## 1. Introduction



According to Erasmus, the young Thomas More "devoted himself to
the study of Greek literature and philosophy", and



> 
> 
> [a]s a youth even worked on a dialogue in which he supported
> Plato's doctrine of communalism, extending it even to wives. (23
> July 1519 letter to Ulrich von Hutten [*EW* 1372.6-7;
> 1373.93-96])
> 
> 
> 



Commenting on the older More, Erasmus described him as having a
"clearly philosophic character" (late 1532 letter to John
Faber [*EW* 1378.56]) and a home that could rightly be called
"another Platonic academy" but which gave first place to
piety, Scripture, and the wisest and most saintly Church Fathers (late
1532 [*EW* 1380.51] and 22 May <1518> letter to William
Gonell [*EW* 289-90]). It was also a home in which his
daughters received the same education as his son (c. September 1521
letter to Guillaume Bude [*EW* 1375-76]). As the
More scholar Elizabeth McCutcheon recently summarized the education of
More's daughters, it was



> 
> 
> based on a study of Greek and Latin texts, ... all the liberal
> and humane arts (grammar, rhetoric, logic, poetry, mathematics,
> philosophy, and astronomy) as well as theology and medicine.
> (McCutcheon 2022: 130)
> 
> 
> 



Both Erasmus and Richard Pace described More as a second Democritus,
the "laughing philosopher" (Curtis 2006b: 91, 94). Pace
reported about More that "[t]here is no school of philosophy he
doesn't approve of in part" but added that his special
talent was for revealing the "ridiculous" (Pace:
105)--a special focus, as we will see, of More's epigrams.
For Socrates, ridiculous people (a common theme of the young More) are
those who are mistaken about themselves, those who have not followed
the Delphic "know thyself" prescript (Plato,
*Philebus* 48c). More wrote that his favorite comic dialogue
writer, Lucian, used "Socratic irony" (<1506> letter
to Thomas Ruthall [*EW* 20.59]), and he praised Lucian for
"fulfill[ing] the Horatian maxim and combining delight with
instruction" while "[r]efraining from the arrogant
pronouncements of the philosophers as well as from the wanton wiles of
the poets" (<1506> [*EW* 20.7-11]). Erasmus
shared More's admiration for Lucian, who



> 
> 
> so effectively portrays the manners, emotions, and pursuits of men, as
> if with a painter's vivid brush, not so much inviting us to read
> about them as to see them with our own eyes, that ... there is
> not a comedy, or a satire, that challenges comparison with his
> dialogues. (June 1506 letter to Christopher Urswick [*CWE*
> 2.116.51-55])
> 
> 
> 



More studied Greek with the Italian-educated classical scholars
William Grocyn, Thomas Linacre, and William Lily, and was
"faithful to Aristotelian realism" (*CW* 6: 534; 23
October <1504> letter to John Colet [*EW*
270.75-78]; 21 October 1515 letter to Martin Dorp [*EW*
412.31-32]; Barron 2011: 11; McConica 2011: 25-26; Curtis
2011: 72). More presents a "philosophically sophisticated"
treatment of dialectic and language in his "Letter to
Dorp" (Kinney 1981: 180; *EW* 391-416), where he
explains that the meanings of words depend on custom and common usage
(*EW* 398, *CW* 15: 35) and that true dialectics is an
"intellectual exercise" whose "goal is the truth and
not winning a quarrel" (*EW* 407.59-60,
67-68; *CW* 15: 75). Nonetheless, in that same letter
More shows his characteristic independence of mind by saying that he
esteems Aristotle "more than many, but still along with
many" (*EW* 411.80-81, *SL* 52).



His early biographer Thomas Stapleton remarked that among
"philosophers [More] read especially Plato" and that
"in his own works he imitated Plato's manner of
writing" (1588 [1928: 15]). This imitation has been noted in
recent studies of *Utopia* (Schon 2022; Nelson 2004;
Baker-Smith 1994; Duncan 1979) but rarely in writings on More's
other Socratic dialogues, although his "dialogic" cast of
mind has long been recognized in various studies (recently: Gardner
Rodgers 2011: 243; also E. McCutcheon 2011: 58-59; Renner 2018:
51, 54-62).


## 2. Plato's Socrates: the "best philosopher"



Of all philosophers More gave pride of place to "Plato
alone" (1520 letter to Brixius [*EW* 468.38, *CW*
3.2: 643]), describing him as "the great philosopher" and
"wise" (1529 *Dialogue of Sir Thomas More, Knight*
[*EW* 681.12, 29, *CW* 6: 334.23, 335.2]). Plato's
Socrates, whom More called "the best philosopher", defined
philosophy as (in More's paraphrasing) "the meditation or
exercise of [i.e., the preparation for] death" since "the
study of philosophy labor[s] to sever the soul from the love and
affections of the body while they be together" (1522 *Four
Last Things* [*EW* 482.41-52]). As More expressed it
in one of his early works, Socrates achieved "merry
cheer", "wisdom", and "liberty" by
escaping the "bondage" of Fortune and by understanding the
"secret draughts [i.e., designs] of nature" (c. 1504
"Fortune Verses" [*EW* 14-15]).



More's Socrates was primarily concerned with ethics. In
presenting Socrates' definition of philosophy as a preparation
for death, More was alluding to Plato's *Phaedo*, in
which Socrates argues that the true philosopher must be freed from
bodily appetites and pleasures that hinder the soul from reaching
truth, virtue, and wisdom (963e-67e). In the *Phaedo,*
Socrates also provocatively calls the body a prison of the soul (82e)
and says he is looking forward to the liberty that death will provide
his soul (1522, *Four Last Things* [*EW*
482.42-43]). Throughout his writings, More also frequently drew
attention to the distortions in perception caused by the senses and
the undisciplined passions, but his incarnational view consistently
caused him to acknowledge that the body and soul are "so knit
and joined together" as to "make between them one
person", able to act harmoniously with proper education,
diligent training, and recourse to grace (1534 *Dialogue of
Comfort* [*EW* 1176.59-60]; also c. 1510 *Life of
Pico* [*EW* 85.30, 61-62; 90.15-93.210;
94.82]).



More, following Augustine (Augustine, *The Trinity,* Books
9-10), saw the soul as created in the image of God by reason, at
least in part, of being endowed "with the three great gifts,
memory, understanding, and will, in a certain manner of resemblance of
the ... Trinity" (c. 1510 *Life of Pico*
[*EW* 74.62-65, 89.61-62]; 1534 *Treatise on the
Passion* [*EW* 1031.32-35]). He saw as well that
"brutish appetites" can "make the soul leave the
noble use of his reason"--thus "turn[ing] the image
of God into a beast" (*EW* 74). One of More's most
frequent themes, from his first published work to his last, was the
character of that "spiritual battle" needed to allow
"reason to rule as a king"--and therefore
facilitating liberty through law, i.e., through law as reason embodied
over time for the good of all.



