Science Fiction Studies

#13 = Volume 4, Part 3 = November 1977


Edward Maitland

On and From By and By: An Historical Romance of the Future (1873)

Preface to New Edition [1876]

[Reproduced below are a preface to and an extract from a book first published in 1873. The claim made in the preface, that By and By belongs to "a category wholly distinct from any to which they [The Coming Race and Erewhon] can be assigned," is of course in itself evidence that at least some readers would assign all three to the same category--the one that has come to be called science fiction. The extract from the novel itself on the "imaginative fiction" of the narrator's past (i.e. the science fiction of the author's own time) indicates that the utopian-dystopian argument was already underway in 1873.]

Wholly designed and in great part written before the appearance of any of the recent works of fiction of which The Coming Race and Erewhon are the most notable, By and By claims to belong, both by character and purpose, to a category wholly distinct from any to which they can be assigned. For while, in the first place, they do not pretend to describe a probable or even possible state of society, By and By contemplates a condition of things easily imaginable as resulting from the natural development of existing tendencies in knowledge and thought; and, in the second place, while they offer nothing that can serve as suggestion or caution for use in the future, By and By indicates the direction and spirit in which society must develop if it would arrive at certain results.

Following its companion tales, The Pilgrim and the Shrine and Higher Law, By and By assumes the inherent divinity of the universe, and, consequently, the capacity of Nature to produce the highest results in character and conduct, and by virtue of its own impulses to work out its own "redemption." As the aim of its predecessors, therefore, was to present respectively the evolution of religion and morals out of the contact of the world with the human consciousness, and so to show the sufficiency of the intuitions for all purposes of life, moral and spiritual, so the aim of By and By is to present a state of society in which the intuitions have attained supremacy over tradition and convention, and individuals may follow their own ideals of life, unrestricted save by the law of equal liberty for all.

In depicting such a society, the main condition necessary to be observed in order to escape the extravagancies of Utopianism, is that human nature be regarded as a "constant quantity." Thus, whatever the progress made in knowledge and the art of living, humanity will still consist of those two universal constituents of intelligent existence, the Real and Ideal; so that all difference between the future and the present will be of degree and not of kind. Wherefore, unless the period taken be very much in advance of that contemplated in By and By, and altogether unthinkable by us, the conditions of existence will still necessitate the production of types varying widely in character and development, and therefore of lives consisting of efforts resulting more or less in alternating failure and success. And no matter how severely scientific the training, there will still be a religious side to man's nature, a side through which the intuitions will seek towards their source and deem it to be found in the eternal consciousness, inherent in the universe of being, that for them underlies all phenomena.

It must be expected that, as in the past, so in the future, there will be men endowed with that sense of the infinite which compels them to recognize their relation to the whole as well as to the part, and as liable under the influence of an enthusiastic love of the ideal to transcend the bounds of conventional sanity, and in their ecstasy to confound their spiritual imaginings with their physical perceptions, and transmute them into realities, --as ever were founders of religions of old.

With regard to woman, it must be expected, if not hoped, that no training will prevent the emotional from still predominating in her constitution, and retaining her in a position in respect to man relatively the same that she has ever had. It must be expected, too, that the first choice of the ideal man of the future will be the woman who most nearly for him represents physical Nature in its highest perfection, genuine and unsophisticated; that though he will find such Nature very winning and sweet, he may also find it very perverse and wayward, and hard to arouse to an appreciation of his own extended sympathies; but because it is true and genuine, and loves its best, within its own narrow limits, he will be tender and enduring to the end, no matter at what cost to himself. It must be expected that the conflict between soul and sense will still be illustrated in the facts and relations of life; that to much love much more will be forgiven than now, when the compulsion is that of the sentiments and not of law; and that while the selfishness, insincerity, and uncharity, which characterize the merely conventional will be the sole unpardonable sins, and a moral jar to be held as justifying divorce, even these will be "vanishing quantities" under the gradual elimination from society of the conditions which favour their development.

And, as both in the secular and the religious life of such a period, freedom will be regarded as the necessary condition of excellence, and no element of humanity be reprobated as evil, the Church of the future will find its true function in fostering and elevating the ideal, not by depressing and repudiating the real, but by accepting it as the necessary basis of existence, and seeking to raise both by promoting their healthy action and reaction upon each other; and thus reconciling the aims of science and religion, will vindicate its claim to universality in a wider and truer sense than any yet contemplated by it.

It may be further surmised of such a character as has been indicated, living in such an era, that, while differing from his prototypes of the past in being rich instead of poor, educated instead of untaught, married instead of single (for how else could he afford a complete example of the ideal social life to others?) his enthusiasm expending itself on the practical, and his whole life illustrating the Gospel, that man, while animated by faith, must be redeemed by works, inasmuch as he has it in his power to amend the conditions of his own existence, --he will not altogether escape the fate that has ever befallen those who have been enthusiasts for humanity, and that the sufferings which make perfect will not be wanting to him. It may be further surmised of such a character as has been indicated, living in such an era, that, while differing from his prototypes of the past in being rich instead of poor, educated instead of untaught, married instead of single (for how else could he afford a complete example of the ideal social life to others?) his enthusiasm expending itself on the practical, and his whole life illustrating the Gospel, that man, while animated by faith, must be redeemed by works, inasmuch as he has it in his power to amend the conditions of his own existence, --he will not altogether escape the fate that has ever befallen those who have been enthusiasts for humanity, and that the sufferings which make perfect will not be wanting to him.

While our Romance of the Future thus becomes in a measure transformed into an allegory, and its characters present themselves under a typical aspect, the author would hope that, whatever the view taken of details, the impression produced by the whole will be one of hopefulness as to the possibilities of humanity; and that it is not among what has been termed the "literature of despair," be it exquisite as it may, that By and By and its companion books can fairly be catalogued.

[19th-Century SF as Viewed from the Future (pp 365-66 of 1876 edn)]

In following my avocations as a student in the library of the British Museum, it happens occasionally that I come across old books of imaginative fiction, in which the writers set down their views of the condition of society when civilization should have advanced far beyond the stage reached in their own day. English, French, German, and American writers all tried their hand at such forecasting of the future; but, ingenious as were their attempts, there is one respect in which their sagacity was woefully at fault:--most of all so in those of France, where ecclesiasticism and political organization bore greatest sway; and least of all so in those of America, where individual freedom most prevailed.

The error of these prophets consisted in their regarding physical science as destined to dominate man to such an extent as to destroy the individuality of his character, and mechanise his very affections. It is true that the writings to which I am referring belong principally to a period when the human mind was yet so much under the influence of rigid inflexible systems of thought in religion, politics, and society, as to make it very difficult for men to realize the true nature and functions of the new power which was to regenerate the earth. They thought that in exchanging Dogma for Science they would merely be exchanging one hard master for another. As it had ever been the aim of Dogma to crystalize, if not to suppress, all the humanity of human nature; so it would, they supposed, be the business of science to deprive character of individuality, and life of contrast and variety, by making all men alike, and converting the world into one vast Chinese empire. My story will have failed in respect of at least one of its main ends, if it does not enable my younger readers to see that under the reign of Science, Civilization has come to consist, not in the suppression, but in the development of individual character and genius, to the utmost extent compatible with the security and convenience of the whole mass.


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