. Fenlon argues that ‘the urge to transform monastic virtues into virtues appropriate to the lay state, locates the appeal of Utopia within a common point of departure leading to the Reformation fashioned at Calvin's Geneva and the Counter Reformation in the Church of Rome'; see ‘England and Europe: Utopia and Its Aftermath,’ Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (5th series), 25 (London, 1975), 115-135. For another aspect of the influence of Christianity on More see Marc'hadour, Germain, The Bible in the Works of Thomas More, vol. 1 (Nieuwkoop, 1969).Google Scholar For the connection between Utopia and England see: Utopia, pp. 384, 386, 433, 464; and Ritter, Gerhard, The Corrupting Influence of Power, tr. Pick, F. W. (Hadleigh, Essex, 1952), esp. pp. 46–89.Google Scholar In addition to the comparisons made by the editors of the Yale Utopia and Ritter, one should note that there is a tradition which maintains that Britain is a man-made island (for example, see Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene [II.X.V]). (This tradition was pointed out to me by Professor William Nelson.) Utopus, of course, is responsible for the separation of Utopia from the mainland (113/1-18).

12 It is true, as Richard Sylvester points out, that one cannot simply assume that Utopia represents More's idea of ‘the best state of the commonwealth’ (‘Si Hythlodaeo Credimus,’ Soundings, vol. 51, no. 3 [Fall, 1968], 272-289, esp. pp. 275-277). Nonetheless, Raphael's acceptance of it as the ideal society is clear, so Utopia is legitimately part of the philosophical tradition of describing the ideal state (Hythlodaeus labels Utopia as ‘that commonwealth which I judge not merely the best but the only one which can rightly claim the name of a commonwealth’ [237/38-39]).

13 The POLITICS of Aristotle, ed. and tr. Ernest Barker (1946; rpt. Oxford, 1958), 1323a 14-16. All references to the Politics will be made in standard notation in parentheses, e.g., (1323a 14-16). Quotations from the Nicomachean Ethics axe from the translation of H. Rackham (Cambridge, Mass., 1934). References will be made in parentheses, e.g., (Eth. 1148b 6-10).

14 Although the matter of happiness is briefly treated at the beginning of Book vii, Aristotle's fullest discussion of its nature is found, of course, in the Nicomachean Ethics.

15 Barker defines self-sufficiency as ‘the possession of such material resources and such moral incentives, as make a full human development possible, without any dependence on external help, material or moral’ (Politics, p. 8). ‘The best polis,’ notes Randall, ‘is the one that best fosters all human excellences, all conduct in accord with moral excellence and intelligence’ (Randall, John Herman Jr., Aristotle [New York, 1960], p. 255CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

16 It is, of course, the superiority of the institutions which makes it an ideal society. The same disapproval of change can be seen in Plato. Socrates bans any change in music or gymnastics because he believes that it would result in fundamental and harmful political and social change (Rep. iv.242b-c). For the same reason, the Athenian praises the Egyptian prohibition against innovation in painting and music (Laws ii.656d-e), and he himself legislates against innovation in children's games (Laws vii.797c-798d). He also explains that legislation must be developed about travel because if it is left unrestricted it can lead to innovation and harm in a well-ordered society (Laws xii.949e-95oa).

17 The fact that the Utopians use a navy in war is confirmed at 209/30-33 where More writes, ‘should any war, however, assail their own country, they put the fainthearted, if physically fit, on shipboard mixed among the braver sort or put them here and there to man the walls where they cannot run away.’

18 Hythlodaeus only describes the Utopians as exporting their own goods, not importing the necessary iron. Nonetheless, they could easily do this as well since they obviously have the requisite skills. In any case, Raphael observes, ‘Few persons, however, come to them in the way of trade’ (185/7-8).

19 What makes it even more likely that there could be Aristotelian influence here is that the question of whether to fortify cities or not was a matter of debate in antiquity. (Aristotle indicates this at 1330b 32-1331a 24.) Sparta boasted that its citizens were its best walls (Barker, Ernest, The Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle [1906; rpt. New York, 1959], p. 415Google Scholar), and Plato echoes this sentiment in the Laws, where the Athenian rejects fortifications (Laws vi.778d-e). Aristotle's position on this matter, then, would surely have been noted by More.

20 Barker, , Politics, p. 111, n. 1.Google Scholar

21 On the material goods necessary for happiness see: Eth. 1099a 32ff., 1179a 4ff.; on the need for friendship see Eth. 1169b 3-22.

