Erewhon
Encyclopedia
Erewhon: or, Over the Range is a novel
by Samuel Butler
, published anonymously in 1872. The title is also the name of a country, supposedly discovered by the protagonist. In the novel, it is not revealed in which part of the world Erewhon is, but it is clear that it is a fictional country
. Butler meant the title to be read as the word Nowhere backwards, even though the letters "h" and "w" are transposed, therefore Erewhon is anagram
of nowhere.
The first few chapters of the novel, dealing with the discovery of Erewhon, are in fact based on Butler's own experiences in New Zealand
where, as a young man, he worked as a sheep
farmer
for about four years (1860–1864) and explored parts of the interior of the South Island
.
One of the country's largest sheep stations
, located near where Butler lived, is named "Erewhon" in his honour.
In the preface to the first edition of his book, Butler specified:
Nevertheless, the word is occasionally pronounced with two syllables as 'air - one'.
, yet it soon becomes clear that this is far from the case. Yet for all the failings of Erewhon, it is also clearly not a dystopia
, such as that depicted by George Orwell
's Nineteen Eighty-Four
. As a satirical utopia, Erewhon has sometimes been compared to Gulliver's Travels
(1726), a classic novel by Jonathan Swift
; the image of utopia in this latter case also bears strong parallels with the self-view of the British Empire
at the time. It should also be compared to William Morris' novel News from Nowhere
.
Erewhon satirizes various aspects of Victorian society, including criminal punishment, religion
and anthropocentrism
. For example, according to Erewhonian law, offenders are treated as if they were ill whilst ill people are looked upon as criminals. Another feature of Erewhon is the absence of machines; this is due to the widely shared perception by the Erewhonians that they are potentially dangerous. This last aspect of Erewhon reveals the influence of Charles Darwin
's evolution theory; Butler had read On the Origin of Species soon after it was published in 1859.
, which had just begun publication in Christchurch
, New Zealand
, beginning with "Darwin among the Machines
" (1863). Butler was the first to write about the possibility that machines might develop consciousness
by Darwinian Selection
. Many dismissed this as a joke; but, in his preface to the second edition, Butler wrote:
In the chapter, "Musical Banks", Butler compares the practice of the cathedral to that of banks in an attack on the religious hypocrisy of his time.
In the chapter, Butler mentions that these banks have their own currency, which is not honored by the other banks. This refers to an old practice of coin
age. During the age when the whole point of money was that it was made of precious metal, there was frequent trimming or shaving of coins once they were released to the public, even though people were expected to accept the diminished coins at their face value. These bits were sold under the counter to an assayer
. There was also widespread counterfeiting. Banks of that era were few and quite magnificent.
It would not do for churches to be implicated in these activities. Thus, churches actually had money-changing tables at which each coin would be examined separately and a token of actual worth given to the layperson so that he or she could be seen by the other parishioners as putting money in the basket during that part of the service. These tokens had religious images upon them; this also prevented pilferage. The money-changing was not done at the same time as the service itself. (Some distinguished Protestant churches in the US had this practice in the 19th century, besides the Church of England
and the Presbyterian Church of Scotland). The practice goes back to the days of the Temple in Jerusalem
, but then it was done for the different reason — that money offered to the temple did not have the images of pagan gods on it.
, alongside a revised and expanded edition of Erewhon.
, AI), and organic interaction (artificial life
) similar to or exceeding that of human beings. This is also a popular theme in science-fiction novels and movies; some raise the same question (Dune
's Butlerian Jihad
, for example), while others explore what the relationship between human beings and machines with artificial intelligence would be, and even whether AI is desirable. It is important to note, however, that Butler wrote of machines developing consciousness by natural selection
, not artificially.
The French philosopher Gilles Deleuze
used ideas from Butler's book at various points in the development of his philosophy of difference. In Difference and Repetition
(1968), Deleuze refers to what he calls "Ideas" as "erewhons." "Ideas are not concepts," he explains, but rather "a form of eternally positive differential multiplicity
, distinguished from the identity of concepts." "Erewhon" refers to the "nomadic distributions" that pertain to simulacra
, which "are not universals
like the categories
, nor are they the hic et nunc or now here, the diversity to which categories apply in representation.". "Erewhon," in this reading, is "not only a disguised no-where but a rearranged now-here."