More addressed the question of how one frees the soul "for truth
and right reason in all things" (1506 *Lucian Dialogues*
[*EW* 44.17]) in a series of rhyme royal poems (i.e., in
seven-line iambic pentameter stanzas rhyming ababbcc) about the
spiritual life in his most extensive addition to the first of his
publications in English, *The Life of John Pico, Earl of
Mirandola.* There More developed "Twelve Rules" and
"Twelve Weapons" of "Spiritual Battle" needed
to achieve joy through virtue and conscience, since "Of virtue
more joy the conscience hath within / Than outward the body of all his
filthy sin" (*EW* 87.139-40) and so "Thou
shalt no pleasure comparable find / To th'inward gladness of a
virtuous mind" (*EW* 89.74-75.) To distinguish this
approach from that of the Stoics, he also developed in rhyme royal
verse what he called "The Twelve Properties ... of a
Lover". This love ballad makes clear that a "perfect
lover" will gladly "suffer trouble, pain, and woe"
for his human beloved, and all the more so for God (*EW*
90-93).



This early set of poems on the "spiritual battle" was
followed by prose writings such as *The Four Last Things* and
portions of his *Dialogue of Sir Thomas More, Knight.* These
writings concerned the "spiritual exercise by which the soul
willingly worketh with the body" to cultivate "inward
spiritual pleasure" based on neither "false
imagination" nor "vain pleasures of the flesh" but
on a very true contemplation" and "the very pleasures of
the soul" (1529 *Dialogue of Sir Thomas More, Knight*
[*EW* 480, 488]). Regarding this "spiritual
business" of cultivating the soul "to rule and bridle
sensuality" and to be "subject and obedient to
reason" (*EW* 584.67-71), More alludes regularly to
the *Phaedrus*, where Socrates says that the reasoning
charioteer must bridle and govern his passionate horses (*EW*
15.271, 26.15-36, 577.1-2, 580.83, 581.54,
584.69-71, 1101.56, 1232.71-72, 1350.46-47). More
also urges his readers to cultivate the "garden of our
soul" by engendering, planting, and watering in it the
"spiritual affections" that God "by sundry means
instructeth our reason to lean unto" (1534 *Dialogue of
Comfort* [*EW* 1232.52-66]; also 1522 *Four Last
Things* [*EW* 477.49-50]; 1529 *Dialogue of Sir
Thomas More, Knight* [*EW* 584.34-35]).


## 3. Early Poetry, Conscience, and Philosophic Considerations



Lord Chancellor and Archbishop John Morton marveled at the
twelve-year-old More's extraordinary theatrical ability to



> 
> 
> step in among the players, and never studying for the matter, make a
> part of his own there presently among them, which made the lookers-on
> more sport than all the players besides. (Roper's *Life of
> Sir Thomas More* [*EW* 1391.10-14])
> 
> 
> 



Reflecting on this passage and on More's early poetry and life,
Richard Sylvester--the Yale scholar who launched the *Complete
Works* project--observed that he had, even from that early
age, an awareness "of himself in relation to others",
showing "conscience in the old sense of the word, 'a
knowing with'" that always enabled him to determine a
"part of his own" (1967: 30).



In his earliest known poem, "Pageant Verses" (c. 1496
[*EW* 3-4, *CW* 1: 3-7]), More shows his
flair for dramatic representations of life. Each of the nine
first-person monologues expresses, in rhyme royal verse, a different
and fitting perspective about the ages of life and their specific
characteristics (*EW* 3-4), each with a touch of humor.
The poem not only includes in its scope the full scale of life
(following the ages-of-man trope of Childhood, Youth, Maturity, Old
Age) and what *follows* one's earthly life (Death, Fame,
Time, and a secular Eternity), but also ends, in Latin, with the
Poet's view of all that preceded in the light of a loving God,
the one true good--and the Poet's challenge for the reader
to reflect and choose.



"Pageant Verses" begins with Childhood boasting of his
stage of life: "[I]n play is all my mind". Childhood
humorously calls upon God twice to enable him to play games all day;
to have all those "hateful books" burned "to powder
small", and thus send him a "life always in play".
This stanza brings out the power of pleasure's allure--as
do the following few stanzas, and as will *Utopia* and
More's later works. But the child does naturally turn to God in
those lines (17 and 20), and in lines 14 and 20 he reveals an
awareness of his own mind and of death. The next stanzas dramatize the
pursuit of pleasure in different forms according to the particular age
of life, but all show the prominence of pride: each speaker ups the
boast, explaining how their pleasure or power exceeds that of the one
before. Even the old ruler boasts--of his wisdom and discretion
in achieving the "public weal"--in the stanza
entitled "Age".



"Rueful Lamentation" (*EW* 5-6)--written
in 1503, when More was twenty-five--is a moving first-person
monologue by Queen Elizabeth of York (the mother of Henry VIII) on her
deathbed, bearing witness to what the Poet of "Pageant
Verses" said about the "goods of th[is] fragile
world" being "slippery". Queen Elizabeth makes this
point powerfully in the concluding refrain for each of her twelve
stanzas: "Lo, here I lie". More's last two English
poems, written in prison, are also about "flattering
Fortune" and unreliable "Lady Luck" (c. 1534
[*EW* 16]).



More's greatest English poem is "The Fortune Verses"
(c. 1504), a dialogue between Lady Fortune and two other speakers with
differing perspectives (*EW* 12-16). As one scholar put
it:



> 
> 
> More's Fortune Verses present a three-way dialectical
> consideration of how best to live one's life in the world
> controlled by Fortune. The poem is shown to progress from speaker to
> speaker in its several parts, in order to present an increasingly
> accurate understanding of the person of Fortune and her relationship
> to human life. (Mock 2011: 69)
> 
> 
> 



The speaker in the opening Prologue is identified as
"T.M." and the meter is rhyme royal, the form, as we have
seen, that More used most frequently in his other early poetry. This
speaker addresses the reader directly in his fifty lines, giving a
simplistic and entirely negative view of Fortune. This speaker even
quotes, in French, a poet dismissing Fortune as "perverse"
and the cause of all evils. The 250 lines that follow, however, are an
engaging dialogue--not at all simplistic--between Lady
Fortune and an exceptionally wise and persuasive interlocutor, all
with More's customary humor.