22 On Utopian Epicureanism see Surtz, Edward, Praise of Pleasure, pp. 23–35.Google Scholar

23 The idea that pleasure can come from habit is also expressed in the Rhetoric (1370a 6-9).

24 In connection with the emphasis which both men put on nature, it may be noted that the Utopians’ scorn for the person who derides another because of a natural physical defect, and their criticism of those who do not preserve their natural beauty (193/18-24), parallel Aristotle's remark in the Ethics that the person who is ugly, deformed, or in any way deficient by nature is not to be blamed, but the person who becomes so by neglect is worthy of censure (Eth. 1114a 21-31).

25 More here employs the notion of pleasure as restoration which Aristotle uses in the Ethics. He claims that pleasures which restore our natural state are only accidentally pleasant (Eth. 1152b 33-35). Both thinkers relegate these pleasures to a lower class.

26 More's position on the pleasures of the soul is not entirely clear. On the one hand he states, ‘To the soul they ascribe intelligence and the sweetness which is bred of contemplation of truth. To these are joined the pleasant recollection of a well-spent life and the sure hope of happiness to come’ (173/12-15). But on the other hand, the principal part of the mental pleasures is later said to arise ‘from the practice of the virtues and the consciousness of a good life’ (175/36-37). The first passage emphasizes the contemplative life in a way that the second one does not. More probably regards the active life of virtue as the ultimate source of pleasure because the recollection of a good life, hope of eternal reward, and the consciousness of a good life presume the practice of virtues. But he is most likely simply stressing whatever pleasures he can imagine might be connected with the soul, and so he includes both active and contemplative elements.

27 Earlier in the Ethics Aristotle divides goods into those of the soul, those of the body, and external goods, and he maintains that the goods of the soul are most properly called goods (Eth. 1098b 12-15). It should be noted that in their discussions about ethics, the Utopians inquire into these three classes of goods and debate whether the name ‘good’ can be applied to all three or only to the goods of the soul (161/17-22).

28 On the importance of prudence, Aristotle states, ‘true virtue cannot exist without prudence’ (Eth. 1144b 16-17). It should also be noted that prudence is described as a type of habit (Eth. 1140b 4-6).

29 For a discussion of justice and equality in terms of the social criticism in Utopia see Hexter, J. H., ‘Introduction, Part I,’ in Utopia, pp. cxxi–cxxiv.Google Scholar

30 Both Leonardo Bruni and Joannes Argyropulus render as ‘aequum’ and ‘iniquum,’ respectively, in their translations of the Politics.

31 It is significant that More understands Aristotle's idea of equity correctly, that is, as a corrective of legal justice that is itself distinct from justice. Since More distinguishes between'iustitia’ and ‘aequitas’ (72/5-17, 238/19-21) and avoids discussing the latter as a legal concept, it should be clear that the concept of equity which prevailed in English law is not involved here. Despite the fact that in More's time the court of Chancery did decide cases according to equity, fairness, and conscience (thus mitigating some of the harshness of common law), this court did not employ Aristotle's concept of equity. Holdsworth shows very clearly that the equity of Chancery was a legal concept (Holdsworth, Sir William, A History of English Law, iv [3rd ed., 1945; rpt. London, 1966], 278–283Google Scholar), and Ernest Barker points out that this is in contrast to Aristotle's idea when he writes, ‘We must beware of importing into Aristotle's conception of equity any legal or juridical notions such as go with our English conception of the “law of equity.” Equity is, in his view, something outside the area of law, and something, therefore, which lies outside the conterminous area of justice’ (Politics, p. 336). Kisch, Guido (Erasmus und die Jurisprudenz seiner Zeit, [Basel, 1960])Google Scholar tries to show that the original Aristotelian meaning of ‘equity’ as a supplement to written law rather than an equivalent or part of justice was rediscovered only by the humanists and jurists of the sixteenth century. We might say that More, whom Kisch does not discuss, seems to fit into this picture. I owe this reference to Professor Paul Kristeller.

Passages where More simply uses ‘aequum’ may also reflect Aristotle's . Although Leonardo Bruni translates and by ‘bonitas et equitas’ and ‘bonum et equum,’ respectively, and Johannes Argyropulus by ‘aequitas et bonitas’ and ‘aequum et bonum,’ Georgius Trapenzuntius translates by both ‘aequum et bonum’ and simply ‘aequum.’ More knew Greek well and may have decided on his own to render the concept solely by ‘aequitas’ or ‘aequum.’

