A POSITIVIST UTOPIA.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 5672, 24 April 1880, Page 2 (Supplement)

A POSITIVIST UTOPIA.

" Erchomenon, or the Republic of Materialism," belongs to the same clafsa of

literature as " The Coming Race," " Erewhon," and "The New Paul and Yir

ginia." It is written by a clergyman of Christchurch, New Zealand, and supposes a condition of society 500 years hence, in which human sentiment will have been effectually eliminated from human conduct, and the goal of progress will be a purely material one. The author of the work represents himself as having just re-

turned from a lecture by Professor Glibble, on "The Origin of all Things," in which he had proved that everything in the universe ia self-ordered, and that there is no room in it for a Supreme First Cause. Sitting down in his own study to a perusal of Comte's'' Philosophy," the writer's attention was arrested by the call of a bird outside. The note was so sweet and alluring that he Ballied forth to listen to it, and following it through the night he was at length so weaiy that he sank down, on a stone seat, and resolved to rest there until daybreak. When this came he discovered that he was in the midst of a totally strange country, and was coon startled by the appearance of some vast birds of the eagle family, each of' which carried a basket-like vehicle in its claws. One of

them moving in a direct line ovor his head, he raised a cry of alarm, when the bird auddenly descended, and a voice

from the car shouted out, " Jump in at once; we've not-a moment to lose !" He did so, and found that the eagle was an aerial machine, and that he was in company with a number of passengers fantastically dressed in a quasi-Grecian costume, to whom his own garb afforded immense amusement. The women were attired like the men, wore their hair short, and indulged in smoking. The carriage he had taken his seat in bore the name of the Harpy, its rate of speed was 60 miles an hour, and engaging in a race with a rival conveyance called the Apollyon, the two came into collision, and one of the passengers was thrown from the former, and had both his legs and one arm broken. The accident occurred jußtas the racing vehicles reached their destination, London, and a doctor having'been sent for, he decided that the patient should be sent to the btilingdown. establishment, and called for his I" death's-head rod." This was charged with a force resembling Lord Lytton'a Vril ; but aB it proved to be out of order, the man was put to death by strangulation. The stranger in London Boon made the discovery that he had leaped over 800 yearo in a single night. When he asked for Westminster Abbey, he learned that it had been pulled down some centuries before, and that its site was now occupied by a temple of humanity : the old sighs of the hotels had been superseded by auch emblems a3 the "Darwin," the " Tyndall," and the " Haeckel;" men and women associated together with a degree of freedom and unreserve bordering upon licentiousness ; science had introduced such improvements into warfare that a hundred thousand men could be blown to atoms by the explosion of a Bingle " devil';" the German Commune had absorbed one-half of Europe, and Russia the other ; India was being governed by a native dynasty ;. Canada had been annexed by the United States; Australia had became an independent commune, and the whole of Africa, originally covered by British colonies, had been welded together into one State. The London hotels were either communal or mutual; newspapers had been superseded by phonographic pieces of mechanism, which collected, recorded and gave out in an audible voice the news of the day, as well as editorial articles. Marriage had been abolished, and all children were brought up at baby-farms until they were old enough to enter the kindergarten, from whence, in due time, they were transferred to the gymnasium.* Visiting one of the first-named of these institutions, the stranger learned that all infants were submitted to a careful examination upon being brought in. "If any flaw appeared, if the child was deformed, if the chest waa weak, if a limb was injured, the child was laid aside, an electric wire placed under its head, and, in a moment, its wailinga were silenced for ever." Christianity having been abolished, the worship of the Grand Etre. had been substituted ior the religious services of former centuries'. This worship was essentially musical, and both vocalists aud instrumentalists were entirely mechanical. A grand council of 300 had superseded Parliament, and all questions were decided by a plsbiscitum. The descendants of Darwin had reverted, by a process of atavism, to their original type, and were affectionately cared for in the Zoological Gardens, where their genealogies were accurately preserved. A visit to the boiling-down establishment proved it to be one of the triumphs of utilitarianism, for human bodieß were converted there into highly valuable manure. A few copies of the New Testament were still preserved in the British Museum ; and the stranger ascertained the existence of an obscure sect inhabiting a little village on the outskirts of London who still adhered to the faith and practice of Christianity. He visited these people, and found that they were keeping alike the belief and morality inculcated in Palestine 2400 years ago. They even had the temerity to take part in a controversy carried on through one of the public phonographs upon the theory of evolution, and had vindicated '' the elevating and consoling conceptions of Christianity, which met the wants of the human heart, and satisfied the yearning for immortality which was in every breast." At length a fearful cataclysm occurred; the earth seemed shaken to its centre; the air was filled with the terrible glare of almost unintermittent lightning, and with peal on peal of volleying thunder; and the crowded streets of London were thronged with terror-stricken people, crying for mercy, and not at all comforted or assured by their faith in the "Grand-Etre." After aery of appalling anguish, a silence, like the silence of death, fell upon the awe-oppressed multitude. "In the midst of it," says the writer, "I thought I heard the soft sweet notes of the cuckoo, 'Cuckoo.' My thoughts at once went back to that cold wintry night, bo long past, and I listened attentively. Again and again I heard the note, 'Cuckoo, cuckoo.' I started up and felt a hand laid upon my arm, and heard the voice of my dear wife saying, ' Frank ! Frank i don't you hear the thunder ? Aud the cuckoo clock is striking 32.'" So it was all an ugly dream—a dream smoothly and pleasantly narrated, and covering a by no means harsh or over-strained satire upon materialism, with which the wiiter has, injudiciously, we think, mixed up evolution. Some of the ablest theologians^ of the present day accept it as strengthening the argument of design, and have pointed out that that design, forming, as it does, part of a structure and inseparable from it, while testifying to the existence of the creative Mind, is quite irrespective of the process by which that structure was brought into existence. The whole position of the scientific theologian, in relation to this question, is so well laid down by the Rev. George Henslow, son of the distinguished botanist, in his treatise entitled, "The Theory of Evolution of Living Things," published by MacMillan and Co. in 1873 —the treatise which obtained one of the Actonian prizeß for the year 1872—that we need not do more than quote one passage from the reverend gentleman's preface as applicable to the opinions of the writer under notice : "I am aware that the theory of evolution, aB held by some persons, may be iti appearance if not actually atheistic, but all views of evolution are not to be condemned because materialists and positivists may profess to dispense with the aid of a Deity in creation."—Melbourne Argus.

A bird-seller s borne hau been exoavated from the ramß of Pompeii, with the st&ple Itock of birds, o*gw, bir4 peed, &o,