¹ Antonio De Guevara, Reloj De Principes, 1, 31; Cervantes, Don Quixote. It is for the same reason that, according to Erasmus, In Praise of Folly, XXXII, there was no literature, science, or law then. On the Golden Age, see Hans Joachim Mahl, Die Idee des goldenen Zeialters im Werk des Novalis, Heidel berg, 1965; Harry Levin, The Myth of the Golden Age in the Renaissance, Bloomington, Indiana Univ. 1969.

² On the myth of the Land of Plenty, see V. Rossi, Il paese di Cuccagna nella letteratura italiana, in the Lettere di messer Andrea Calmo, Turin 1888; Arturo Graf, Il paese di Cuccagna e i Paradisi artificiali, in Miti, leggende e superstizioni del Medio Evo, Turin 1892; Giuseppe Cocchiara, Il paese di Cuccagna, Turin 1956; F. and C. Sluys, Le pays de Cocagne, in "Problèmes," no. 77 (1961).

³ Cf. Paul Gaffarel, Les îles de l'Atlantide au moyen-age, in the Bulletin de la Société géographique de Lyon, IV (1833), p. 431-433; W. H. Babcock, Le gendary Islands of the Atlantic. A Study in Medieval Geography, New York, 1922. For the relation of these myths to Utopia, see S. B. Liljegren, Studies on the Origin and Early Tradition of English Utopian Fiction, Uppsala 1961, p. 15-27; Mircea Eliade, Paradis et utopie: géographie mythique et eschatologie, in Eranos Jahrbuch, XXXII (1963), p. 211-34.

⁴ There is abundant historical and critical literature; here, as with all the points which follow, one must restrict oneself to the essential. On the role played by the discovery of America in the revision of values, and in the for mation of Utopian thought in particular, cf. J. O. Hertzler, The History of Utopian Thought, London 1923; Edmundo O'Gorman, Sobre la naturaleza bestial del indio americano, in Revista de la Facultad de filosofia y letras (Mexico), 1941 p. 141-58 and 305-15; Lewis Hanke, La lucha por la justicia en la con quista de América, Buenos Aires 1949; Venancio Carro, La teologia y los teó logos-juristas españoles ante la conquista de América, Salamanca 1951. On the myth of the noble savage, which derives from the same connections cf. R. Gonnard, La légende du bon sauvage, Paris 1948; Giuseppe Cocchiara, Il mito del buon selvaggio, Messina 1948.

⁵ On Las Casa's attempt, cf. M. Gimenez Fernandez, Bartolomé de las Casas, vol. 11, Seville 1960, p. 1137-73, and M. Bataillon, Etudes sur Bartholomé de las Casas, Paris 1965, p. 51-84, and 115-36. On Vasco de Quiroga, cf. Silvio A Zavala, La "Utopia" de Tomas More in La Nueva España y otros estudios, Mexico 1937 and A. Reyes, Utopias americanas, in Obras, vol. XI, Mexico 1960, p. 95-102. On Cabet, cf. below, ch. VI. On the Utopian colonies and establish ments in North America, Vernon L. Perrington, American Dreams, a study on American Utopias, Brown University (Providence) 1947; Mark Holloway, Heavens on Earth, Utopian Communities, 1680-1880, New York 1951; D. D. Egbert and Stow Persons, Socialism and American Life, Princeton, 1952; Robert W. Hine, California's Utopian Colonies, San Marino (Cal.) 1953. Similar experiments have been made in England, cf. W. H. G. Armytage, Heavens Below. Utopian Expe riments in England, 1560-1960, London 1961.

