THE FORTUNATE ISLES
Fuir, let-bas fuir . . . Most people have some sort of private Utopia to which, had they only the power, they would like to reshape their surroundings. Those who have combined a conscious and intense dissatisfaction with the world's institu- tions as they are, a logical and constructive turn of mind, and a taste for getting things down on paper, have sometimes translated their longings into black and white ; and all through the ages the resulting schemes for the perfect polity have reflected with illuminating faithfulness the dominating per- plexities, the fundamental assumptions, and the special cir- cumstances of the time and place in which they were framed.
Mr. Ross's exploration of the Utopias is by no means exhaustive, nor does it try to be. His aim is dual : to provide the student of -political theories with a dear conspectus of the highly instructive material which they exhibit, and to afford to the general reader an entertaining ramble among ideas which, even if one neglects all their deeper significance, are a never-ending source of amusement, stimulus and interest. His range is wide ; from Plato's Republic to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (though neither of these ranks among the Utopias proper) taking in, beside More himself, Campanella,
Andraea, Harrington, Matlock, Hudson, Lytton, Tarde, Morris, Fourier, Cabet, Pemberton, Bellamy, Howells, Hertzka, Palmer, and of course Mr. Wells. There are omissions to be regretted ; one would have liked to see the Catholic satires of Mr. Eimar O'Duffy contrasted with The Sleeper Awakes, which in - some ways they resemble, and the French cult of solidarite " has produced some charming absurdities ; but in a strictly limited space one cannot really complain at missing one's personal favourites.
Mr. Ross makes, as he himself confesses, no attempt at impartiality. He has an antipathy for Mr. Wells so candid as to be innocuous—but he really should not actually misquote the laws, even if he attacks the spirit and the assumptions, of the Modern Utopia. He has an admiration amounting to love for Morris's News from Nowhere, so much so as to forgo all criticism of its economics—although he shows himself keenly aware of the shortcomings of other, less attractive Utopias which share its weaknesses. He has humour and, except for the unlucky Mr. Wells, tolerance; he carries out his task of epitome so well that it is only in retrospect that one realises its difficulty. The builders of Utopias, in fact, have found a congenial interpreter.
If is not, however, easy to judge from his pages of the importance of their contribution to the progress—if one can use the word—of political thought. The Communist, of course, would assert that this contribution is a purely negative one ; to dream of Utopias is to pursue a chimera and be blinded to the dialectical necessity which alone can fruitfully shape action. Indeed, in the light of modern understanding of economics and of the influence of economic factors on the whole structure and atmosphere of society, there is hardly one Utopia which does not appear a naive wish-fulfilment ; and the Socialist Utopias are the worst of the lot, charming though they may be. Only Hertzka's Freeland bears the stamp of reality, and the Zionist experiments which it has helped to inspire have shown on its behalf a certain measure of concrete achievement ; but they have not passed the crucial test of a: new generation. Any community, on almost any system, however crack-brained, will work if its members are determined to make it work at any cost ; if its success is more important to them than either individual freedom or comfort. But the spirit of the rebels, the pioneers, the idealists, is not necessarily transmitted to their sons ; when the maintenance of the ideal community has ceased to be an end in itself it mint stand or fall on its own merits. The list of the fallen is long and melancholy ; that of the survivors unimpressive. Mr. Ross gives a brief account of the origins, difficulties and subsequent fate of some of the Utopian experiments, but he does not explore the reasons for their failure. Perhaps the true role of any Utopia is to serve as an inspiration, to embody a spirit rather than a programme. The happy haymakers by the Thames, the keen-eyed austere Samurai, diversely light the mind—not indeed with knowledge but with divine dis- content. " Earth might be fair, and all men glad and wise . . ." And without some such inspiration, reform degenerates into a mere solving of administrative crosswords.
HONOR CROOME.
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