{"product_id":"2940015518979","title":"Erewhon Revisited: A Satire, Science Fiction Classic By Samuel Butler! AAA+++","description":"Excerpt:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI forget when, but not very long after I had published \"Erewhon\" in 1872, it occurred to me to ask myself what course events in Erewhon would probably take after Mr. Higgs, as I suppose I may now call him, had made his escape in the balloon with Arowhena. Given a people in the conditions supposed to exist in Erewhon, and given the apparently miraculous ascent of a remarkable stranger into the heavens with an earthly bride--what would be the effect on the people generally?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere was no use in trying to solve this problem before, say, twenty years should have given time for Erewhonian developments to assume something like permanent shape, and in 1892 I was too busy with books now published to be able to attend to Erewhon. It was not till the early winter of 1900, i.e. as nearly as may be thirty years after the date of Higgs's escape, that I found time to deal with the question above stated, and to answer it, according to my lights, in the book which I now lay before the public.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI have concluded, I believe rightly, that the events described in\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChapter XXIV.\u003cbr\u003eof \"Erewhon\" would give rise to such a cataclysmic change in the old Erewhonian opinions as would result in the development of a new religion. Now the development of all new religions follows much the same general course. In all cases the times are more or less out of joint--older faiths are losing their hold upon the masses. At such times, let a personality appear, strong in itself, and made to seem still stronger by association with some supposed transcendent miracle, and it will be easy to raise a Lo here! that will attract many followers. If there be a single great, and apparently well-authenticated, miracle, others will accrete round it; then, in all religions that have so originated, there will follow temples, priests, rites, sincere believers, and unscrupulous exploiters of public credulity. To chronicle the events that followed Higgs's balloon ascent without shewing that they were much as they have been under like conditions in other places, would be to hold the mirror up to something very wide of nature.","brand":"BDP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47146229301488,"sku":"2940015518979","price":1.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940015518979_p0.jpg?v=1763621060","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940015518979","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}