Erewhon Revisited · Chapter
Author's Preface explained
In the preface, Samuel Butler explains the genesis of the sequel to Erewhon, written thirty years after the original.
What happens
In the preface, Samuel Butler explains the genesis of the sequel to Erewhon, written thirty years after the original. He reflects on the natural development of new religions following a miraculous event—Higgs's balloon ascent—and draws analogies to historical patterns while distinguishing Higgs from other religious founders. Butler also notes his own religious affiliation with the advanced Broad Church and acknowledges his editor.
Themes in this chapter
Religion and Credulity
Butler explicitly discusses how a single miraculous event can spawn a new religion, with temples, priests, and exploitation of public credulity.
Satire of Institutions
The preface satirizes the predictable pattern of religious institutionalization following a supposed miracle.
Truth and Perception
Butler contrasts the objective analogy of historical events with the subjective perception of Higgs as a religious figure, emphasizing the gap between reality and belief.
Characters to notice
- My Father
Referred to as Mr. Higgs, the remarkable stranger whose balloon ascent and marriage to Arowhena catalyze the new religion in Erewhon.
Key passages
“Given a people in the conditions supposed to exist in Erewhon, and given the apparently miraculous ascent of a remarkable stranger into the heavens with an earthly bride—what would be the effect on the people generally?”
Butler asks what would happen to the Erewhonians after Higgs's miraculous balloon escape with Arowhena.
This question sets up the entire premise of the sequel.
“I have concluded, I believe rightly, that the events described in Chapter XXIV of Erewhon would give rise to such a cataclysmic change in the old Erewhonian opinions as would result in the development of a new religion.”
Butler concludes that Higgs's escape would cause a revolutionary shift in Erewhonian beliefs, leading to a new religion.
This is the central thesis of the preface and the book.
“He is a typical middle-class Englishman, deeply tainted with priggishness in his earlier years, but in great part freed from it by the sweet uses of adversity.”
Butler describes Higgs as an ordinary Englishman, initially priggish but improved by hardship.
Butler distinguishes Higgs from other religious founders by emphasizing his ordinariness.