Story summary

メトセラへ還れのあらすじ

著者：バーナード・ショー

読了8分
11 parts
音声は近日公開

Two brothers declare that humans must live three hundred years, a lifespan even the parlor maid might reach.

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メトセラへ還れの概要

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読書時間: 約7 h 25 min5 h 55 min fast, 8 h 50 min slow
所要時間: 106,000語
ライブラリ内の難易度: 標準 longer sentences, everyday words
初版刊行年: 1921by バーナード・ショー

Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). 古典を読むのにかかる時間 · 更新日 22 October 2026

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メトセラへ還れ in short

Back to Methuselah argues that life is a purposeful force and that human beings are an unfinished experiment. Shaw opens with a preface that attacks blind selection and praises will. Five plays follow, from Adam and Eve and the first death, through a gospel of three hundred years, to a government that discovers the long-lived, to a future island of oracles, and finally to a world of children and ancients who care only for thought.

What メトセラへ還れ is about

What does the first man do when he meets death? In Back to Methuselah, Adam stares at a fawn with a broken neck, and a serpent teaches Eve a new word, birth. From that scene Bernard Shaw builds a cycle of five plays that runs from Eden to the year 31,920.

Shaw published it in 1921, with a long preface, after the First World War had convinced him that people who die at seventy cannot govern a complex civilization. His answer is Creative Evolution, the claim that life changes because it wants to. He calls the cycle a contribution to the modern Bible, and he tells it through legend, comedy and argument.

対象読者. You will love this if you enjoy plays full of argument and wit, stories that leap across thousands of years, satire of politicians, and big questions about death, evolution and what humans might become.

The story in 11 parts

Key idea 1 · free to read
Shaw blames blind selection for a ruined world
The preface opens with small memories. As a boy in Dublin, Shaw hears a customer ask for the works of the celebrated Buffoon, meaning the naturalist Buffon. These scenes show how ideas travel, half understood and badly named.
Shaw's real target is what he calls Neo-Darwinism. Darwin, he says, was an honest naturalist who described one method, Circumstantial Selection. His followers made it the only method. The world, they said, was made by accident, with no mind and no purpose.
Shaw argues that this belief excused cruelty in laboratories and cutthroat business, and taught statesmen to drift with events instead of steering them. Writing in 1920, he points to the war and its muddled peace as proof. If humanity fails, he says, the power that made it can try another experiment.
Shaw challenges blind accident as an explanation of life, and argues that a world run on drift is heading for ruin.
2
Creative Evolution says life changes by willing
Against Neo-Darwinism, Shaw sets the older view of Lamarck.
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3
In Eden, Adam and Eve meet death and birth
The first play, In the Beginning, opens in the Garden of Eden.
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4
The first family makes vows, and Cain boasts
Fear drives Adam to demand certainty.
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5
Two brothers preach a gospel of three hundred years
The second play, The Gospel of the Brothers Barnabas, takes place just after the First World War.
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6
Two famous politicians fail the brothers' test
The brothers decide to try the gospel on politics.
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7
In 2170, the thing happens inside the government
The third play, The Thing Happens, moves to the year 2170.
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8
By the year 3000, the shortlived are the visitors
The fourth play, The Tragedy of an Elderly Gentleman, jumps to the year 3000.
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9
An oracle, an emperor and an envoy go astray
In the second act, we reach the oracle's temple.
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10
At 31,920, children play and ancients think
The last play, As Far as Thought Can Reach, is set in the year 31,920.
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11
The cycle is one argument told as five legends
Seen as a whole, the five plays make a single claim.
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Characters, plot and themes

Main characters

Adam The first man, weary of eternity and afraid of death, who invents tomorrow and binds himself with a vow.
Eve The first woman, who learns from the serpent that imagination, will and creation can renew life, and who keeps hoping for better things.
The Serpent A clever, laughing teacher who names birth and life and urges Eve to ask why not.
Franklyn Barnabas A former clergyman who preaches that people must live three hundred years if civilization is to survive.
Conrad Barnabas Franklyn's brother, a biologist who believes the change will come when people need it enough.
Savvy Franklyn's blunt young daughter, who laughs at politicians and listens harder than she admits.
Mrs Lutestring A former parlor maid who becomes the Domestic Minister and who knows what long life costs.
Zoo A girl of fifty-six on the island of oracles who treats a visiting old gentleman as a baby.

How it ends (spoiler)

In the last scene, the ghosts of Adam, Eve, Cain, the serpent and Lilith appear in the dark above the glade. Each judges what has come of the human story. Lilith, who brought life into the whirlpool of force, says she has waited to see what humankind will do. She will not replace them while they press on toward pure thought. She can wait, because life always has something beyond.

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『メトセラへ還れ』についての質問

What is Back to Methuselah about?

It is a cycle of five plays by Bernard Shaw on evolution and long life. It runs from Adam and Eve to the year 31,920, asking what humans might become if they lived hundreds of years.

What does the title Back to Methuselah mean?

Methuselah is the biblical figure said to have lived nearly a thousand years. Shaw uses the name as a slogan, urging people to return to a life span long enough to gain real wisdom.

What is Creative Evolution in this book?

It is Shaw's idea that life changes through purpose and will, not only by blind accident. Living things want to do more, keep trying, and build new abilities, as when a person learns to ride a bicycle.

Do the five plays have to be read in order?

The plays follow time, from Eden to the far future, and characters or ideas return in new forms. Reading them in order lets the humor, echoes and the preface's argument build as the cycle moves forward.

Is Back to Methuselah meant to be funny?

Yes, much of it is comedy. Shaw uses satire of politicians, comic misunderstandings between short-lived and long-lived people, and lively dialogue to carry his ideas, so the debates stay entertaining.

この版を引用します

Shaw, Bernard. Back to Methuselah. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/back-to-methuselah.

Shaw, B. (2026). Back to Methuselah. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/back-to-methuselah (Original work published 1921)

Shaw, Bernard. Back to Methuselah. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/back-to-methuselah.

@book{shaw2026back,
  author = {Shaw, Bernard},
  title = {Back to Methuselah},
  publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/back-to-methuselah},
  note = {First published 1921}
}