Back to Methuselah

Back to Methuselah

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Back to Methuselah, by George Bernard
Shaw
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Title: Back to Methuselah
Author: George Bernard Shaw
Release Date: August 2, 2004 [eBook #13084]
Language: English
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BACK TO METHUSELAH
A Metabiological Pentateuch
by
BERNARD SHAW
1921

Contents
The Infidel Half Century The Dawn of Darwinism The Advent of the
Neo-Darwinians Political Inadequacy of the Human Animal Cowardice
of the Irreligious Is there any Hope in Education? Homeopathic
Education The Diabolical Efficiency of Technical Education
Flimsiness of Civilization Creative Evolution Voluntary Longevity The
Early Evolutionists The Advent of the Neo-Lamarckians How
Acquirements are Inherited The Miracle of Condensed Recapitulation
Heredity an Old Story Discovery Anticipated by Divination Corrected
Dates for the Discovery of Evolution Defying the Lightning: a
Frustrated Experiment In Quest of the First Cause Paley's Watch The
Irresistible Cry of Order, Order! The Moment and the Man The Brink
of the Bottomless Pit Why Darwin Converted the Crowd How we
Rushed Down a Steep Place Darwinism not Finally Refutable Three
Blind Mice The Greatest of These is Self-Control A Sample of
Lamarcko-Shavian Invective The Humanitarians and the Problem of
Evil How One Touch of Darwin makes the Whole World Kin Why
Darwin Pleased the Socialists Darwin and Karl Marx Why Darwin
pleased the Profiteers also The Poetry and Purity of Materialism The
Viceroys of the King of Kings Political Opportunism in Excelsis The
Betrayal of Western Civilization Circumstantial Selection in Finance

The Homeopathic Reaction against Darwinism Religion and Romance
The Danger of Reaction A Touchstone for Dogma What to do with the
Legends A Lesson from Science to the Churches The Religious Art of
the Twentieth Century The Artist-Prophets Evolution in the Theatre
My Own Part in the Matter In the Beginning: B.C. 4004 (In the Garden
of Eden) The Gospel of the Brothers Barnabas: Present Day The Thing
Happens: A.D. 2170 Tragedy of an Elderly Gentleman: A.D. 3000 As
Far as Thought Can Reach: A.D. 31,920

PREFACE
The Infidel Half Century
THE DAWN OF DARWINISM
One day early in the eighteen hundred and sixties, I, being then a small
boy, was with my nurse, buying something in the shop of a petty
newsagent, bookseller, and stationer in Camden Street, Dublin, when
there entered an elderly man, weighty and solemn, who advanced to the
counter, and said pompously, 'Have you the works of the celebrated
Buffoon?'
My own works were at that time unwritten, or it is possible that the
shop assistant might have misunderstood me so far as to produce a
copy of Man and Superman. As it was, she knew quite well what he
wanted; for this was before the Education Act of 1870 had produced
shop assistants who know how to read and know nothing else. The
celebrated Buffoon was not a humorist, but the famous naturalist
Buffon. Every literate child at that time knew Buffon's Natural History
as well as Esop's Fables. And no living child had heard the name that
has since obliterated Buffon's in the popular consciousness: the name of
Darwin.
Ten years elapsed. The celebrated Buffoon was forgotten; I had
doubled my years and my length; and I had discarded the religion of
my forefathers. One day the richest and consequently most dogmatic of

my uncles came into a restaurant where I was dining, and found himself,
much against his will, in conversation with the most questionable of his
nephews. By way of making myself agreeable, I spoke of modern
thought and Darwin. He said, 'Oh, thats the fellow who wants to make
out that we all have tails like monkeys.' I tried to explain that what
Darwin had insisted on in this connection was that some monkeys have
no tails. But my uncle was as impervious to what Darwin really said as
any Neo-Darwinian nowadays. He died impenitent, and did not
mention me in his will.
Twenty years elapsed. If my uncle had been alive, he would have
known all about Darwin, and known it all