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.
I have concluded, I believe rightly, that the events described in Chapter
XXIV. of "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.
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