“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.
[To the Editor of the _Press_, Christchurch, New Zealand—13 June, 1863.]
Sir—There are few things of which the present generation is more justly proud than of the wonderful improvements which are daily taking place in all sorts of mechanical appliances. And indeed it is matter for great congratulation on many grounds. It is unnecessary to mention these here, for they are sufficiently obvious; our present business lies with considerations which may somewhat tend to humble our pride and to make us think seriously of the future prospects of the human race. If we revert to the earliest primordial types of mechanical life, to the lever, the wedge, the inclined plane, the screw and the pulley, or (for analogy would lead us one step further) to that one primordial type from which all the mechanical kingdom has been developed, we mean to the lever itself, and if we then examine the machinery of the _Great Eastern_, we find ourselves almost awestruck at the vast development of the mechanical world, at the gigantic strides with which it has advanced in comparison with the slow progress of the animal and vegetable kingdom. We shall find it impossible to refrain from asking ourselves what the end of this mighty movement is to be. In what direction is it tending? What will be its upshot? To give a few imperfect hints towards a solution of these questions is the object of the present letter.