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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