In the Fortune Verses, More dramatizes how human beings contend with
the powerful allure of Fortune's fleeting goods. He gives the
examples of "wise Socrates" and other "old
philosophers" who achieved "felicity" and
"free liberty" by choosing "glad Poverty"
instead of Fortune. This choice led them to a "wisdom"
resulting in happiness rather than wretchedness (*EW*
14-15). By choosing poverty, Socrates and like-minded
philosophers chose only "what nature may sustain, / Banishing
clear all other surplusage" (*EW* 14.210-11; also
1201ff). The nature of "free liberty", along with its
relations to wisdom and virtue is one of More's major themes
throughout his writings.



These early poems show More's preoccupation with challenging the
reader to participate in, to reflect on, and, as the Poet of the
"Pageant Verses" puts it, to "nourish his
soul" on "true things" through the "fashioned
figures" of "wondrous art" (*EW* 4). This
youthful focus on truth and wonder is another early sign of
More's philosophic cast of mind.


## 4. Augustine; Lucian's Humorous Dialectical Engagement



In 1501, at the age of 23, More was invited by William Grocyn, the
rector of St. Lawrence Jewry in central London, to give lectures on
Augustine's *City of God*. According to Thomas Stapleton,
More "did not treat this great work from the theological point
of view, but from the standpoint of history and philosophy"
(1588 [1928: 8-9]). In the same year, under Grocyn's
instruction, he began the serious study of Greek (*EW* 269.21,
24). He mastered it in three years--to such an extent that he
could then challenge Erasmus to a Greek-translating contest that
resulted in his first publication, in 1506 of *Lucian Dialogues and
Declamations* (*EW* 17-59; *CW* 3.1]). 



In choosing the content of this first publication, as R. R. McCutcheon
observed, "Thomas More began his career as a dialogist ...
by collaborating with Erasmus as a translator of Lucian" (1993:
357). The three Lucian dialogues that More translated all humorously
satirize supposed philosophers' "arrogant
pronouncements" and "fruitless contentions" (1510
*EW* 20.10, 56). For the same publication, More also challenged
Erasmus to write responses to a declamation on tyrannicide--a
surprising topic for a first original publication, revealing, as
Erasmus would later point out, his friend's "special
hatred of tyranny" (1519 letter to von Hutten [*EW*
1371.17]). More's declamation set forth a theory about tyranny
and how the tyrant differs from other criminal leaders. The
declamation also speaks of civic liberty and the type of civic virtues
needed to maintain liberty, that "most precious" gift
willed by the gods (1506 *EW* 59.13-41).



More's choice to translate three comic depictions of philosophic
confusion calls to mind *The City of God*'s lengthy
expositions of the perennial disagreements among philosophers.
Augustine cites, for example, the failure of philosophers to agree on
any "universal" guide to life (10.41); the ongoing
"wars" between schools of thought, resulting in its own
Babel (18.41); Varro's distinguishing 288 different sects of
philosophy (19.1); and Cicero's admission that only a very few
achieve "true philosophy"--and that by a gift from
God (22.22). Throughout his life More quoted Augustine more than any
other author (see *Concordances* in
 Other Internet Resources),
 but nonetheless he early on wrote:



> 
> 
> Being a man, [Augustine] could make a mistake. I take his word as
> seriously as anyone's, but I take no man's word
> unconditionally. (21 October <1515> letter to Martin Dorp
> [*EW* 405. 5-7; *CW* 15: 69.4-6])
> 
> 
> 



More affirmed this independence of mind dramatically at the end of his
life, in prison:



> 
> 
> I never intend (God being my good lord) to pin my soul at another
> man's back, not even the best man that I know this day living,
> for I know not wither he may hap to carry it. There is no man living
> of whom, while he liveth, I may make myself sure. (<August 1534>
> letter of Margaret Roper to Alice Alington [*EW*
> 1314.52-57])
> 
> 
> 



For his own children, More insisted on an education ordered to
"good judgment" and the ability to listen to popular
opinion without being overly swayed by it (<1521> letter to
Margaret Roper [*EW* 314.79-80]; 22 May <1518>
letter to William Gonell [*EW* 289.80-83]). A main reason
for his decision to translate Lucian's comic dialogues was the
Greek satirist's "first rate" ability to probe
deeply without disturbing the reader's "equanimity
[*aequo animo*]" (1506 letter to Ruthall [*EW* 20
n.1]). Like Socrates, More's major philosophic interest was the
properly ordered soul equipped to seek truth and virtue not victory
and applause (c. 1518 letter to Gonell [*EW* 288-90]).
But unlike Socrates, More's final Socratic dialogues make clear
that truth and virtue can be found--with the assistance of
revelation--and not merely sought.


## 5. Towards a "Civil" Philosophy: *Life of Pico*, *Epigrams*, *Richard III*



In 1510, More found an occasion to publish a work he had begun years
earlier, having undoubtedly been introduced to Giovanni Pico della
Mirandola by his friends and teachers who had studied in Italy, where
the "Prince of Concord" was well known (Sylvester 1967:
35). Pico's nephew and heir, Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola,
published in 1496 a 496-page biography of his uncle and
anthology of his works. More's highly edited 34-page
biography and anthology radically re-envisioned Pico's life and
philosophic project. As the historian James McConica has pointed out,
everything



> 
> 
> foreign to More's thoroughly orthodox outlook is eliminated; of
> all the sources for Pico's thought in the original version, only
> Thomas Aquinas is singled out for mention. (1981: 65; see also
> Koterski 2010: 61).
> 
> 
> 



In his version of *The Life of John Pico,* More modified the
texts he translated to register his disagreement with Pico's
understanding of philosophy. Contrary to Pico's own aristocratic
view that the "princely practice" of philosophy should
never be "mercenary" or "servile" (*EW*
77.79-82, 78.45, 86.33), More adds repeatedly, with comic irony,
that philosophy brings "profit" (*EW* 63.37, 46;
68.27; 78.14), especially by providing "instruction ... in
moral virtue" (see More's addition at *EW*
77.84-85). As the editor of the Yale edition of *The Life of
Pico* observes, More's many omissions, selections, and
additions are "concerned to emphasize the necessity of the
active life" and to show the insufficiency of "the
reclusive life of the solitary scholar" (*CW* 1: xlviii).
In this way, More adds a Ciceronian and Senecan perspective, casting
philosophy as a most useful
 art[1]
 while deftly criticizing
 Pico[2]
 for not fulfilling important duties of the "civil and active
life" (*EW* 77.89-90), and for insisting that
"philosophers love liberty; ... they cannot serve"
(*EW* 78.56, 58)--thus neglecting the ordinary duties of
everyday life, as will Raphael Hythloday in *Utopia*.



