This is what I gathered. That in that country if a man falls into ill
health, or catches any disorder, or fails bodily in any way before he
is seventy years old, he is tried before a jury of his countrymen, and
if convicted is held up to public scorn and sentenced more or less
severely as the case may be. There are subdivisions of illnesses into
crimes and misdemeanours as with offences amongst ourselves—a man being
punished very heavily for serious illness, while failure of eyes or
hearing in one over sixty-five, who has had good health hitherto, is
dealt with by fine only, or imprisonment in default of payment. But if
a man forges a cheque, or sets his house on fire, or robs with violence
from the person, or does any other such things as are criminal in our
own country, he is either taken to a hospital and most carefully tended
at the public expense, or if he is in good circumstances, he lets it be
known to all his friends that he is suffering from a severe fit of
immorality, just as we do when we are ill, and they come and visit him
with great solicitude, and inquire with interest how it all came about,
what symptoms first showed themselves, and so forth,—questions which he
will answer with perfect unreserve; for bad conduct, though considered
no less deplorable than illness with ourselves, and as unquestionably
indicating something seriously wrong with the individual who
misbehaves, is nevertheless held to be the result of either pre-natal
or post-natal misfortune.
The strange part of the story, however, is that though they ascribe
moral defects to the effect of misfortune either in character or
surroundings, they will not listen to the plea of misfortune in cases
that in England meet with sympathy and commiseration only. Ill luck of
any kind, or even ill treatment at the hands of others, is considered
an offence against society, inasmuch as it makes people uncomfortable
to hear of it. Loss of fortune, therefore, or loss of some dear friend
on whom another was much dependent, is punished hardly less severely
than physical delinquency.
Foreign, indeed, as such ideas are to our own, traces of somewhat
similar opinions can be found even in nineteenth-century England. If a
person has an abscess, the medical man will say that it contains
“peccant” matter, and people say that they have a “bad” arm or finger,
or that they are very “bad” all over, when they only mean “diseased.”
Among foreign nations Erewhonian opinions may be still more clearly
noted. The Mahommedans, for example, to this day, send their female
prisoners to hospitals, and the New Zealand Maories visit any
misfortune with forcible entry into the house of the offender, and the
breaking up and burning of all his goods. The Italians, again, use the
same word for “disgrace” and “misfortune.” I once heard an Italian lady
speak of a young friend whom she described as endowed with every virtue
under heaven, “ma,” she exclaimed, “povero disgraziato, ha ammazzato
suo zio.” (“Poor unfortunate fellow, he has murdered his uncle.”)
On mentioning this, which I heard when taken to Italy as a boy by my
father, the person to whom I told it showed no surprise. He said that
he had been driven for two or three years in a certain city by a young
Sicilian cabdriver of prepossessing manners and appearance, but then
lost sight of him. On asking what had become of him, he was told that
he was in prison for having shot at his father with intent to kill
him—happily without serious result. Some years later my informant again
found himself warmly accosted by the prepossessing young cabdriver.
“Ah, caro signore,” he exclaimed, “sono cinque anni che non lo vedo—tre
anni di militare, e due anni di disgrazia,” &c. (“My dear sir, it is
five years since I saw you—three years of military service, and two of
misfortune”)—during which last the poor fellow had been in prison. Of
moral sense he showed not so much as a trace. He and his father were
now on excellent terms, and were likely to remain so unless either of
them should again have the misfortune mortally to offend the other.
In the following chapter I will give a few examples of the way in which
what we should call misfortune, hardship, or disease are dealt with by
the Erewhonians, but for the moment will return to their treatment of
cases that with us are criminal. As I have already said, these, though
not judicially punishable, are recognised as requiring correction.
Accordingly, there exists a class of men trained in soul-craft, whom
they call straighteners, as nearly as I can translate a word which
literally means “one who bends back the crooked.” These men practise
much as medical men in England, and receive a quasi-surreptitious fee
on every visit. They are treated with the same unreserve, and obeyed as
readily, as our own doctors—that is to say, on the whole
sufficiently—because people know that it is their interest to get well
as soon as they can, and that they will not be scouted as they would be
if their bodies were out of order, even though they may have to undergo
a very painful course of treatment.
