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Back to Methuselah: A Metabiological Pentateuch

Bernard Shaw

Shaw proposes a radical solution to humanity's problems: people must evolve to live for centuries instead of decades.

"Back to Methuselah: A Metabiological Pentateuch" by Bernard Shaw is a cycle of five plays. Shaw proposes a radical solution to humanity's problems: people must evolve to live for centuries instead of decades.

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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.

Contents

  1. 01The Dawn of Darwinism
  2. 02The Advent of the Neo-Darwinians
  3. 03Political Inadequacy of the Human Animal
  4. 04Cowardice of the Irreligious
  5. 05Is There Any Hope in Education?
  6. 06Homeopathic Education
  7. 07The Diabolical Efficiency of Technical Education
  8. 08Flimsiness of Civilization
  9. 09Creative Evolution
  10. 10Voluntary Longevity
  11. 11The Early Evolutionists
  12. 12The Advent of the Neo-Lamarckians
  13. 13How Acquirements Are Inherited
  14. 14The Miracle of Condensed Recapitulation
  15. 15Heredity an Old Story
  16. 16Discovery Anticipated by Divination
  17. 17Corrected Dates for the Discovery of Evolution
  18. 18Defying the Lightning: A Frustrated Experiment
  19. 19In Quest of the First Cause
  20. 20Paley's Watch
  21. 21The Irresistible Cry of Order, Order!
  22. 22The Moment and the Man
  23. 23The Brink of the Bottomless Pit
  24. 24Why Darwin Converted the Crowd
  25. 25How We Rushed Down a Steep Place
  26. 26Darwinism Not Finally Refutable
  27. 27Three Blind Mice
  28. 28The Greatest of These Is Self-Control
  29. 29A Sample of Lamarcko-Shavian Invective
  30. 30The Humanitarians and the Problem of Evil
  31. 31How One Touch of Darwin Makes the Whole World Kin
  32. 32Why Darwin Pleased the Socialists
  33. 33Darwin and Karl Marx
  34. 34Why Darwin Pleased the Profiteers Also
  35. 35The Poetry and Purity of Materialism
  36. 36The Viceroys of the King of Kings
  37. 37Political Opportunism in Excelsis
  38. 38The Betrayal of Western Civilization
  39. 39Circumstantial Selection in Finance
  40. 40The Homeopathic Reaction Against Darwinism
  41. 41Religion and Romance
  42. 42The Danger of Reaction
  43. 43A Touchstone for Dogma
  44. 44What to Do with the Legends
  45. 45A Lesson from Science to the Churches
  46. 46The Religious Art of the Twentieth Century
  47. 47The Artist-Prophets
  48. 48Evolution in the Theatre
  49. 49My Own Part in the Matter
  50. 50Back to Methuselah.
  51. 51Part I—In the Beginning
  52. 52Act I
  53. 53Act II
  54. 54Part II—The Gospel of the Brothers Barnabas
  55. 55Part III—The Thing Happens
  56. 56Part IV—Tragedy of an Elderly Gentleman
  57. 57Act I
  58. 58Act II
  59. 59Act III
  60. 60Part V.—As Far as Thought can Reach

About this edition

Author
Bernard Shaw
Language
English
Era
Modern (c. 1800–1945)
Reading level
Intermediate: some philosophy helps
Formats
EPUB, PDF
Length
401 pages
This edition
Modern Philosophers

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