The dangers of an active civic life as well as the consequences of
neglect by civic leaders are seen in More's *History of King
Richard III* (*ca.* 1513), a work never published during
his own lifetime despite the much revised and differing versions he
drafted in Latin and English. In both versions More dramatized how
human beings use their reason to decide not to follow reason. King
Edward IV, for example, ends up tragically "taking counsel of
... desire" rather than of reason (*EW* 124.51).
Queen Elizabeth Woodville (Edward's wife), despite the powerful
reasons she gave for not abandoning her young and sick son to the
"wolf" Richard, goes against those reasons and freely
hands him over. This same foolish propensity to follow passion rather
than reason is a major topic of More's many satirical epigrams
(e.g., Epigrams 199, 210, and 214). His satires point to the
importance of self-knowledge and of a well-ordered and peaceful state
of soul so that reason is unhindered from making a "good
judgment" (<1521> letter to Margaret Roper [*EW*
314.79-80]); these are the educational goals More set for his
children and for himself (<1518> letter to Gonell [*EW*
288-90]).



The 102 of More's Latin poems that are translations from the
Greek, combined with his own 179 original epigrams, show his interest
in the full scope of human life. As the editors of the Yale edition
put it, More's "refreshing new range of subjects"
makes us



> 
> 
> feel we are leaving the study of a scholar or a cleric and entering
> the world of merchants, lawyers, and courtiers.... It is this
> vivid interest in life in all its aspects that makes More's
> *Epigrammata* incomparably the best book of Latin epigrams in
> the sixteenth century. (*CW* 3.2: 62, 63)
> 
> 
> 



A large number of these witty poems highlight the ridiculous, but many
of the most distinctive ones are political and address the question of
tyranny versus good rule. To quote the Yale editors again:
More's



> 
> 
> favorite concern is for the difference between a good king and a
> tyrant, but it is evident from a reading of this group of epigrams
> that, whereas the existence of good kings is a theoretical
> possibility, the existence of tyrants is a present danger.
> (*CW* 3.2: 62)
> 
> 
> 



In fact, his criticisms of King Henry VII in Epigram 19 were so severe
that soon after More published these poems the French humanist
Germanus Brixius (Germain de Brie) accused him of defaming the monarch
(c. 1519 *Antimorus* [*CW* 3.2: 493, 495])--an
accusation so serious that More was advised to fight to protect
himself (<March- April 1520> letter to Erasmus
[*EW* 302.14-18]).



In 1516, More's collection of epigrams was to be published with
*Utopia* (*CW* 3.1: lxi-lxii; *CWE* 3:
316.89-90; *CWE* 4: 67.22-24; *CWE* 4: 281),
but because of printing difficulties it was instead first published
with the 1518 edition of *Utopia*; this added yet another
element of dialectical engagement since the epigrams contain terms and
themes present in the already provocative *Utopia.* As David
Baker points out, for example, several of the epigrams portray the
character of the true *princeps*, a term used throughout
*Utopia* and one which was fraught with historical and cultural
controversy (33-45). Significantly, More uses
"citizens" and "people" rather than
"subjects" in his literary works and explicitly criticizes
kings who treat "subjects" as "slaves" (31
October <1516> letter to Erasmus [*EW*
278.63-65]).


## 6. Socratic Dialogue on Philosophy and the City: *Utopia*



*Utopia*, undoubtedly More's most famous and most
controversial dialogue, combines elements from the dialogue forms of
Plato and Cicero, with dozens of allusions to each author, starting
with the very title:



> 
> 
> *DE OPTIMO REIPUBLICAE STATU DEQUE, nova insula UTOPIA libellus
> vere aureus nec minus salutaris quam festivus, clarissimi
> disertissimique viri THOMAE MORI inclutae civitatis Londinensis civis
> et Vicecomitis*
>   
> 
> (first published in English in 1551 as *On the Best State of a
> Commonwealth and on the new Island of Utopia A Truly Golden Handbook,
> No Less Beneficial than Entertaining by the Most Distinguished and
> Eloquent Author Thomas More Citizen and Undersheriff of the Famous
> City of London*).
> 
> 
> 



It was Cicero who translated Plato's title *Politeia* as
*Res Publicae* and who established, in his own
*Republic* and *Laws,* the conversation with Plato that
More continues in *Utopia*. More, however, adds comic elements
from Lucian's dialogues, and to miss the humor in
*Utopia* is to miss his characteristic comic irony.



Book 1 of *Utopia* raises the large question of
philosophy's relation to the city. Raphael Hythloday argues that
philosophy will never have a place in any city unless that city
imitates Utopia. The character "Thomas Morus" maintains an
opposing view: that a philosophy "more civil [*civilior*]
than Hythloday's "academic [*scholasticae*]"
philosophy not only has a place, but even poses a challenge and a duty
not to desert "the ship in a storm because you cannot control
the winds"--while making things "as little bad as you
can" (*EW* 172.19-27). This debate goes back to
Plato and Cicero; More continues it, but adds many issues raised by
biblical revelation and by Church Fathers, especially Augustine
(Wegemer 1996: 128-49).



Because Hythloday does not convince Morus and his friend Peter Giles
by the end of Book 1, Morus invites both him and Giles to lunch,
urging Raphael to tell all he can about Utopia, especially everything
that it can teach about educating citizens well, so that they become
capable of self-rule (*EW* 158.82-83, 159.2-3).
Book 2 of *Utopia* follows, an afternoon-long monologue by
Hythloday, who presents a highly selective description of life in
Utopia. Afterwards, Morus observes that Hythloday is tired and not in
the mood to be questioned, so he invites Hythloday and Giles to
dinner, complimenting Raphael on his story-telling and saying that
they will have to find another time for a deeper investigation.
*Utopia* ends with Morus commenting to the reader that
"quite a few of the institutions" of Utopia were
"quite absurd" (*EW* 211.18). In a letter written a
year later and included at the end of the 1517 edition of
*Utopia*, Morus recommended that future readers ask questions
in order to "ferret ... out" the truth of what
Hythloday had said (*EW* 215.85).



The setting and many plot details of *Utopia* provide
thought-provoking contrasts to both Plato's *Republic*
and Cicero's. For example, Plato's *Republic*
begins as Socrates is walking (with Glaucon) away from the Piraeus (a
port six miles from Athens), having attended the new festival for a
foreign goddess. On his way to Athens, he is accosted by Polemarchus
and his friends, who "force" him to speak about
justice--and though promised dinner, Socrates and his
interlocutors by the end of their long dialogue have not yet dined.
*Utopia* begins with Morus leaving a church in the middle of
Antwerp, and this busy public official welcomes Giles and Hythloday to
the garden of his home where he treats them to lunch and then dinner.
Cicero's *Republic,* like *Utopia,* also takes
place in the garden of a busy public official--Scipio
Aemilianus--in the middle of Rome. Given the dramatic character
of classical dialogues, these comparisons of settings are an important
part of *Utopia*'s literary and philosophic design, as
Dominic Baker-Smith has indicated (1991 [2000: 94]).