In his collaboration with Félix Guattari
, Anti-Œdipus
(1972), Deleuze draws on Butler's "The Book of the Machines" to "go beyond" the "usual polemic between vitalism
and mechanism
" as it relates to their concept of "desiring-machines
":
A reference to Erewhon and specifically "The Book of Machines" opens Miguel de Unamuno
's short story, "Mecanópolis," which tells of a man who visits a city (called Mecanópolis) which is inhabited solely by machines.
George B. Dyson
uses the heading of Butler's original article in Darwin Among the Machines: The Evolution of Global Intelligence (1998) ISBN 0-7382-0030-1.
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by Samuel Butler
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Samuel Butler was an iconoclastic Victorian author who published a variety of works. Two of his most famous pieces are the Utopian satire Erewhon and a semi-autobiographical novel published posthumously, The Way of All Flesh...
, published anonymously in 1872. The title is also the name of a country, supposedly discovered by the protagonist. In the novel, it is not revealed in which part of the world Erewhon is, but it is clear that it is a fictional country
Fictional country
A fictional country is a country that is made up for fictional stories, and does not exist in real life, or one that people believe in without proof....
. Butler meant the title to be read as the word Nowhere backwards, even though the letters "h" and "w" are transposed, therefore Erewhon is anagram
Anagram
An anagram is a type of word play, the result of rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce a new word or phrase, using all the original letters exactly once; e.g., orchestra = carthorse, A decimal point = I'm a dot in place, Tom Marvolo Riddle = I am Lord Voldemort. Someone who...
of nowhere.
The first few chapters of the novel, dealing with the discovery of Erewhon, are in fact based on Butler's own experiences in New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
where, as a young man, he worked as a sheep
Domestic sheep
Sheep are quadrupedal, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Like all ruminants, sheep are members of the order Artiodactyla, the even-toed ungulates. Although the name "sheep" applies to many species in the genus Ovis, in everyday usage it almost always refers to Ovis aries...
farmer
Farmer
A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, who raises living organisms for food or raw materials, generally including livestock husbandry and growing crops, such as produce and grain...
for about four years (1860–1864) and explored parts of the interior of the South Island
South Island
The South Island is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand, the other being the more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman Sea, to the south and east by the Pacific Ocean...
.
One of the country's largest sheep stations
Station (New Zealand agriculture)
A station, in the context of New Zealand agriculture, is a large farm dedicated to the grazing of sheep and cattle. The use of the word for the farm or farm buildings date back to the mid-nineteenth century....
, located near where Butler lived, is named "Erewhon" in his honour.
In the preface to the first edition of his book, Butler specified:
- The author wishes it to be understood that Erewhon is pronounced as a word of three syllables, all short — thus, E-re-whon.
Nevertheless, the word is occasionally pronounced with two syllables as 'air - one'.
Content
The greater part of the book consists of a description of Erewhon. The nature of this nation is intended to be ambiguous. At first glance, Erewhon appears to be a utopiaUtopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
, yet it soon becomes clear that this is far from the case. Yet for all the failings of Erewhon, it is also clearly not a dystopia
Dystopia
A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
, such as that depicted by George Orwell
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
's Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party...
. As a satirical utopia, Erewhon has sometimes been compared to Gulliver's Travels
Gulliver's Travels
Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships, better known simply as Gulliver's Travels , is a novel by Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of...
(1726), a classic novel by Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...
; the image of utopia in this latter case also bears strong parallels with the self-view of the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
at the time. It should also be compared to William Morris' novel News from Nowhere
News from Nowhere
News from Nowhere is a classic work combining utopian socialism and soft science fiction written by the artist, designer and socialist pioneer William Morris...
.
Erewhon satirizes various aspects of Victorian society, including criminal punishment, religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
and anthropocentrism
Anthropocentrism
Anthropocentrism describes the tendency for human beings to regard themselves as the central and most significant entities in the universe, or the assessment of reality through an exclusively human perspective....
