The paragraph comes about as a conclusion to a previous section describing the limits to travelling placed on the citizens of Utopia; Hytholoday spends some time explaining the nature of this particular set of rules, the reasons for them, and the repercussions of any disobedience to them. Debauchery indeed, even the threat of or potential for debauchery is criminal. Any one who would assert the right to a thing as his must be in possession of it as an object.