The dialectical challenge posed by the conversation between Hythloday
and Morus is playfully but seriously seen even in the names chosen, as
Morus himself says at *EW* 215.50-61: *Utopia* is
Greek for "no place", and other Greek names negate what
they express: the river *Anyder* means "no water";
the ruler *ademos* means "no people". This kind of
intellectual play is also seen in *Utopia*'s more than
140 uses of litotes "in which a thing is affirmed by stating the
negative of its opposite" (E. McCutcheon 1971: 107). This
dialectical game-playing is especially pointed in the oxymoron that is
formed by Hythloday's full name: *Raphael* is Hebrew for
"healer from God", and *Hythloday* is Greek for
"speaker of nonsense"--but if so, which is he really,
and when? And since *morus* is Greek for "fool",
what are we to make of one fool talking to another?



These kinds of playful puzzles fill the *Utopia*, requiring the
reader's constant attention and probing engagement in light of a
long and complex philosophic tradition. These competing elements are
seen most clearly in the core debate occupying the middle of Book 2
about the central Utopian philosophic controversy regarding the nature
of virtue. Utopia's philosophic position is a strange mixture of
an Epicurean emphasis on pleasure and the Stoic definition of virtue,
while alluding throughout to Cicero's criticisms of both
positions as well as to elements characteristic of
Christianity's distinctive perspectives.



Although the scholarship on *Utopia* far surpasses any other of
More's works, no consensus has emerged regarding the intricate
intellectual puzzle More has created.


## 7. "True dialectic and true philosophy, especially Aristotelian"



In his 1515 controversy with Martin Dorp and the scholastic
theologians at the University of Louvain, More defended "true
dialectic and true philosophy, especially Aristotelian" (21
October <1515> letter to Dorp [*EW* 395.73-74]). In
1518 he again publicly defended philosophy, specifically Greek
philosophy, in the curriculum at Oxford University (29 March
<1518> letter to Oxford University [*EW*
419.59-62]). Around 1518, More also included philosophy in the
curriculum for his children (<1518> letter to Gonell
[*EW* 289.6]), and his daughters went on to dispute philosophy
before Henry VIII in 1526 (<1526> letter from John Palsgrave
[*Corr* 405.76-77]). His daughter Margaret devoted
herself "diligently to philosophy", a course of studies
that More encouraged along with "medical science and sacred
literature" but without neglecting "humane letters and
so-called liberal studies" because in these latter studies in
particular "a good judgment is formed or perfected"
(<1521> letter to Margaret Roper [*EW*
314.50-80]).



In the letter to his children's tutor William Gonell (c. 1518),
More pointed out that the "most learned" of the
philosophers serve usefully as "guides of human life"
(*EW* 289.4-6), and that wisdom is an important objective
of education, depending, as he believed, "on the inner knowledge
of what is right [*recti conscientia*]"--or, in a
more accurate translation, "on a right conscience"
(*EW* 288.75-77). Another major objective of education is
an inward "calm and ... peace" allowing a person to
be



> 
> 
> neither stirred by praise of flatterers nor stung by the follies of
> unlearned mockers of learning [*neque ridentium literas
> illiteratorum mordeantur ineptiis*]. (*EW*
> 289.78-83)
> 
> 
> 



Towards these ends, More gave a special place to the classical authors
but also to the Bible and the Church Fathers (*EW*
290.65-77).



Later, More would again emphasize the special importance that should
be given to Greek writings--classical, biblical, and patristic
(<1518> letter to Oxford [*EW* 419-20]--while
also recognizing the important contributions of Cicero, Seneca, the
Latin Church Fathers (*EW* 419.13-14, 60), as well as
Thomas Aquinas, "that most learned and also most holy man"
(*Response to Luther, Book 1* [*CW* 5: 355.23-4]),
"the very flower of theology, and a man of that true perfect
faith and Christian living" (*The Confutation of
Tyndale's Answer* [*CW* 8: 713.21, 14]).


## 8. Free Speech, Conscience, and Dialectical Inquiry



In 1523 as Speaker of the House of Commons, More delivered an oration
requesting freedom of speech in the House of Commons (c. 1556
Roper's *Life of More* [*EW* 1387.80-86,
1393-94]). He argued that though the king and his prudent
advisors had, with "due diligence", called upon "the
most discreet persons out of every quarter" to give "right
substantial counsel", yet since a person's "mind is
often so occupied with the matter" being discussed, it might
happen that the person "rather studieth *what* to say
than *how*" to say it--or another person might be
"so fervent in a matter" that he might "speak in
such a wise as he would afterward wish to have uttered
otherwise". So, to be



> 
> 
> utterly discharged of all doubt and fear how anything that it should
> happen them to speak, should happen of your Highness to be taken,
> 
> 
> 



More requested that



> 
> 
> our most benign and godly King ... give to all your Commons here
> assembled your most gracious licence and pardon, freely, without doubt
> of your dreadful displeasure, every man to discharge his conscience,
> and boldly in everything incident among us to declare his advice.
> (*EW* 1394.19-71)
> 
> 
> 



Here, and consistently throughout his writings, this
"discharge" of one's conscience was ordered
"to declar[ing] ... the very truth" as one saw it
after "the matter [had been] thoroughly debated ... using
diligence and troth" (1 February 1533/4 letter to Thomas
Cromwell [*EW* 376.12, 62]; *The Debellation of Salem and
Bizance* [*CW* 10: 162.14-15, 26]; also c. 1513
*History of King Richard III* [*EW* 125.65], 1533
*Answer to a Poisoned Book* [*EW* 918.40-43],
<August 1534> letter of Margaret Roper to Alice Alington
[*EW* 1318.52], 1535 *Paris Newsletter* [*EW*
1385.10 and 25], 1548 *Hall's Chronical* [*EW*
1389.50]; see esp. More's two 1534 letters to Wilson
[*EW* 1320-23]).



More's case for free deliberation "using diligence and
troth"--i.e., for genuine dialectical inquiry--in
Parliament and legal matters was similar to the case he made for
deliberating political and theological matters. For example,
"Epigram 198: What Is the Best Form of Government?" opens
as a debate regarding which is better, a hereditary monarchy or a
senate. After giving arguments on both sides and after presenting the
choice as between one person who by "blind chance" is
"ruler of his advisers" and a group of persons
"elected by the people to rule" by "reasonable
agreement [*certum consilium*]" (*EW* 249), the
poem's narrator abruptly ends the debate, leaving the reader to
ponder the issue.