. For example, according to Erewhonian law, offenders are treated as if they were ill whilst ill people are looked upon as criminals. Another feature of Erewhon is the absence of machines; this is due to the widely shared perception by the Erewhonians that they are potentially dangerous. This last aspect of Erewhon reveals the influence of Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
's evolution theory; Butler had read On the Origin of Species soon after it was published in 1859.
The Book of the Machines
Butler developed the three chapters of Erewhon that make up "The Book of the Machines" from a number of articles that he had contributed to The PressThe Press
The Press is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Christchurch, New Zealand. It is owned by Fairfax Media.- History :The Press was first published on 25 May 1861 from a small cottage in Montreal Street, making it the oldest surviving newspaper in the South Island of New Zealand. The first...
, which had just begun publication in Christchurch
Christchurch
Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the country's second-largest urban area after Auckland. It lies one third of the way down the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula which itself, since 2006, lies within the formal limits of...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, beginning with "Darwin among the Machines
Darwin Among the Machines
"Darwin among the Machines" appeared as the heading of an article published in The Press newspaper on 13 June 1863 in Christchurch, New Zealand...
" (1863). Butler was the first to write about the possibility that machines might develop consciousness
Consciousness
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
by Darwinian Selection
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
. Many dismissed this as a joke; but, in his preface to the second edition, Butler wrote:
- I regret that reviewers have in some cases been inclined to treat the chapters on Machines as an attempt to reduce Mr. Darwin's theory to an absurdity. Nothing could be further from my intention, and few things would be more distasteful to me than any attempt to laugh at Mr. Darwin....
The rest of the book
Widely shared among the people of Erewhon is the belief that children choose to be born. Many other curious notions abound in Erewhon.In the chapter, "Musical Banks", Butler compares the practice of the cathedral to that of banks in an attack on the religious hypocrisy of his time.
In the chapter, Butler mentions that these banks have their own currency, which is not honored by the other banks. This refers to an old practice of coin
Coin
A coin is a piece of hard material that is standardized in weight, is produced in large quantities in order to facilitate trade, and primarily can be used as a legal tender token for commerce in the designated country, region, or territory....
age. During the age when the whole point of money was that it was made of precious metal, there was frequent trimming or shaving of coins once they were released to the public, even though people were expected to accept the diminished coins at their face value. These bits were sold under the counter to an assayer
Assayer
An assayer is a person who tests ores and minerals and analyzes them to determine their composition and value. They may use spectrographic analysis, chemical solutions, and chemical or laboratory equipment, such as furnaces, beakers, graduates, pipettes, and crucibles.An assayer separates metals...
. There was also widespread counterfeiting. Banks of that era were few and quite magnificent.
It would not do for churches to be implicated in these activities. Thus, churches actually had money-changing tables at which each coin would be examined separately and a token of actual worth given to the layperson so that he or she could be seen by the other parishioners as putting money in the basket during that part of the service. These tokens had religious images upon them; this also prevented pilferage. The money-changing was not done at the same time as the service itself. (Some distinguished Protestant churches in the US had this practice in the 19th century, besides the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
and the Presbyterian Church of Scotland). The practice goes back to the days of the Temple in Jerusalem
Temple in Jerusalem
The Temple in Jerusalem or Holy Temple , refers to one of a series of structures which were historically located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, the current site of the Dome of the Rock. Historically, these successive temples stood at this location and functioned as the centre of...
, but then it was done for the different reason — that money offered to the temple did not have the images of pagan gods on it.
Characters
- Higgs - The narrator who conveys to us the nature of Erewhonian society
- Chowbok (Kahabuka) - Higgs' guide into the mountains; he is a native who greatly fears the Erewhonians. He eventually abandons Higgs.
- Yram - The daughter of Higgs' jailer who takes care of him when he first enters Erewhon. Her name is Mary spelled backwards.
- Senoj Nosnibor - Higgs' host after he is released from prison; he hopes that Higgs will marry his elder daughter. His name is Robinson Jones backwards.