When I say that they will not be scouted, I do not mean that an
Erewhonian will suffer no social inconvenience in consequence, we will
say, of having committed fraud. Friends will fall away from him because
of his being less pleasant company, just as we ourselves are
disinclined to make companions of those who are either poor or poorly.
No one with any sense of self-respect will place himself on an equality
in the matter of affection with those who are less lucky than himself
in birth, health, money, good looks, capacity, or anything else.
Indeed, that dislike and even disgust should be felt by the fortunate
for the unfortunate, or at any rate for those who have been discovered
to have met with any of the more serious and less familiar misfortunes,
is not only natural, but desirable for any society, whether of man or
brute.
The fact, therefore, that the Erewhonians attach none of that guilt to
crime which they do to physical ailments, does not prevent the more
selfish among them from neglecting a friend who has robbed a bank, for
instance, till he has fully recovered; but it does prevent them from
even thinking of treating criminals with that contemptuous tone which
would seem to say, “I, if I were you, should be a better man than you
are,” a tone which is held quite reasonable in regard to physical
ailment. Hence, though they conceal ill health by every cunning and
hypocrisy and artifice which they can devise, they are quite open about
the most flagrant mental diseases, should they happen to exist, which
to do the people justice is not often. Indeed, there are some who are,
so to speak, spiritual valetudinarians, and who make themselves
exceedingly ridiculous by their nervous supposition that they are
wicked, while they are very tolerable people all the time. This however
is exceptional; and on the whole they use much the same reserve or
unreserve about the state of their moral welfare as we do about our
health.
Hence all the ordinary greetings among ourselves, such as, How do you
do? and the like, are considered signs of gross ill-breeding; nor do
the politer classes tolerate even such a common complimentary remark as
telling a man that he is looking well. They salute each other with, “I
hope you are good this morning;” or “I hope you have recovered from the
snappishness from which you were suffering when I last saw you;” and if
the person saluted has not been good, or is still snappish, he says so
at once and is condoled with accordingly. Indeed, the straighteners
have gone so far as to give names from the hypothetical language (as
taught at the Colleges of Unreason), to all known forms of mental
indisposition, and to classify them according to a system of their own,
which, though I could not understand it, seemed to work well in
practice; for they are always able to tell a man what is the matter
with him as soon as they have heard his story, and their familiarity
with the long names assures him that they thoroughly understand his
case.
The reader will have no difficulty in believing that the laws regarding
ill health were frequently evaded by the help of recognised fictions,
which every one understood, but which it would be considered gross
ill-breeding to even seem to understand. Thus, a day or two after my
arrival at the Nosnibors’, one of the many ladies who called on me made
excuses for her husband’s only sending his card, on the ground that
when going through the public market-place that morning he had stolen a
pair of socks. I had already been warned that I should never show
surprise, so I merely expressed my sympathy, and said that though I had
only been in the capital so short a time, I had already had a very
narrow escape from stealing a clothes-brush, and that though I had
resisted temptation so far, I was sadly afraid that if I saw any object
of special interest that was neither too hot nor too heavy, I should
have to put myself in the straightener’s hands.
Mrs. Nosnibor, who had been keeping an ear on all that I had been
saying, praised me when the lady had gone. Nothing, she said, could
have been more polite according to Erewhonian etiquette. She then
explained that to have stolen a pair of socks, or “to have the socks”
(in more colloquial language), was a recognised way of saying that the
person in question was slightly indisposed.
In spite of all this they have a keen sense of the enjoyment consequent
upon what they call being “well.” They admire mental health and love it
in other people, and take all the pains they can (consistently with
their other duties) to secure it for themselves. They have an extreme
dislike to marrying into what they consider unhealthy families. They
send for the straightener at once whenever they have been guilty of
anything seriously flagitious—often even if they think that they are on
the point of committing it; and though his remedies are sometimes
exceedingly painful, involving close confinement for weeks, and in some
cases the most cruel physical tortures, I never heard of a reasonable
Erewhonian refusing to do what his straightener told him, any more than
of a reasonable Englishman refusing to undergo even the most frightful
operation, if his doctors told him it was necessary.