This concern for genuine dialectical inquiry free from self-interest
was expressed by More most dramatically to Henry VIII after the king
first asked his support in 1527 for his divorce from Queen Catherine.
More studied all the materials he was given, discussing them with the
advisors Henry identified. After doing so, he suggested to Henry that
More himself and Henry's other advisors might not give the king
the best advice because "being all your Grace's own
servants" and because of "your manifold benefits daily
bestowed on us", they could be "inclined to deceive
you". Therefore, More advised Henry to consult the counselors
most fit to help "understand the truth" of his case:
"Saint Jerome, Saint Augustine, and diverse other old holy
doctors, both Greeks and Latins" (Roper's *Life of
More* [*EW* 1399]). One of More's objectives as a
young man in studying Greek had been to read the Greek Church Fathers,
and throughout his life, he studied both the Latin and Greek
"old holy doctors and fathers" to determine the
"consent of the common Catholic Church" regarding
contested matters (7 December <1532> letter against John Frith
[*EW* 361.59, 368.36], 1529 *Dialogue of Sir Thomas More,
Knight* [*EW* 607.28-55]). Even at his trial, More
emphasized the importance of international councils to study matters,
aware of the influence exerted by national or historical interests. At
his trial, for example, he said:



> 
> 
> For one bishop who agrees with you, I have easily a hundred, including
> some who are among the saints. And for your one council, Parliament,
> and your statute--what it is worth the great good God
> knows--on my side are all the general councils celebrated during
> the last thousand years. (1535 Guildhall Report 10 [*EW*
> 1361])
> 
> 
> 



At that trial, he went on to argue that England's unilateral
action was "contrary to the unity and concord" of
"the whole Christian world" (*EW* 1361.47-50,
Guildhall Report 12)--a determination More made after his
"study during the whole of the last seven years"; he
finally made public this determination (after years of silence)
"for the exoneration of my conscience" (1535 Guildhall
Report 8 [*EW* 1361.16-19]).


## 9. Judgments "in conscience"



"Right conscience", for More, is a judgment of the
practical intellect about some particular matter, in light of
principles discovered to be true--and if doubt arose about a
fundamental principle, he held it to be the duty of a properly
convened international General Counsel to clarify the principle
involved, judged in light of the entire received tradition (<August
1534> letter of Margaret Roper to Alice Alington [*EW*
1316-17]). More explained this to his daughter Margaret when she
came for the third time to convince her father to leave prison and to
sign the oath, as she and their friends had all done. More pointed out
the danger of "framing oneself a conscience" to gratify
one's desire rather than to determine what is true. Accused of
being a "foolish scrupulous ass", More told one of his
most famous "merry tales" about "a poor honest man
of the country that was called Company" who refused to perjure
himself as a jury member. When pressed to go along with the others,
Company says:



> 
> 
> [N]ow when we shall hence and come before God, and that he shall send
> you to heaven for doing according to your conscience, and me to the
> devil for doing against mine, ... if I shall then say to all you
> again, 'Masters, I went once for good company with you, which is
> the cause that I go now to hell, play you the good fellows now again
> with me; as I went then for good company with you, so some of you now
> for good company with me. (*EW* 1314-15)
> 
> 
> 



"Conscience" became a word More used with great frequency
towards the end of his life. But even in his earliest education
letter, he twice identified a "right conscience [*recti
conscientia*]" as one of the main goals of education
(<1518> letter to Gonell [*EW* 288.76-77, 289.80]),
and, in his earliest poetry, as we have seen, he wrote that: "Of
virtue more joy the conscience hath within / Than outward the body of
all his filthy sin" (c. 1510 *Life of Pico* [*EW*
87.139-41]), and that there is "no pleasure comparable
... / To th'inward gladness of a virtuous mind" (c.
1510 *Life of Pico* [*EW* 89.74-75]). He expressed
this same thought in prison, writing that "the clearness of my
conscience hath made my heart hop for joy", knowing that he had
searched for seven years and was "very sure ... in refusing
to swear against mine own conscience" (1534 letter to Margaret
Roper [*EW* 1324.68-69]).



Judgments made "in conscience" were so central to More
that he discussed this issue with Henry VIII before agreeing to enter
the king's service in 1518; he had a similar conversation
regarding his service as Lord Chancellor of England in 1529. Both
times, More reported, Henry gave the "most virtuous lesson that
ever prince taught his servant":



> 
> 
> that I should perceive mine own conscience should serve me, and that I
> should first look unto God and after God unto him. (5 March
> <1534> letter to Thomas Cromwell [*EW* 384.70-75],
> 1534 letter to Wilson [*EW* 1321.35-41], <3 June
> 1535> letter to Margaret Roper [*EW* 1332.67-73])
> 
> 
> 


## 10. Polemical Works: Status of Reason, Liberty, Law



As Stephen Greenblatt indicated in his influential 1980 study of
Renaissance self-fashioning, the "principle of
intelligibility" is a major topic in More studies (63;
24-25, 59). More posed serious epistemological issues in
questioning how we know--early on, for example, he questioned how
Luther knows what he knows. In his first polemical work,
"request[ed] by the king and court" (1523 *Response to
Luther* [*CW* 5: 791]), More created the persona of an
easily-angered, common-sense English lawyer who questions Luther in
the following way.



> 
> 
> ... [W]e ask of him: "By what reason, Father, do you prove
> that you alone must be believed?"
> 
> 
> 
> To this he returns this cause: "Because I am certain", he
> says, "that I have my teachings from heaven".
> 
> 
> 
> Again we ask: "By what reason are you certain that you have your
> teachings from heaven?"
> 
> 
> 
> "Because God has seized me unawares", he says, "and
> carried me into the midst of these turmoils".
> 
> 
> 
> Again therefore we demand: "How do you know that God has seized
> you?"
> 
> 
> 
> "Because I am certain", he says, "that my teaching
> is from God".
> 
> 
> 
> "How do you know that?"
> 
> 
> 
> "Because God has seized me".
> 
> 
> 
> "How do you know this?"
> 
> 
> 
> "Because I am certain".
> 
> 
> 
> "How are you certain?"
> 
> 
> 
> "Because I know".
> 
> 
> 
> "But how do you know?"
> 
> 
> 
> "Because I am certain".
> 
> 
> 
> I ask you, reader, whether that form of disputing does not find a
> place here.... (1523 *Response to Luther* [*EW*
> 517.31-53])
> 
> 
> 



Here in this 1523 text, as he would do later in all of his polemical
works, More regularly addresses his readers and asks them to judge for
themselves--in light of reason and in light of an international
agreement achieved through 1500 years of conciliar and scholarly
deliberation.