- Zulora - Senoj Nosnibor's elder daughter - Higgs finds her unpleasant, but her father hopes Higgs will marry her.
- Arowhena - Senoj Nosnibor's younger daughter; she falls in love with Higgs and runs away with him.
- Mahaina - A woman who claims to suffer from alcoholism but is believed to have a weak temperament.
- Ydgrun - The incomprehensible goddess of the Erewhonians. Her name is an anagram of Grundy (from Mrs. Grundy, a character in Thomas MortonThomas Morton (playwright)Thomas Morton was an English playwright.-Life:Morton was born in the city of Durham. He was the son of John and Grace Morton of Whickham, County Durham. He went to London to study law at Lincoln's Inn, but abandoned his studies for playwriting. For much of his life, Thomas lived in Pangbourne in...
's play Speed the Plough).
Reception
After its first release, this book sold far better than any of Butler's other works — perhaps because the British public assumed that the anonymous author was some better-known figure (the favorite being Lord Lytton, who had published The Coming Race two years prior). In 1901, Butler published a sequel, Erewhon RevisitedErewhon Revisited
Erewhon Revisited Twenty Years Later, Both by the Original Discoverer of the Country and by His Son is a satirical novel by Samuel Butler, forming a belated sequel to his Erewhon...
, alongside a revised and expanded edition of Erewhon.
Influence and legacy
Today scientists and philosophers seriously debate whether computers and robots could develop a kind of consciousness (artificial intelligenceArtificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
, AI), and organic interaction (artificial life
Artificial life
Artificial life is a field of study and an associated art form which examine systems related to life, its processes, and its evolution through simulations using computer models, robotics, and biochemistry. The discipline was named by Christopher Langton, an American computer scientist, in 1986...
) similar to or exceeding that of human beings. This is also a popular theme in science-fiction novels and movies; some raise the same question (Dune
Dune universe
Dune is a science fiction franchise which originated with the 1965 novel Dune by Frank Herbert. Considered by many to be the greatest science fiction novel of all time, Dune is frequently cited as the best-selling science fiction novel in history...
's Butlerian Jihad
Butlerian Jihad
The Butlerian Jihad is an event in the back-story of Frank Herbert's fictional Dune universe. Occurring over 10,000 years before the events chronicled in his 1965 novel Dune, this jihad leads to the outlawing of certain technologies, primarily "thinking machines", a collective term for computers...
, for example), while others explore what the relationship between human beings and machines with artificial intelligence would be, and even whether AI is desirable. It is important to note, however, that Butler wrote of machines developing consciousness by natural selection
Natural selection
Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....
, not artificially.
The French philosopher Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze , was a French philosopher who, from the early 1960s until his death, wrote influentially on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus , both co-written with Félix...
used ideas from Butler's book at various points in the development of his philosophy of difference. In Difference and Repetition
Difference and Repetition
Difference and Repetition is a book by philosopher Gilles Deleuze, originally published in 1968 in France under the title Différence et Répétition...
(1968), Deleuze refers to what he calls "Ideas" as "erewhons." "Ideas are not concepts," he explains, but rather "a form of eternally positive differential multiplicity
Multiplicity (philosophy)
Multiplicity is a philosophical concept that Edmund Husserl and Henri Bergson developed by analogy with Riemann's description of the mathematical concept. It forms an important part of the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, particularly in his collaboration with Félix Guattari, Capitalism and...
, distinguished from the identity of concepts." "Erewhon" refers to the "nomadic distributions" that pertain to simulacra
Simulacrum
Simulacrum , from the Latin simulacrum which means "likeness, similarity", was first recorded in the English language in the late 16th century, used to describe a representation, such as a statue or a painting, especially of a god...
, which "are not universals
Universal (metaphysics)
In metaphysics, a universal is what particular things have in common, namely characteristics or qualities. In other words, universals are repeatable or recurrent entities that can be instantiated or exemplified by many particular things. For example, suppose there are two chairs in a room, each of...
like the categories
Category (Kant)
In Kant's philosophy, a category is a pure concept of the understanding. A Kantian category is a characteristic of the appearance of any object in general, before it has been experienced...
