Note 63 — ADDITIONAL NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER II.

In a volume of philosophical Romance some unknown Gulliver of the 19th century bestows many pages of pleasant satire on the Utilitarian principle, assumed as a maxim of social life and pushed to its ultimate conclusions. The author travels into the country of Nowhere (Erewhon), and learns by personal experience, first in a prison, and next in the house of a princely swindler Senoj Nosnibor (alias Jones Robinson) those true laws of Sociology which best subserve the great final end—the noble object laid down by Mr. Mill. Ill-health is made criminal. Immorality counts as being out of sorts. The former is an object of penal justice, the latter of condolence joined with alterative discipline. The swindler sends for his family "straightener," and gets well amidst the sympathy of his friends; the consumptive is condemned to imprisonment and hard labour for the rest of his miserable days. And this is reasonable in itself, and justified by the results,—the Erewhonians possess the finest physique in the world, and rob and embezzle only when they happen to feel tempted. Our traveller himself, though full of old-fashioned moral prejudices, becomes convinced by contemplating the great final cause. "That dislike," he observes, "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: what progress either of body or soul had been otherwise possible?"—and again, "I write with great diffidence, but it seems to me that there is no unfairness in punishing people for their misfortunes or rewarding them for their sheer good luck: it is the normal condition of human life that this should be done, and no right-minded person will complain at being subjected to the common treatment. There is no alternative open to us. It is idle to say that men are not responsible for their misfortunes. What is responsibility? Surely to be responsible means to be liable to have to give an answer should it be demanded, and all things which live are responsible for their lives and actions, should society see fit to question them through the mouth of its authorised agent. What is the offence of a lamb that we should rear it, and tend it, and lull it into security, for the express purpose of killing it? Its offence is the misfortune of being something which society wants to eat, and which cannot defend itself. This is ample. Who shall limit the right of society except society itself? And what consideration for the individual is tolerable unless society be the gainer thereby?" Erewhon, pp. 85, 86, and 100, 101.

These sentiments considered, the reader will not be surprised to learn that our author, after a preparatory college training in the main doctrines of Self-interest—to wit, Evasion and Inconsistency—ends happily and usefully for himself by the successful abduction of his host's daughter—and by advertising a propaganda of certain European manners and observances unknown in Erewhon, to be carried out by kidnapping its healthy inhabitants and training them properly on our sugar plantations. What genuine disciple of Utilitarianism can conceive a brighter moral triumph than the union of private self-interest with the interested aims of a great sugar-growing people? Matter-of-fact Baconians may argue that Utility substitutes a misplaced and one-sided "why" for the "what" required by Moralists,—but our traveller's answer is plain—he argues on data;—given the premises—his is the inevitable conclusion. The defence of the former will be an interest to plenty of people—philosophic and unphilosophic. Leave the data to them; or if necessary make a further appeal to the religious aims of society. In Erewhon the great feminine Divinity Ydgrun is supreme; she is sovereign amongst ourselves also;—only we twist her name and call the Goddess "Grundy."