THE Origin of Species was published in the autumn of 1859, and Butler
arrived in New Zealand about the same time and read the book soon
afterwards. In 1880 he wrote in _Unconscious Memory_ (close of Chapter
1): “As a member of the general public, at that time residing eighteen
miles from the nearest human habitation, and three days’ journey on
horseback from a bookseller’s shop, I became one of Mr. Darwin’s many
enthusiastic admirers, and wrote a philosophic dialogue (the most
offensive form, except poetry and books of travel into supposed unknown
countries, that even literature can assume) upon the _Origin of Species_.
This production appeared in the _Press_, Canterbury, New Zealand, in 1861
or 1862, but I have long lost the only copy I had.”
The Press was founded by James Edward FitzGerald, the first
Superintendent of the Province of Canterbury. Butler was an intimate
friend of FitzGerald, was closely associated with the newspaper and
frequently wrote for it. The first number appeared 25th May, 1861, and
on 25th May, 1911, the Press celebrated its jubilee with a number which
contained particulars of its early life, of its editors, and of Butler;
it also contained reprints of two of Butler’s contributions, viz. _Darwin
among the Machines_, which originally appeared in its columns 13 June,
1863, and _Lucubratio Ebria_, which originally appeared 29 July, 1865.
The Dialogue was not reprinted because, although the editor knew of its
existence and searched for it, he could not find it. At my request,
after the appearance of the jubilee number, a further search was made,
but the Dialogue was not found and I gave it up for lost.
In March, 1912, Mr. R. A. Streatfeild pointed out to me that Mr.
Tregaskis, in Holborn, was advertising for sale an autograph letter by
Charles Darwin sending to an unknown editor a Dialogue on Species from a
New Zealand newspaper, described in the letter as being “remarkable from
its spirit and from giving so clear and accurate a view of Mr. D.’s
theory.” Having no doubt that this referred to Butler’s lost
contribution to the _Press_, I bought the autograph letter and sent it to
New Zealand, where it now is in the Canterbury Museum, Christchurch.
With it I sent a letter to the editor of the _Press_, giving all further
information in my possession about the Dialogue. This letter, which
appeared 1 June, 1912, together with the presentation of Darwin’s
autograph, stimulated further search, and in the issue for 20th December,
1862, the Dialogue was found by Miss Colborne-Veel, whose father was
editor of the paper at the time Butler was writing for it. The _Press_
reprinted the Dialogue 8th June, 1912.
When the Dialogue first appeared it excited a great deal of discussion in
the colony and, to quote Butler’s words in a letter to Darwin (1865),
“called forth a contemptuous rejoinder from (I believe) the Bishop of
Wellington.” This rejoinder was an article headed “Barrel-Organs,” the
idea being that there was nothing new in Darwin’s book, it was only a
grinding out of old tunes with which we were all familiar. Butler
alludes to this controversy in a note made on a letter from Darwin which
he gave to the British Museum. “I remember answering an attack (in the
_Press_, New Zealand) on me by Bishop Abraham, of Wellington, as though I
were someone else, and, to keep up the deception, attacking myself also.
But it was all very young and silly.” The bishop’s article and Butler’s
reply, which was a letter signed A. M. and some of the resulting
correspondence were reprinted in the _Press_, 15th June, 1912.
At first I thought of including here the Dialogue, and perhaps the letter
signed A. M. They are interesting as showing that Butler was among the
earliest to study closely the _Origin of Species_, and also as showing
the state of his mind before he began to think for himself, before he
wrote _Darwin among the Machines_ from which so much followed; but they
can hardly be properly considered as germs of _Erewhon_ and _Life and
Habit_. They rather show the preparation of the soil in which those
germs sprouted and grew; and, remembering his last remark on the subject
that “it was all very young and silly,” I decided to omit them. The
Dialogue is no longer lost, and the numbers of the _Press_ containing it
and the correspondence that ensued can be seen in the British Museum.
Butler’s other two contributions to the _Press_ mentioned above do
contain the germs of the machine chapters in _Erewhon_, and led him to
the theory put forward in _Life and Habit_. In 1901 he wrote in the
preface to the new and revised edition of _Erewhon_: “The first part of
_Erewhon_ written was an article headed _Darwin among the Machines_ and
signed ‘Cellarius.’ It was written in the Upper Rangitata district of
Canterbury Province (as it then was) of New Zealand, and appeared at
Christchurch in the _Press_ newspaper, June 13, 1863. A copy of this
article is indexed under my books in the British Museum catalogue.”
The article is in the form of a letter, and the copy spoken of by Butler,
as indexed under his name in the British Museum, being defective, the
reprint which appeared in the jubilee number of the _Press_ has been used
in completing the version which follows.
Further on in the preface to the 1901 edition of _Erewhon_ he writes: “A
second article on the same subject as the one just referred to appeared
in the _Press_ shortly after the first, but I have no copy. It treated
machines from a different point of view and was the basis of pp. 270–274
of the present edition of _Erewhon_. This view ultimately led me to the
theory I put forward in _Life and Habit_, published in November, 1877.
{41} I have put a bare outline of this theory (which I believe to be
quite sound) into the mouth of an Erewhonian professor in Chapter XXVII
of this book.”
This second article was _Lucubratio Ebria_, and was sent by Butler from
England to the editor of the _Press_ in 1865, with a letter from which
this is an extract:
“I send you an article which you can give to FitzGerald or not, just
as you think it most expedient—for him. Is not the subject worked
out, and are not the Canterbury people tired of Darwinism? For me—is
it an article to my credit? I do not send it to FitzGerald because I
am sure he would put it into the paper. . . . I know the undue
lenience which he lends to my performances, and believe you to be the
sterner critic of the two. That there are some good things in it you
will, I think, feel; but I am almost sure that considering _usque ad
nauseam_ etc., you will think it had better not appear. . . . I
think you and he will like that sentence: ‘There was a moral
government of the world before man came into it.’ There is hardly a
sentence in it written without deliberation; but I need hardly say
that it was done upon tea, not upon whiskey . . .
“P.S. If you are in any doubt about the expediency of the article
take it to M.
“P.P.S. Perhaps better take it to him anyhow.”
The preface to the 1901 edition of Erewhon contains some further
particulars of the genesis of that work, and there are still further
particulars in _Unconscious Memory_, Chapter II, “How I wrote _Life and
Habit_.”
The first tentative sketch of the _Life and Habit_ theory occurs in the
letter to Thomas William Gale Butler which is given post. This T. W. G.
Butler was not related to Butler, they met first as art-students at
Heatherley’s, and Butler used to speak of him as the most brilliant man
he had ever known. He died many years ago. He was the writer of the
“letter from a friend now in New Zealand,” from which a quotation is
given in _Life and Habit_, Chapter V (pp. 83, 84). Butler kept a copy of
his letter to T. W. G. Butler, but it was imperfectly pressed; he
afterwards supplied some of the missing words from memory, and gave it to
the British Museum.