, nor are they the hic et nunc or now here, the diversity to which categories apply in representation.". "Erewhon," in this reading, is "not only a disguised no-where but a rearranged now-here."
In his collaboration with Félix Guattari
Félix Guattari
Pierre-Félix Guattari was a French militant, an institutional psychotherapist, philosopher, and semiotician; he founded both schizoanalysis and ecosophy...
, Anti-Œdipus
Anti-Œdipus
Anti-Oedipus is a book by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and the psychoanalyst Félix Guattari. It is the first volume of Capitalism and Schizophrenia, the second being A Thousand Plateaus ....
(1972), Deleuze draws on Butler's "The Book of the Machines" to "go beyond" the "usual polemic between vitalism
Vitalism
Vitalism, as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is#a doctrine that the functions of a living organism are due to a vital principle distinct from biochemical reactions...
and mechanism
Mechanism (philosophy)
Mechanism is the belief that natural wholes are like machines or artifacts, composed of parts lacking any intrinsic relationship to each other, and with their order imposed from without. Thus, the source of an apparent thing's activities is not the whole itself, but its parts or an external...
" as it relates to their concept of "desiring-machines
Desiring-production
Desiring-production is a term coined by the French thinkers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in their book Anti-Œdipus . They oppose the Freudian conception of the unconscious as a representational "theater", instead favoring a productive "factory" model: desire is not an imaginary force based on...
":
A reference to Erewhon and specifically "The Book of Machines" opens Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo was a Spanish essayist, novelist, poet, playwright and philosopher.-Biography:...
's short story, "Mecanópolis," which tells of a man who visits a city (called Mecanópolis) which is inhabited solely by machines.
George B. Dyson
George Dyson (science historian)
George Dyson is a scientific historian, the son of Freeman Dyson and Verena Huber-Dyson, brother of Esther Dyson, and the grandson of Sir George Dyson. He is the father of Lauren Dyson. When he was sixteen he went to live in British Columbia in Canada to pursue his interest in kayaking and...
uses the heading of Butler's original article in Darwin Among the Machines: The Evolution of Global Intelligence (1998) ISBN 0-7382-0030-1.
See also
- The Coming Race (1871) (reprinted as Vril: The Power of the Coming Race) by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron LyttonEdward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron LyttonEdward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton PC , was an English politician, poet, playwright, and novelist. He was immensely popular with the reading public and wrote a stream of bestselling dime-novels which earned him a considerable fortune...
- Rangitata RiverRangitata RiverThe Rangitata River is one of the braided rivers that helped form the Canterbury Plains in southern New Zealand. It flows southeast for 120 kilometres from the Southern Alps, entering the Pacific Ocean 30 kilometres northeast of Timaru...
- The location of the Erewhon sheep station, named by Butler who was the first white settler in the area and lived at the Mesopotamia Sheep Station. - NehwonNehwonNehwon is the fictional world created by Fritz Leiber in which his heroes, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, adventure. It is notable for the city of Lankhmar."Nehwon", the reverse spelling of "No When", alludes to Erewhon.-Ilthmar:...
External links
- Erewhon: or Over the Range Jonathan Cape, 1921 edition from the New Zealand Electronic Text CentreNew Zealand Electronic Text CentreThe New Zealand Electronic Text Centre is a unit of the library at the Victoria University of Wellington which provides a free online archive of New Zealand and Pacific Islands texts and heritage materials. The NZETC has an ongoing programme of digitisation and feature additions to the current...
- "Darwin among the Machines" — (To the Editor of The Press, Christchurch, New Zealand, 13 June 1863) from the New Zealand Electronic Text CentreNew Zealand Electronic Text CentreThe New Zealand Electronic Text Centre is a unit of the library at the Victoria University of Wellington which provides a free online archive of New Zealand and Pacific Islands texts and heritage materials. The NZETC has an ongoing programme of digitisation and feature additions to the current...