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medicinal and humane treatment of the diseased of which they are the
advocates would in the long run be much cheaper to the country: but I did
not gather that these reformers were opposed to meeting some of the more
violent forms of illness with the cat-of-nine-tails, or with death; for
they saw no so effectual way of checking them; they would therefore both
flog and hang, but they would do so pitifully.

I have perhaps dwelt too long upon opinions which can have no possible
bearing upon our own, but I have not said the tenth part of what these
would-be reformers urged upon me. I feel, however, that I have
sufficiently trespassed upon the attention of the reader.




CHAPTER XIII: THE VIEWS OF THE EREWHONIANS CONCERNING DEATH


The Erewhonians regard death with less abhorrence than disease. If it is
an offence at all, it is one beyond the reach of the law, which is
therefore silent on the subject; but they insist that the greater number
of those who are commonly said to die, have never yet been born--not, at
least, into that unseen world which is alone worthy of consideration. As
regards this unseen world I understand them to say that some miscarry in
respect to it before they have even reached the seen, and some after,
while few are ever truly born into it at all--the greater part of all the
men and women over the whole country miscarrying before they reach it.
And they say that this does not matter so much as we think it does.

As for what we call death, they argue that too much has been made of it.
The mere knowledge that we shall one day die does not make us very
unhappy; no one thinks that he or she will escape, so that none are
disappointed. We do not care greatly even though we know that we have
not long to live; the only thing that would seriously affect us would be
the knowing--or rather thinking that we know--the precise moment at which
the blow will fall. Happily no one can ever certainly know this, though
many try to make themselves miserable by endeavouring to find it out. It
seems as though there were some power somewhere which mercifully stays us
from putting that sting into the tail of death, which we would put there
if we could, and which ensures that though death must always be a
bugbear, it shall never under any conceivable circumstances be more than
a bugbear.

For even though a man is condemned to die in a week's time and is shut up
in a prison from which it is certain that he cannot escape, he will
always hope that a reprieve may come before the week is over. Besides,
the prison may catch fire, and he may be suffocated not with a rope, but
with common ordinary smoke; or he may be struck dead by lightning while
exercising in the prison yards. When the morning is come on which the
poor wretch is to be hanged, he may choke at his breakfast, or die from
failure of the heart's action before the drop has fallen; and even though
it has fallen, he cannot be quite certain that he is going to die, for he

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