Page 178 - erewhon

they have recourse in order to get themselves into our own
world. But of this more anon: what I would relate here is
their manner of dealing with those who do come.
It is a distinguishing peculiarity of the Erewhonians that
when they profess themselves to be quite certain about any
matter, and avow it as a base on which they are to build a
system of practice, they seldom quite believe in it. If they
smell a rat about the precincts of a cherished institution,
they will always stop their noses to it if they can.
This is what most of them did in this matter of the un-
born, for I cannot (and never could) think that they seriously
believed in their mythology concerning pre-existence: they
did and they did not; they did not know themselves what
they believed; all they did know was that it was a disease
not to believe as they did. The only thing of which they were
quite sure was that it was the pestering of the unborn which
caused them to be brought into this world, and that they
would not have been here if they would have only let peace-
able people alone.
It would be hard to disprove this position, and they
might have a good case if they would only leave it as it
stands. But this they will not do; they must have assurance
doubly sure; they must have the written word of the child it-
self as soon as it is born, giving the parents indemnity from
all responsibility on the score of its birth, and asserting its
own pre-existence. They have therefore devised something
which they call a birth formula—a document which varies
in words according to the caution of parents, but is much
the same practically in all cases; for it has been the business

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