We in England never shrink from telling our doctor what is the matter
with us merely through the fear that he will hurt us. We let him do his
worst upon us, and stand it without a murmur, because we are not
scouted for being ill, and because we know that the doctor is doing his
best to cure us, and that he can judge of our case better than we can;
but we should conceal all illness if we were treated as the Erewhonians
are when they have anything the matter with them; we should do the same
as with moral and intellectual diseases,—we should feign health with
the most consummate art, till we were found out, and should hate a
single flogging given in the way of mere punishment more than the
amputation of a limb, if it were kindly and courteously performed from
a wish to help us out of our difficulty, and with the full
consciousness on the part of the doctor that it was only by an accident
of constitution that he was not in the like plight himself. So the
Erewhonians take a flogging once a week, and a diet of bread and water
for two or three months together, whenever their straightener
recommends it.
I do not suppose that even my host, on having swindled a confiding
widow out of the whole of her property, was put to more actual
suffering than a man will readily undergo at the hands of an English
doctor. And yet he must have had a very bad time of it. The sounds I
heard were sufficient to show that his pain was exquisite, but he never
shrank from undergoing it. He was quite sure that it did him good; and
I think he was right. I cannot believe that that man will ever embezzle
money again. He may—but it will be a long time before he does so.
During my confinement in prison, and on my journey, I had already
discovered a great deal of the above; but it still seemed surpassingly
strange, and I was in constant fear of committing some piece of
rudeness, through my inability to look at things from the same
stand-point as my neighbours; but after a few weeks’ stay with the
Nosnibors, I got to understand things better, especially on having
heard all about my host’s illness, of which he told me fully and
repeatedly.
It seemed that he had been on the Stock Exchange of the city for many
years and had amassed enormous wealth, without exceeding the limits of
what was generally considered justifiable, or at any rate, permissible
dealing; but at length on several occasions he had become aware of a
desire to make money by fraudulent representations, and had actually
dealt with two or three sums in a way which had made him rather
uncomfortable. He had unfortunately made light of it and pooh-poohed
the ailment, until circumstances eventually presented themselves which
enabled him to cheat upon a very considerable scale;—he told me what
they were, and they were about as bad as anything could be, but I need
not detail them;—he seized the opportunity, and became aware, when it
was too late, that he must be seriously out of order. He had neglected
himself too long.
He drove home at once, broke the news to his wife and daughters as
gently as he could, and sent off for one of the most celebrated
straighteners of the kingdom to a consultation with the family
practitioner, for the case was plainly serious. On the arrival of the
straightener he told his story, and expressed his fear that his morals
must be permanently impaired.
The eminent man reassured him with a few cheering words, and then
proceeded to make a more careful diagnosis of the case. He inquired
concerning Mr. Nosnibor’s parents—had their moral health been good? He
was answered that there had not been anything seriously amiss with
them, but that his maternal grandfather, whom he was supposed to
resemble somewhat in person, had been a consummate scoundrel and had
ended his days in a hospital,—while a brother of his father’s, after
having led a most flagitious life for many years, had been at last
cured by a philosopher of a new school, which as far as I could
understand it bore much the same relation to the old as homoeopathy to
allopathy. The straightener shook his head at this, and laughingly
replied that the cure must have been due to nature. After a few more
questions he wrote a prescription and departed.
I saw the prescription. It ordered a fine to the State of double the
money embezzled; no food but bread and milk for six months, and a
severe flogging once a month for twelve. I was surprised to see that no
part of the fine was to be paid to the poor woman whose money had been
embezzled, but on inquiry I learned that she would have been prosecuted
in the Misplaced Confidence Court, if she had not escaped its clutches
by dying shortly after she had discovered her loss.
As for Mr. Nosnibor, he had received his eleventh flogging on the day
of my arrival. I saw him later on the same afternoon, and he was still
twinged; but there had been no escape from following out the
straightener’s prescription, for the so-called sanitary laws of Erewhon
are very rigorous, and unless the straightener was satisfied that his
orders had been obeyed, the patient would have been taken to a hospital
(as the poor are), and would have been much worse off. Such at least is
the law, but it is never necessary to enforce it.
On a subsequent occasion I was present at an interview between Mr.