More also addressed directly Luther's early claims that
"reason hindereth us in our faith, and is unto faith an
enemy" (1529 *Dialogue of Sir Thomas More, Knight*
[*EW* 698.23-24]) and that a spiritual elect had
independence from all governors and from all civil and ecclesiastical
laws (1523 *Response to Luther* [*EW* 510-11,
522-23], 1529 *Dialogue* [*EW* 698-99]).
More saw these claims as undermining what he, Erasmus, and others saw
as the path to lasting reform of both church and state: improved
education resulting in better laws. More pointed out the danger of
denying free will and teaching that it is "vain" to resist
"sinful appetites" (1529 *Dialogue* [*EW*
703.42])--advice that countered the view of virtue that both the
classical and the biblical traditions shared. If human beings are not
responsible for their actions, then Luther's "liberty of
the gospel" is, for More, "unbridled license"
(*Response to Luther, Book 1* [*CW* 5: 271.4-5])
and a sure path to lawlessness and violence (*Response to Luther,
Book 2* [*CW* 5: 689-91]).



For More, law was itself the product of collective reason over time.
He gives one of his clearest explanations of law after quoting a long
defense of law by Henry VIII, who invoked Scripture, the Church
Fathers, and history to prove that "the people without law
drifts to and fro like a ship without a rudder" (1523
*Response to Luther* [*EW* 508-9], quoting
Henry's *Defense of the Seven Sacraments*). More then
compares the biblical law against stealing with human laws about
private property. If no one owned anything, there would be no theft,
he observed. But "reason alone prescribe[s] the forms of
determining property" together with "an agreement, and
this a public agreement ... taking root in usage or expressed in
writing [which] is public law" (*EW* 510.39-44).
Luther's undermining the status of law--biblical and
civic--is, More insists,



> 
> 
> in opposition to the judgment of all learned men, in opposition to the
> judgment of all good men, in opposition to the public agreement of the
> whole world. (*EW* 511.15-18)
> 
> 
> 



Yet realist that he was, More cites Plutarch, "the great moral
philosopher" (*EW* 501.23), in recognizing that laws
can



> 
> 
> be much like ... cobwebs, in which the little gnats and flies
> stick still and hang fast, but the great [bumble]-bees break them and
> fly quite through. (1534 *Dialogue of Comfort* [*EW*
> 1209.41-44]; see Plutarch, *Life of Solon* 5)
> 
> 
> 



In his second major polemical work, published in 1529 in response to
the bishop of London's request (7 March 1527/8 letter from
Bishop Tunstall [*EW* 351]), More countered Luther's and
Tyndale's criticisms of philosophy and the role of reason by
arguing that reason plays an essential role, but it must be a
well-trained reason within a well-tempered body and soul (1534
*Dialogue of Comfort* [*EW* 1238.34], 1535 *Sadness
of Christ* [*EW* 1260.31ff]). Without a proper order or
"good temper" of the soul, More maintained that reason
"will not fail to fall in rebellion". Elsewhere he
regularly used the classical image of training the powerful horses of
the soul with bridle and bit if they are ever to be happy and
serviceable (*EW* 15.271, 26.15-36, 577.1-2,
580.83, 581.54, 584.69-71, 1101.56, 1232.71-72,
1350.46-47). The bodily appetites must be tempered so that the
spiritual appetites can flourish (*EW* 1242-43).



Arguing further for the essential role of reason, More goes on to show
its role in the interpretation of Scripture:



> 
> 
> "Now, in the study of Scripture--in devising upon the
> sentence, in considering what ye read, in pondering the purpose of
> diverse comments, in comparing together diverse texts that seem
> contrary and be not--albeit I deny not but that grace and
> God's especial help is the great thing therein, yet useth he for
> an instrument man's reason thereto. God helpeth us to eat, also,
> but yet not without our mouth. Now as the hand is the more nimble by
> the use of some feats, and the legs and feet more swift and sure by
> custom of going and running, and the whole body the more wieldy and
> lusty by some kind of exercise, so is it no doubt but that reason is
> by study, labor, and exercise of logic, philosophy, and other liberal
> arts, corroborated and quickened, and the judgment--both in them
> and also in orators, laws, and stories--much riped. And albeit
> poets be with many men taken but for painted words, yet do they much
> help the judgment, and make a man, among other things, well furnished
> of one special thing, without which all learning is half
> lame."
> 
> 
> 
> "What is that?" quoth he.
> 
> 
> 
> "Marry", quoth I, "a good mother wit. And therefore
> are, in mine opinion, these Lutherans in a mad mind, that would now
> have all learning save Scripture only clean cast away, which things
> (if the time will serve) be as methinketh to be taken and had, and
> with reason brought, as I said before, into the service of
> divinity". (1529 *Dialogue* [*EW*
> 581.4-33])
> 
> 
> 



As shown in this passage, More considered a mind that does not
recognize the necessary role of a well-trained reason in human life to
be mad.



He was consistent throughout his life in presenting the
complementarity of reason and revelation:



> 
> 
> [R]eason hath no full and perfect instruction without help of
> revelation. For not only in things only to be believed, but in many
> things also that are to be done [or] left undone, for anything that
> reason can tell either them or us, we be fain [i.e., glad] to seek the
> certainty of revelation. (*The Confutation of Tyndale's
> Answer* [*CW* 8: 996.3-8])
> 
> 
> 



As the More scholar Joanne Paul has argued, the problem as More saw it
was that Luther removes "the authority of judging doctrines from
the people and delivers it to anyone whatever", that is,
"from the people, as a corporate whole, to single
individuals". This is



> 
> 
> especially problematic in that it encourages pride in others, telling
> them that they too have the power to interpret scripture according to
> their own judgement.... As More says, now "every prattling
> fool, every smatterer in scripture, shall be judge over all the
> general councils, and over the whole corps of Christendom, to tell
> them all that himself understandeth the scripture better than they
> all". (98-99; see also Guy 2017: 41; Duffy 2017:
> 36-37)
> 
> 
> 



In his longest polemical work, More satirizes what Tyndale calls his
"feeling faith" by contrasting it with the consent and
agreement achieved by international "synods and counsels"
that "represent the whole Church" (*Confutation*
[*CW* 8: 146, 8, 16]). Over 170 times More shows how the
"feeling faith" of



> 
> 
> Luther, Tyndale, and Zwingli, ... and his fellows, goes against
> the interpretation of all holy doctors and saints, and the common
> faith of all true Christian people, fifteen hundred years before them.
> (*CW* 8: 157.11-14)
> 
> 
> 



Here More continues to use his favorite technique of irony in a manner
reminiscent of his calling the murderous Richard the
"Protector" almost 100 times in his *History of King
Richard III*.


