LABOUR AND LITERATURE

Maoriland Worker, Volume 12, Issue 301, 6 December 1922, Page 10

LABOUR AND LITERATURE

Samuel Butler

Whitcombo and" Tombs are selling a. a&w edition of "Erewhon," by Samuel Butler, who wrote" this work in » kew Zealand back blocks station. The Scots "Forward ,, recently published ffcree .articles on Samuel Butler's life stud principles, the first of which we Reprint below. . Samuel Butler is best known t 0 tne general reader as the author of "Ere"" , •erhon" .and "The Way of all Flesh," £ftd few who have tasted Butler's |nality in these books fail to make acquainted with his other fcork-. But the man was greater than his looks. • Fortunately Samuel Butler h|ad a koswel). In his intimate friend, H. fasting Jones, who has given, us two jfearge volumes of the most delightful ftiography and memoir of recent ftnios. It is _a great record of one ojf £he most dis-tinctiVie geniuses of his <£ay; every page i|s sprinkled with wit and wisdom —witty wisdom —and repeals ia personality utterly human, QMJetly philosophical, candid yet always loveafcle, generous and sympathetic. The'skill of the biographer lias been greatly assisted by Butler's Mfe-iong habit of takng notes -and keeping records, all carefully indexed and well authenticated, consequently, we have a full-length portrait of Samuel Butler, and a record j <k. his mental development thjai en- j <|bles the reader 'o arrive at a complete interpretation of his personalft*. ■ " " J INTELLECTUAL HONESTY j In a world such as ours r . J . is doubtful if Btttler could ever have fitted in. His genius was too spasmodic, Jfeis judgment; too independent, j ■'After a brilliant University career, j which his father had hopsd wouM j iearl to "Holy Orders?' Butler refused ordination. Ke found intellec- i fcual difficulty with the creeds, and i-.ei!ur.-;d to write the "'received" explanation wiien he knew he did not felteve it. Writing to his disappointed mother, he stated bis case: "No man hf?.s any right: to uiidertake any profess on iov which he does, not honestly believe h*niself well qualified, t o please any other person. ... I should have had my pounds shillings, and pence and ?>eexi a fettered, miser able man." Butler had no Interest, in proving f o himself that the Christian religion was, or was: not, the true rel'glor>; but he had an interest in find- j ing some ground'for forming an un-j fciassed opinion on the subject. At \ the height of his period of doubt,; iivhen. one of the young men in the i Church Evening School Esked him ythy a good ajud all-powerful God -spern'ijiited ttie existence ot sm, Butler, with a truthful caricature of; the tkeologiqal argument .ho had j $cen expected to accept, replied: "My good man, don't you see? i If Adam had not eaten the 'apple ' you would no\v be in the Garden, of Eden; whereas, things being as j they are, you have a chance of' Heaven, which is ;a much better j place." ; FATHER AND ; I A worldly-minded clerical father [ <ttrged his sQn to take Holy Orders} jjjrst, and then resolve his doubts | lei&ureiy # but the son had other j K&tions of intellectual and ecclesias-1 fical holiesiy— he feared that, once ! tit would be difficult to get out, is father, who thought him a fool fq miss a career in the Church, re4etved the sharp retort: "If I am iiie pig-headed fool you think rut, the best school for mc is adversity." Butler's relationship with Irs father iß'ere never good; indeed, they were always very b;ad. There is evidence that he held his father a certain contempt; sometimes his contempt developed to anger, but more often it settled dovf/n into a kind of amused •tqlerat'on. In one of his notebooks Ye have a direction to his literary Executors that if over hh life is written, it might suitably begin: "The subject of this memoir was born of Mch but dishonest parents." In anether note, recording the fact that tin father ||ad no music in his soul itnd only knew twp tunes, both indlshe humourously adds, "but til's may have been the fault ©f the he,arer." "EREWHON" Declining tp fit into the pareuLal plan for his future, Samuel Butler oec{(S|d |p emigrate, and, in due .fourlfe",, reached New Zealand. To b;is sheep farm, awiay at £he' back o' beyond, he carted a piano on a.j

evenings when the day's work was done playing Bach's fugues, and rethinking the problems of life. There in 'his -beloved Erewhon—which is Nowhere transposed—he learnt niany •things, but one specially which lasted h'in a life-time: "I have learned to tolerate other men's, opinions. I have ceased to regard it as a personal matter whether men agree with mc or not. This.is a very simple thing to have come so far to learn; out it is one of the things I have learnt,"' MRS. GRUNDY'S CHRISTIANITY There too, away i& the quietness of the Bush he made iaii effort lo analyse h ; a beliefs regarding Christianity. He still believed .that Jesus was the Son of God, but exactly how or in" what degreo he refused to inquire; he found the enquiry led him into paths where the intelligence got, lost. He sot aside the miraculous elements in the incarnation and the Insurrection, and wrote in defence of his attitude. With the idea of a Trinity he had n 0 patience, and was inclined to agree with the negro, who had been heard repeating the Atbanasian creed from his Prayer Book thus: "The Father impossible, the Son impossible, the Holy Ghost impossible. And yet there are not three impossibles, but one impossible.'* At the age of twenty-six Butler renounced Christianity-—as he had been taught it. Probably the greatest obstacle to faith for one of his temperament . was tho easy-going, self-complacency of • "Christians." who had swallowed a religious creed which had failed to make them religious, r.-jnd cinly made them conventional. This- is everywhere evldeent in his books and notes. "The greater number of those who call themselves Christians are really worshippers of Mrs. Grundy, whose name can often be substituted for that of the Founder of Christianity, and n o progress will - •bo made till this is recognised. Mrs. G-rundy's carriage stops the way." Time only strengthened his belief that Christianity, as he had been taught it, was an organised convention and he belWved that "Till Christianity is dc'ad and burietl we shall never get the burning questions that lie beyond approached with sobriety and commo«scn. c c." He hastens to add that j't la against the superstitions of - Christianity that he is spending his ability, and quotes the case M the Rev. Mr. Poyntz, who preached a sermon in which he said that God had caused the church steeple to fall down because the people of Shrewsbury were organising a memorial to Charges Darwin. There is n o .evidence that Butler ever spoke in disparagement of the ethics of Jesus; what he regretted was that the acceptance of the miraculous in Chrisilanity was often substituted for tlie practice of the Christian law. Of these types and of similar types still with us he wrote a stinging criticism, which possesses 'the 'brevity that is the soul of wit, and which surely deserves to bo >•>•::.< ~':d in capitals: ARE EQUALLY HORRIFIED AT HEARING THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION DOUBTED, AND AT SEEING IT_ PRACTISED!" Butler's view of Christianity was precisely what many men with * scientific knowledge accept to-day; only, Butler w;as busy' affirming his fa,Uh long before it became easy to take up his position.. He did not want to pull down the Church, he wanted t o pull it up to realise that Christianity docs not depend on the miraculousi but on the rational. He hoped to reconcile the Church with tJvjpe who denied 'the miraculous element in her teaching: it is true he foiled, but it Is also true that fchnx reconciliation is now with us as an organised movement. The latest heresy -hunt'on this subject has failed in the Anglican Church, and the toleration. may be taken as a sign of aix advancing i'a'th. Butler's question : "'Do you—does any man of science—believe- that the present orthodox faith caii descend many generations longer without modification?'— been! answered. But the Church of Butler's youth would yield nothing, and at the age of twejity-six Butler gave up Chr-'etian-tfy tt represented by the Church.