Nosnibor and the family straightener, who was considered competent to
watch the completion of the cure. I was struck with the delicacy with
which he avoided even the remotest semblance of inquiry after the
physical well-being of his patient, though there was a certain
yellowness about my host’s eyes which argued a bilious habit of body.
To have taken notice of this would have been a gross breach of
professional etiquette. I was told, however, that a straightener
sometimes thinks it right to glance at the possibility of some slight
physical disorder if he finds it important in order to assist him in
his diagnosis; but the answers which he gets are generally untrue or
evasive, and he forms his own conclusions upon the matter as well as he
can. Sensible men have been known to say that the straightener should
in strict confidence be told of every physical ailment that is likely
to bear upon the case; but people are naturally shy of doing this, for
they do not like lowering themselves in the opinion of the
straightener, and his ignorance of medical science is supreme. I heard
of one lady, indeed, who had the hardihood to confess that a furious
outbreak of ill-humour and extravagant fancies for which she was
seeking advice was possibly the result of indisposition. “You should
resist that,” said the straightener, in a kind, but grave voice; “we
can do nothing for the bodies of our patients; such matters are beyond
our province, and I desire that I may hear no further particulars.” The
lady burst into tears, and promised faithfully that she would never be
unwell again.
But to return to Mr. Nosnibor. As the afternoon wore on many carriages
drove up with callers to inquire how he had stood his flogging. It had
been very severe, but the kind inquiries upon every side gave him great
pleasure, and he assured me that he felt almost tempted to do wrong
again by the solicitude with which his friends had treated him during
his recovery: in this I need hardly say that he was not serious.
During the remainder of my stay in the country Mr. Nosnibor was
constantly attentive to his business, and largely increased his already
great possessions; but I never heard a whisper to the effect of his
having been indisposed a second time, or made money by other than the
most strictly honourable means. I did hear afterwards in confidence
that there had been reason to believe that his health had been not a
little affected by the straightener’s treatment, but his friends did
not choose to be over-curious upon the subject, and on his return to
his affairs it was by common consent passed over as hardly criminal in
one who was otherwise so much afflicted. For they regard bodily
ailments as the more venial in proportion as they have been produced by
causes independent of the constitution. Thus if a person ruin his
health by excessive indulgence at the table or by drinking, they count
it to be almost a part of the mental disease which brought it about,
and so it goes for little, but they have no mercy on such illnesses as
fevers or catarrhs or lung diseases, which to us appear to be beyond
the control of the individual. They are only more lenient towards the
diseases of the young—such as measles, which they think to be like
sowing one’s wild oats—and look over them as pardonable indiscretions
if they have not been too serious, and if they are atoned for by
complete subsequent recovery.
It is hardly necessary to say that the office of straightener is one
which requires long and special training. It stands to reason that he
who would cure a moral ailment must be practically acquainted with it
in all its bearings. The student for the profession of straightener is
required to set apart certain seasons for the practice of each vice in
turn, as a religious duty. These seasons are called “fasts,” and are
continued by the student until he finds that he really can subdue all
the more usual vices in his own person, and hence can advise his
patients from the results of his own experience.
Those who intend to be specialists, rather than general practitioners,
devote themselves more particularly to the branch in which their
practice will mainly lie. Some students have been obliged to continue
their exercises during their whole lives, and some devoted men have
actually died as martyrs to the drink, or gluttony, or whatever branch
of vice they may have chosen for their especial study. The greater
number, however, take no harm by the excursions into the various
departments of vice which it is incumbent upon them to study.
For the Erewhonians hold that unalloyed virtue is not a thing to be
immoderately indulged in. I was shown more than one case in which the
real or supposed virtues of parents were visited upon the children to
the third and fourth generation. The straighteners say that the most
that can be truly said for virtue is that there is a considerable
balance in its favour, and that it is on the whole a good deal better
to be on its side than against it; but they urge that there is much
pseudo-virtue going about, which is apt to let people in very badly
before they find it out. Those men, they say, are best who are not
remarkable either for vice or virtue. I told them about Hogarth’s idle
and industrious apprentices, but they did not seem to think that the
industrious apprentice was a very nice person.