Here is where the utopia of reconstruction wins hands down. It not merely pictures a whole world, but it faces every part of it at the same time. We shall not examine the classic utopias without becoming conscious of their weaknesses, their sometimes disturbing idiosyncrasies. It is important at present that we should realize their virtues; and should start on our journey without the feeling of disparagement which the word utopian usually calls up in minds that have been seduced by Macaulay’s sneer that he would rather have an acre in Middlesex than a principality in utopia. 6 Finally, be convinced about the reality of utopia. All that has happened in what we call human history--unless it has left a building or a book or some other record of itself--is just as remote and in a sense just as mythical as the mysterious island which Raphael Hythloday, scholar and sailor, described to Sir Thomas More. A good part of human history is even more insubstantial: the Icarians who lived only in the mind of Étienne Cabet, or the Freelanders who dwelt within the imagination of a dry little Austrian economist, have had more influence upon the lives of our contemporaries than the Etruscan people who once dwelt in Italy, although the Etruscans belong to what we call the real world, and the Freelanders and Icarians inhabited--Nowhere. Nowhere may be an imaginary country, but News from Nowhere is real news. The world of ideas, beliefs, fantasies, projections, is (I must emphasize again) just as real whilst it is acted upon as the post which Dr. Johnson kicked in order to demonstrate that it was solid. The man who wholly respects the rights of property is kept out of his neighbor’s field perhaps even more effectively than the man who is merely forbidden entrance by a no-trespass sign. In sum, we cannot ignore our utopias. They exist in the same way that north and south exist; if we are not familiar with their classical statements we at least know them as they spring to life each day in our own minds. We can never reach the points of the compass; and so no doubt we shall never live in utopia; but without the magnetic needle we should not be able to travel intelligently at all. It is absurd to dispose of utopia by saying that it exists only on paper. The answer to this is: precisely the same thing may be said of the architect’s plans for a house, and houses are none the worse for it.