 they have no mercy on
such illnesses as fevers or catarrhs or lung diseases, which to us appear to be
beyond the control of the individual. They are only more lenient towards the
diseases of the young - such as measles, which they think to be like sowing
one's wild oats - and look over them as pardonable indiscretions if they have
not been too serious, and if they are atoned for by complete subsequent
recovery.
    It is hardly necessary to say that the office of straightener is one which
requires long and special training. It stands to reason that he who would cure a
moral ailment must be practically acquainted with it in all its bearings. The
student for the profession of straightener is required to set apart certain
seasons for the practise of each vice in turn, as a religious duty. These
seasons are called fasts, and are continued by the student until he finds that
he really can subdue all the more usual vices in his own person, and hence can
advise his patients from the results of his own experience.
    Those who intend to be specialists, rather than general practitioners,
devote themselves more particularly to the branch in which their practice will
mainly lie. Some students have been obliged to continue their exercises during
their whole lives, and some devoted men have actually died as martyrs to the
drink, or gluttony, or whatever branch of vice they may have chosen for their
especial study. The greater number, however, take no harm by the excursions into
the various departments of vice which it is incumbent upon them to study.
    For the Erewhonians hold that unalloyed virtue is not a thing to be
immoderately indulged in. I was shown more than one case in which the real or
supposed virtues of parents were visited upon the children to the third and
fourth generation. The straighteners say that the most that can be truly said
for virtue is that there is a considerable balance in its favour, and that it is
on the whole a good deal better to be on its side than against it; but they urge
that there is much pseudo-virtue going about, which is apt to let people in very
badly before they find it out. Those men, they say, are best who are not
remarkable either for vice or virtue. I told them about Hogarth's idle and
industrious apprentices, but they did not seem to think that the industrious
apprentice was a very nice person.
 

                                 Chapter Eleven

                             Some Erewhonian Trials

In Erewhon as in other countries there are some courts of justice that deal with
special subjects. Misfortune generally, as I have above explained, is considered
more or less criminal, but
