# LXIV explained — The Way of All Flesh

> Chapter companion for The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler.

## What happens

Ernest is sentenced and taken to Coldbath Fields prison, but falls ill with brain fever upon arrival. After two months in the infirmary, he slowly recovers and undergoes a profound transformation: he renounces his clerical vocation, loses his Christian faith, and resolves to start anew, possibly abroad. He reflects on the role of his imprisonment in accelerating his change of heart and mind.

## Themes in this chapter

### Religion and Doubt

Ernest loses his Christian faith after a critical study of the New Testament, rejecting the miracles and embracing rationalism.

### Self-Discovery and Authenticity

Ernest realizes he hated being a clergyman and embraces a new, authentic path as a layman, even in disgrace.

### Heredity and Environment

Ernest reflects on how his environment—his parents, Pryer, and the rector—would have prevented his growth had he not been forcibly removed from it.

## Character check-ins

### Ernest Pontifex

Sentenced and imprisoned; suffers brain fever; recovers and renounces his faith and clerical life.

### Theobald Pontifex

Ernest worries about the pain his disgrace will cause his father.

### Christina Pontifex

Ernest fears his disgrace will break his mother's heart.

### Pryer

Ernest considers recovering money from Pryer to fund a new start.

### Mr. Shaw

Ernest's investigation into Christianity was prompted by Mr. Shaw's rebuke.

### Miss Maitland

Ernest feels sorry for Miss Maitland as part of the consequences of his actions.

## Key lines

> It is said that those who have been nearly drowned, find the return to consciousness much more painful than the loss of it had been, and so it was with my hero.

Ernest's recovery from brain fever was more agonizing than the delirium itself, akin to a drowning victim's painful return to awareness.

_Describes Ernest's painful reawakening to his situation after his illness._

> Perhaps the shock of so great a change in his surroundings had accelerated changes in his opinions, just as the cocoons of silkworms, when sent in baskets by rail, hatch before their time through the novelty of heat and jolting.

Ernest's sudden imprisonment and change of environment hastened his intellectual and spiritual transformation, like silkworm cocoons hatching early due to the jostling of transport.

_Metaphor for how external shock can accelerate internal change._

> Our most assured likings have for the most part been arrived at neither by introspection nor by any process of conscious reasoning, but by the bounding forth of the heart to welcome the gospel proclaimed to it by another.

People often discover their true feelings not through self-examination but through an enthusiastic response to an external idea or person.

_Reflects Ernest's pattern of embracing new beliefs through external influence._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_way_of_all_flesh_se/chapters/lxiv
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_way_of_all_flesh_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_way_of_all_flesh_se/chapters