Mr. Thims took me to the rooms of a gentleman who had a great reputation
for learning, but who was also, so Mr. Thims told me, rather a dangerous
person, inasmuch as he had attempted to introduce an adverb into the
hypothetical language. He had heard of my watch and been exceedingly
anxious to see me, for he was accounted the most learned antiquary in
Erewhon on the subject of mechanical lore. We fell to talking upon the
subject, and when I left he gave me a reprinted copy of the work which
brought the revolution about.
It had taken place some five hundred years before my arrival: people had
long become thoroughly used to the change, although at the time that it
was made the country was plunged into the deepest misery, and a reaction
which followed had very nearly proved successful. Civil war raged for
many years, and is said to have reduced the number of the inhabitants by
one-half. The parties were styled the machinists and the
anti-machinists, and in the end, as I have said already, the latter got
the victory, treating their opponents with such unparalleled severity
that they extirpated every trace of opposition.
The wonder was that they allowed any mechanical appliances to remain in
the kingdom, neither do I believe that they would have done so, had not
the Professors of Inconsistency and Evasion made a stand against the
carrying of the new principles to their legitimate conclusions.
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