blame on to other shoulders; and have fashioned a long
mythology as to the world in which the unborn people live, and what they do, and
the arts and machinations to which they have recourse in order to get themselves
into our own world. But of this more anon; what I would relate here is their
manner of dealing with those who do come.
    It is a distinguishing peculiarity of the Erewhonians that when they profess
themselves to be quite certain about any matter, and avow it as a base on which
they are to build a system of practice, they seldom quite believe in it. If they
smell a rat about the precincts of a cherished institution, they will always
stop their noses to it if they can.
    This is what most of them did in this matter of the unborn, for I cannot
(and never could) think that they seriously believed in their mythology
concerning preexistence; they did and they did not; they did not know themselves
what they believed; all they did know was that it was a disease not to believe
as they did. The only thing of which they were quite sure was that it was the
pestering of the unborn which caused them to be brought into this world, and
that they would not have been here if they would have only let peaceable people
alone.
    It would be hard to disprove this position, and they might have a good case
if they would only leave it as it stands. But this they will not do; they must
have assurance doubly sure; they must have the written word of the child itself
as soon as it is born, giving the parents indemnity from all responsibility on
the score of its birth, and asserting its own pre-existence. They have therefore
devised something which they call a birth formula - a document which varies in
words according to the caution of parents, but is much the same practically in
all cases; for it has been the business of the Erewhonian lawyers during many
ages to exercise their skill in perfecting it and providing for every
contingency.
    These formulae are printed on common paper at a moderate cost for the poor;
but the rich have them written on parchment and handsomely bound, so that the
getting up of a person's birth formula is a test of his social position. They
commence by setting forth, That whereas A. B. was a member of the kingdom of the
unborn, where he was well provided for in every way, and had no cause of
discontent, etc., etc., he did of his own wanton depravity and restlessness
conceive a desire to enter into this