⁶ This is the thesis which Alberto Armani develops in Sull'origine e svi luppo dell'ordine politico e sociale nelle riduzioni des Paraguay, from Archivum historicum Societatis Jesu, (XXIV) 1955, p. 379-401, and generally recognised by the Jesuits themselves. It has been claimed (Eberhard Gothein, Lo Stato cristiano-sociale dei gesuiti nel Paraguay, Venice 1928, p. 217), that the Jesuits aimed to found a Christian and communist republic like Campanella's: but it has not been established that Campanella had that intention, and anyway, the City of the Sun was published in 1623, and the first copy is dated 1609. Cf. also Pablo Hernandez, Organisación social de las doctrinas guaranies, Barcelona 1913, 2 vol. L. Baudin, Une théocratie socialiste. L'état Jésuite de Paraguay, Paris 1962; Robert Lacombe, Statut politique et droit de propriété dans les réductions de Paraguay, in Revue d'Histoire économique, XL (1962) p. 289-97; Maxime Haubert, La vie quotidienne au Paraguay sous les jésuites, Paris 1967 On the Guaranis' illiteracy, see Marcos Morinigo, Para la historia del español en la Argentina, in Actas de la Quinta Asemblea interuniversitaria de Filologia y Literatura hispánicas, Buenos Aires 1968, p. 197-204.

⁷ Perhaps that is where one must seek the explanation of the 9000 years which Plato puts between his own time and the disappearance of Atlantis. According to his account, Athens, at that distant time, was at the height of its prosperity and good fortune. Since, according to Plato's own calculations (in the Republic) the Great Year lasts 36000 years in succession, and at the end of that cycle everything starts anew, this means that a quarter of the cycle had passed since the catastrophe of Atlantis. Anyway we know that the Platonic doctrine foresees a fatal predestined outcome to all republics, according to a cycle which passes through the four possible political regimes and slowly makes its way towards final decomposition. Combining the donnes of this double argument, one thus finds that Athens was at its apogee 9000 years before Plato. So the Athenian republic found itself in mid-course. The second period had just ended, and the third, which was to take 9000 years, must have ended in Plato's time. This is a way of saying that the city of Athens had already begun its fourth and last historic phase, which is the declining phase.

⁸ Aristophanes, Ecclesiasousai; Lucian, True History, 115. Aristotle's critique in the Politics, concerns the kinds of government which Plato had predicted (1,2); the criticism of the commonwealth of goods is not explicit, but is found implied in the eulogy on property (1, 11, 4); A criticism of female commu nities (1,1,3 and 11,1,15); on the absence of love and concern (1,1,17); the consignment of children to different classes according to their individual ca pacities (1,11,18); the constitution of a social magistrates class (11,11,15). For his own definition of justice, see Aristotle, Politics, 111, VII, 1. The Platonic thesis on female communities seems to have been refuted since antiquity by Epiphanes and Carpocrates, in two lost works.

⁹ Erasmus, In Praise of Folly, XXVII; B. Russell, Philosophy and Politics: That Plato's Republic has been admired as a political work by honest folk, is perhaps the most surprising example of snobbery which history can offer us. Let us examine a few of the features of this totalitarian essay. The principal object of education, to which everything is subordinate, is courage in battle. To achieve this, a rigid censorship of stories told to children by their mothers and nurses must be set up; Homer must not be read to them, as this degenerate rhymer makes heroes weep and gods laugh; the theatre is forbidden because villains and women appear in it; music should be of a certain type which corresponds to what would now be Rule Britannia or The British Grenadiers. Government is in the hand of a little oligarchy which employs lying and subterfuge: subterfuge to manipulate the drawing of lots according to a eugenic plan; and lying to convince the population that class-differences correspond to biological differences. Finally, infanticide should be practised on a large scale for those children who are not the product of government manoeuvres. Whether the people in this community are happy or not is of no importance, according to what we are told, since excellence is to be sought in the whole and not in the parts." I have reproduced this long passage, not only for its criticism, but also because it completes the list of reproaches usually levelled at Plato's ideal state.

¹⁰ Erasmus, In Praise of Folly, XXIV. Diderot was perhaps recalling Erasmus' comment when he wrote on Grimm's Correspondance: "Are these philosophers politicians? It is sometimes said that a Christian people, as they should be according to the spirit of the Gospels, could not survive. This would be much truer of a philosophic people, if it were possible to create one."

¹¹ Clement of Alexandria thinks that Plato and Saint Augustine are not incompatible; that the former was inspired by Moses; that the idea of a philosopher-king coincides with Christian attitudes, since the politician and the Christian live in contemplation (Stromata, 1,25); and that female community should only be entertained for young women as a possible pre-nuptial expe riment. (Stromata), 111,2).

¹² A. Koyré, Discovering Plato, New York 1945; E. Cassirer, The Myth of the State, New Haven 1946.