I heard what follows not from Arowhena, but from Mr. Nosnibor and some
of the gentlemen who occasionally dined at the house: they told me that
the Erewhonians believe in pre-existence; and not only this (of which I
will write more fully in the next chapter), but they believe that it is
of their own free act and deed in a previous state that they come to be
born into this world at all. They hold that the unborn are perpetually
plaguing and tormenting the married of both sexes, fluttering about
them incessantly, and giving them no peace either of mind or body until
they have consented to take them under their protection. If this were
not so (this at least is what they urge), it would be a monstrous
freedom for one man to take with another, to say that he should undergo
the chances and changes of this mortal life without any option in the
matter. No man would have any right to get married at all, inasmuch as
he can never tell what frightful misery his doing so may entail
forcibly upon a being who cannot be unhappy as long as he does not
exist. They feel this so strongly that they are resolved to shift the
blame on to other shoulders; and have fashioned a long mythology as to
the world in which the unborn people live, and what they do, and the
arts and machinations to which they have recourse in order to get
themselves into our own world. But of this more anon: what I would
relate here is their manner of dealing with those who do come.
It is a distinguishing peculiarity of the Erewhonians that when they
profess themselves to be quite certain about any matter, and avow it as
a base on which they are to build a system of practice, they seldom
quite believe in it. If they smell a rat about the precincts of a
cherished institution, they will always stop their noses to it if they
can.
This is what most of them did in this matter of the unborn, for I
cannot (and never could) think that they seriously believed in their
mythology concerning pre-existence: they did and they did not; they did
not know themselves what they believed; all they did know was that it
was a disease not to believe as they did. The only thing of which they
were quite sure was that it was the pestering of the unborn which
caused them to be brought into this world, and that they would not have
been here if they would have only let peaceable people alone.
It would be hard to disprove this position, and they might have a good
case if they would only leave it as it stands. But this they will not
do; they must have assurance doubly sure; they must have the written
word of the child itself as soon as it is born, giving the parents
indemnity from all responsibility on the score of its birth, and
asserting its own pre-existence. They have therefore devised something
which they call a birth formula—a document which varies in words
according to the caution of parents, but is much the same practically
in all cases; for it has been the business of the Erewhonian lawyers
during many ages to exercise their skill in perfecting it and providing
for every contingency.
These formulae are printed on common paper at a moderate cost for the
poor; but the rich have them written on parchment and handsomely bound,
so that the getting up of a person’s birth formula is a test of his
social position. They commence by setting forth, That whereas A. B. was
a member of the kingdom of the unborn, where he was well provided for
in every way, and had no cause of discontent, &c., &c., he did of his
own wanton depravity and restlessness conceive a desire to enter into
this present world; that thereon having taken the necessary steps as
set forth in laws of the unborn kingdom, he did with malice
aforethought set himself to plague and pester two unfortunate people
who had never wronged him, and who were quite contented and happy until
he conceived this base design against their peace; for which wrong he
now humbly entreats their pardon.
He acknowledges that he is responsible for all physical blemishes and
deficiencies which may render him answerable to the laws of his
country; that his parents have nothing whatever to do with any of these
things; and that they have a right to kill him at once if they be so
minded, though he entreats them to show their marvellous goodness and
clemency by sparing his life. If they will do this, he promises to be
their most obedient and abject creature during his earlier years, and
indeed all his life, unless they should see fit in their abundant
generosity to remit some portion of his service hereafter. And so the
formula continues, going sometimes into very minute details, according
to the fancies of family lawyers, who will not make it any shorter than
they can help.
The deed being thus prepared, on the third or fourth day after the
birth of the child, or as they call it, the “final importunity,” the
friends gather together, and there is a feast held, where they are all
very melancholy—as a general rule, I believe, quite truly so—and make
presents to the father and mother of the child in order to console them
for the injury which has just been done them by the unborn.
By-and-by the child himself is brought down by his nurse, and the
company begin to rail upon him, upbraiding him for his impertinence,
and asking him what amends he proposes to make for the wrong that he
has committed, and how he can look for care and nourishment from those
who have perhaps already been injured by the unborn on some ten or
twelve occasions; for they say of people with large families, that they
have suffered terrible injuries from the unborn; till at last, when
this has been carried far enough, some one suggests the formula, which
is brought out and solemnly read to the child by the family
straightener. This gentleman is always invited on these occasions, for
the very fact of intrusion into a peaceful family shows a depravity on
the part of the child which requires his professional services.
On being teased by the reading and tweaked by the nurse, the child will
commonly begin to cry, which is reckoned a good sign, as showing a
consciousness of guilt. He is thereon asked, Does he assent to the
formula? on which, as he still continues crying and can obviously make
no answer, some one of the friends comes forward and undertakes to sign
the document on his behalf, feeling sure (so he says) that the child
would do it if he only knew how, and that he will release the present
signer from his engagement on arriving at maturity. The friend then
inscribes the signature of the child at the foot of the parchment,
which is held to bind the child as much as though he had signed it
himself.
Even this, however, does not fully content them, for they feel a little
uneasy until they have got the child’s own signature after all. So when
he is about fourteen, these good people partly bribe him by promises of
greater liberty and good things, and partly intimidate him through
their great power of making themselves actively unpleasant to him, so
that though there is a show of freedom made, there is really none; they
also use the offices of the teachers in the Colleges of Unreason, till
at last, in one way or another, they take very good care that he shall
sign the paper by which he professes to have been a free agent in
coming into the world, and to take all the responsibility of having
done so on to his own shoulders. And yet, though this document is
obviously the most important which any one can sign in his whole life,
they will have him do so at an age when neither they nor the law will
for many a year allow any one else to bind him to the smallest
obligation, no matter how righteously he may owe it, because they hold
him too young to know what he is about, and do not consider it fair
that he should commit himself to anything that may prejudice him in
after years.
I own that all this seemed rather hard, and not of a piece with the
many admirable institutions existing among them. I once ventured to say
a part of what I thought about it to one of the Professors of Unreason.
I did it very tenderly, but his justification of the system was quite
out of my comprehension. I remember asking him whether he did not think
it would do harm to a lad’s principles, by weakening his sense of the
sanctity of his word and of truth generally, that he should be led into
entering upon a solemn declaration as to the truth of things about
which all that he can certainly know is that he knows nothing—whether,
in fact, the teachers who so led him, or who taught anything as a
certainty of which they were themselves uncertain, were not earning
their living by impairing the truth-sense of their pupils (a delicate
organisation mostly), and by vitiating one of their most sacred
instincts.
The Professor, who was a delightful person, seemed greatly surprised at
the view which I took, but it had no influence with him whatsoever. No
one, he answered, expected that the boy either would or could know all
that he said he knew; but the world was full of compromises; and there
was hardly any affirmation which would bear being interpreted
literally. Human language was too gross a vehicle of thought—thought
being incapable of absolute translation. He added, that as there can be
no translation from one language into another which shall not scant the
meaning somewhat, or enlarge upon it, so there is no language which can
render thought without a jarring and a harshness somewhere—and so
forth; all of which seemed to come to this in the end, that it was the
custom of the country, and that the Erewhonians were a conservative
people; that the boy would have to begin compromising sooner or later,
and this was part of his education in the art. It was perhaps to be
regretted that compromise should be as necessary as it was; still it
was necessary, and the sooner the boy got to understand it the better
for himself. But they never tell this to the boy.
From the book of their mythology about the unborn I made the extracts
which will form the following chapter.