## 11. "Reason ought to reign like a king"



How can reason pilot a soul suffering the greatest of interior storms
while being attacked by the most terrifying external forces? How can a
charioteer guide powerful horses spooked by fear? More, in broken
health, addressed these questions (<August 1534> letter of
Margaret Roper to Alice Alington [*EW* 1311.17-20]), in
the last years of his life, even as he himself faced the prospect of
torture (16 January 1534/5 letter to Master Leder [*EW*
1329.20-21]) as well as the most painful and shameful death that
England had devised (1535 Bag of Secrets [*EW*
1360.76-86]). Prior to his imprisonment, when counting the
costs, More confessed to being scandalized by his own resistance to
suffering (1534 letter 210 to Margaret Roper [*EW*
1325.59-62]), yet he also confessed that despite "such
fear and heavy pensiveness ... I never in my mind intended to
consent" to do anything that would go against "mine own
conscience" (1534 letter 211 to Margaret Roper [*EW*
1327.77-81]). But he saw close friends--under fears and
pressures similar to those he faced--consent to what earlier they
had strongly rejected in conscience (August 1534 letter of Margaret
Roper to Alice Alington [*EW* 1311-20], 1534 letters to
Wilson [*EW* 1320-23]).



Against this background, More wrote his last Socratic dialogue, *A
Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation* (1534). It focuses on the
role of reason in preparing the soul to be guided in a time of great
trial by a reason enlightened by faith and strengthened by grace. As
More explained later in his final work, *The Sadness of
Christ*, "in a human being, reason ought to reign like a
king" (1535 [*EW* 1289.30]). But if this ought to be the
case, why does it rarely turn out that way? Even Christ's human
nature rebelled to the point that he sweated blood and pleaded that
the cup of suffering might pass; even angels and the first human
beings with all of their special gifts failed (*EW*
1027-37). In response to this challenge, More argued that human
beings are created to be responsible for learning how to govern freely
their own God-given faculties of memory, intellect, and will--and
he warned that they will fail "all for ...
negligence" in using their freedom properly (*EW*
1035.75, 87.141; 1153.62; 1182.26; 1259.79-82, 1260.23,
1273.64).



In *A Dialogue of Comfort,* terrified young Vincent comes
seeking advice from wise old Antony. Vincent is obsessed with fears
for himself, his family, and his country as the Turks prepare to
return to Hungary after having killed and tortured many Hungarians
just one year before.



Vincent is so distraught that it takes Antony two and a half books to
calm him down enough to address the first and most important of his
concerns. In those books, Antony exhibits a skillful Socratic
strategy, leading Vincent to sufficient self-knowledge so that he can
begin the work of self-government. Antony confirms, for example, that
essential seeds are planted in the garden of Vincent's soul
(*EW* 1116.5, 9; 1232.59-63; also *EW* 4.120,
479.53-69) and reveals to him those seeds that are missing or
insufficiently cultivated (*EW* 1126.48ff, 1185.39-42,
1237.49-86). Antony even has Vincent play the part of a rich man
as a way of leading him to deeper self-knowledge (*EW*
1211-14), since a thorough knowledge of self is foundational to
enable the active cultivation of his own soul that Vincent will
promise to undertake at the end of this *Dialogue.*



After two and a half books of conversation, Antony judges that Vincent
has achieved sufficient "comfort and courage" that he can
now help Vincent "more quietly consider" the "sorest
part" of his fears, the fears he brought up early in Book 1
(*EW* 1219.64-71). Antony deliberately postponed this
consideration (*EW* 1125.57) until Vincent's soul was
sufficiently calm, recognizing that it is not possible to
"examine the weight and substance" of his greatest terrors
"when the heart is ... taken up and oppressed with the
troublous affection of heavy sorrowful fear" (*EW*
1219.67-71). For reason to reign, the soul must have a certain
level of equanimity--an insight reinforced in More by Lucian and
Seneca among others (*EW* 20.16n2 1164.42-43, 1219.66,
1224.25, 1380.45-50; *EW* 1221.30 for Seneca), and by his
own experience.



What More does in *A Dialogue of Comfort* is to show how
difficult it is to achieve enough self-knowledge to begin the training
needed for self-government, because true self-government requires
understanding reason's essential but insufficient
role--hence the dialogue's insistence on the need for
God's grace and revelation. Antony explains that, created with
reason and free will, every human being is obliged to undertake this
most important and most difficult project of self-government
(*EW* 1255.29-31).



Vincent began Book 1 with images of tempestuous storms, cruel torture,
and tyrannical oppression--images that obsessed and deeply
disturbed his soul and the souls of his friends (*EW* 1112.36,
50-51, 56-57; *EW* 1112.53, 70-7;
1113.3-7, 21-2). Appropriately then, Antony repeatedly
uses the images of sailing in storms or of riding spirited and
powerful horses. Part of sailing is knowing when and how to lower the
sails in a storm (*EW* 1123.7-9) and training oneself to
deal with fear in the face of losing the ship when it is buffeted by
winds (*EW* 1135.60-3, 1163.70-79,
1175.6-12). Part of guiding powerful horses is learning how to
use bridle and bit (*EW* 1232.71-4), just as one learns
to discipline the temperament of one's own soul (*EW*
1168.24-30, 1175.71-1176.13).



Ultimately Antony helps Vincent see and appreciate the indispensable
roles played by reason in tempering the soul by coming to learn and
maintain those habits necessary for reason to rule. But self-knowledge
also reveals the limits of fallible reason and therefore the need for
it to be supported by prayer and grace--a topic treated again in
More's final book, *The Sadness and Weariness and Fear and
Prayer of Christ*.



Vincent (whose name means "he who conquers") ends *A
Dialogue of Comfort* by resolving to transform his affections from
love of earthly goods to spiritual goods. To do so, he not only writes
down Antony's counsels in Hungarian but also translates them
into multiple languages to imprint them in his mind and imagination,
working to fulfill Antony's requirement of "sufficient
minding" (*EW* 1241.60).



More was imprisoned for the last sixteen months of his life and was
executed for high treason on 6 July 1535. His last works and days put
to the test his earlier theory of philosophy as a preparation for
death. How theory and practice aligned in his life and thought is part
of the intrigue of studying this Renaissance figure whom Erasmus
described as a "man for all seasons".