Claim · 1872 · publication · Stated in source · Supported

Erewhon’s fictional treatise (1872) argues that people should destroy as many machines as they can dispense with, lest the machines tyrannise over them more completely.

One recorded claim. The claim panel gives its qualification, the source passages with their place in each source, and how it was checked.

What it connects

Erewhon, or Over the Range → contests → Succession by machines would be acceptable or desirable

Where it appears

Machine succession, scale and acceleration: propositions in located texts, 1863–2026 →

Claim and evidence

Erewhon, or Over the Rangecontests ↓Succession by machines would be acceptable or desirable

Machine-checkedStated in sourceSupported

Supporting evidence: primary · 1 source

Date: 1872 · publication Records dated 1872 →
Role: Contesting
Register (kind of text): Fiction
Engagement: States the contrary. States the contrary course (destroy the machines rather than accept their rule) without arguing against a premise of the acceptability claim.

Scope and limitsFiction, voiced by an Erewhonian treatise inside a satirical novel. In the 1872 preface to the second edition Butler calls these chapters an example of the specious misuse of analogy, as the dataset’s B6 record notes.

The evidence 01

primary sourceSupports the claim

Erewhon, or Over the Range

Trübner & Co. · 1872

Cite the original source

Cite the original document, not Selekoa. Check these details against it.

Source excerpt

“This fact precludes us from proposing the complete annihilation of machinery, but surely it indicates that we should destroy as many of them as we can possibly dispense with, lest they should tyrannise over us even more completely.”

Location in source Chapter XXII, pp. 200–201, paragraph before 'It is true, from a low materialistic point of view'

How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher

Machine-checked · 2026-11-04

Source details and check notes

Authors: Samuel Butler (published anonymously)
Version: Internet Archive scan of the 1872 printing (ErewhonOverrang00Butl, Smithsonian Libraries copy); quoted passages read on the page images of pp. 191, 196, 197, 200, 201 and 221. The OCR text was used to locate them.
Canonical address: Open the canonical source ↗
Accessed: 2026-10-06
Language: English (en)
Attribution: [Samuel Butler], Erewhon, or Over the Range (London: Trübner & Co., 1872), Internet Archive scan.
Reuse: Public domain (published 1872; the author died in 1902).. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each) under Selekoa’s quotation policy. Public-domain text.
Check notes: Candidate pack passage, antecedent texts (research/prehistory). The quotation (38 words) matched a fresh retrieval of 2026-11-04 (SHA-256 4c0b3116d03b…, the file the candidate pack read). Matching ignored differences of whitespace, case, quotation marks, dashes, line-break hyphens and Unicode compatibility forms, so the source’s typography can differ. The page break (running head ‘THE BOOK OF THE MACHINES. 201’) falls after ‘but’; matched with it skipped. Shared by the W02 and W08 records; counted once. No human editorial review.

Status and meaning

Editorial status. Machine-checked. Machines found this record and checked it against its sources; no person accepted it individually. Each evidence record above shows how it was checked.

Relation. A passage of the document disputes the proposition or a premise it depends on. The record documents the text’s position, not who is right.

Date. Year on the title page of the inspected 1872 Trübner printing (Smithsonian Libraries copy, catalogued as the first edition). Butler’s later prefaces give March 1872.

Record ID pre-w02-erewhon-1872-contests