32 It is important to note that despite all that has been said about the importance of the Republic to Utopia, More's remarks about justice do not seem to have any relation to Plato's theory of justice. Nowhere in Utopia does More speak about justice either in terms of Plato's notion of justice in the state (doing one's own proper work), or justice in the individual (internal order of the soul). Since this is the central concept of the Republic (indeed, the work is subtitled ), it is no small matter for More to reject Plato's discussion of justice for Aristotle's. This extremely telling point supports my earlier contention that Thomas More is fundamentally an eclectic thinker.

33 Despite the fact that Aristotle concedes in Book x of the Ethics that the perfect happiness which comes only from contemplation needs no external goods because it is a self-sufficient activity (x.vi-vii), he does maintain in the Politics that ‘the best way of life, for individuals severally as well as for states collectively, is the life of goodness duly equipped with such a store of requisites [i.e., of external goods and of the goods of the body] as makes it possible to share in the activities of goodness’ (1323b 40-1324a 2).

34 He makes the same point in a more dehumanizing way when he writes, ‘we cannot regard the elements which are necessary for the existence of the state, or, of any other association forming a single whole, as being “parts” of the state or any such association’ (1328a 23-24).

35 It should be noted, however, that while the purpose of having a slave class is different in these two states, the treatment of slaves is quite similar. The Polylerite and Utopian practices of rewarding them with liberty or an easier servitude and the generally humane treatment of slaves (77/15-79/37,191/36-193/2) parallel Aristotle's idea that slaves should be treated well and always should have the hope of emancipation (1330a 31-33; cf. the pseudo-Aristotelian Economics i.v).

36 Even the slaves in Utopia have the hope of happiness, since their slavery is not necessarily a permanent condition. ‘When tamed by long and hard punishment, if they show such repentance as testifies that they are more sorry for their sin than for their punishment, then sometimes by the prerogative of the governor and sometimes by the vote of the people, their slavery is either lightened or remitted altogether’ (191/37-193/2).

37 Hythlodaeus points out, ‘It is out of this company of scholars that they choose ambassadors, priests, tranibors, and finally the governor himself (133/5-8). This seems to leave only the syphogrants who need not be scholars, but since ‘the chief and almost the only function of the syphogrants is to manage and provide that no one sit idle, but that each industriously apply himself to his trade’ (127/23-26), their political function is limited, so the principle of rule by the learned seems to hold. It should be evident that since Utopia is governed by an aristocracy and since it aims at the happiness of all its citizens, More implicitly rejects Aristotle's contention that the experience of ruling is part of the excellence of the citizen.

38 On the availability of the Economics in the Renaissance see Soudek, Josef, ‘Leonardo Bruni and His Public: A Statistical and Interpretative Study of His Annotated Latin Version of the (Pseudo-) Aristotelian Economics,’ Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, 5 (1968), 49–136.Google Scholar

39 More even echoes Aristotle's recommendation that an army ‘should be formidable to their enemies when they are in retreat, as well as when they are invading’ (1265a 26-28). More writes, ‘If [the Utopians] feel themselves to be inferior in number or position, either by night they noiselessly march and move their camp or evade the enemy by some stratagem, or else by day they retire so imperceptibly and in such regular order that, it is as dangerous to attack them in retreat as it would be in advance’ (213/21-26).

40 Aristotle, of course, has already separated the citizens from the non-citizens and slaves, and has installed the former as the ruling body. The fact that he does not speak of education for non-citizens therefore suggests that in one sense he does accept the concept of separate education for rulers. Nonetheless, he and More still disagree on this matter because More provides special training for one particular group of citizens to equip them to rule.

41 Surtz notes that More's objections to communism are fundamentally Aristotle's (Praise of Pleasure, p. 182, and Utopia, pp. cliv and 382); cf. Süssmuth, , Studien, pp. 46–48.Google Scholar Both scholars correctly mention the passage at 1261b about trusting to the industry of others, but Süssmuth incorrectly claims that an objection to communism in Utopia is based on an idea from the Ethics (Studien, pp. 47-48). Another example of More's familiarity with Aristotle's arguments against common property is a passage in Book II, chapter xvii of A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation where he writes, ‘But, cousin, men of substance must there be, for else shall you have more beggars pardy than there be, and no man left able to relieve another.’ This may reflect Aristotle's remark at 1263b 7-14 where he claims that the virtue of liberality depends on property being private.

42 More elsewhere parallels Aristotle's economic ideas when Hythlodaeus observes that although money was originally supposed to make it easier to acquire the necessities of life, it actually is the sole barrier to these very things (243/18-21). In the Politics, Aristotle states that money was invented to facilitate trading between men, so that necessary goods could be acquired more easily (1257a 17-41).