Page 99 - erewhon

These men practise much as medical men in England, and
receive a quasi-surreptitious fee on every visit. They are
treated with the same unreserve, and obeyed as readily, as
our own doctors—that is to say, on the whole sufficiently—
because people know that it is their interest to get well as
soon as they can, and that they will not be scouted as they
would be if their bodies were out of order, even though they
may have to undergo a very painful course of treatment.
When I say that they will not be scouted, I do not mean
that an Erewhonian will suffer no social inconvenience
in consequence, we will say, of having committed fraud.
Friends will fall away from him because of his being less
pleasant company, just as we ourselves are disinclined to
make companions of those who are either poor or poorly.
No one with any sense of self-respect will place himself on
an equality in the matter of affection with those who are
less lucky than himself in birth, health, money, good looks,
capacity, or anything else. Indeed, that dislike and even dis-
gust should be felt by the fortunate for the unfortunate, or
at any rate for those who have been discovered to have met
with any of the more serious and less familiar misfortunes,
is not only natural, but desirable for any society, whether of
man or brute.
The fact, therefore, that the Erewhonians attach none of
that guilt to crime which they do to physical ailments, does
not prevent the more selfish among them from neglecting a
friend who has robbed a bank, for instance, till he has ful-
ly recovered; but it does prevent them from even thinking
of treating criminals with that contemptuous tone which

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