Village books

The Press reprinted
the dialogue and the correspondence which followed its original
appearance on 8th June, 1912.
On 13th June, 1863, the Press printed a letter by Butler signed
"Cellarius" and headed "Darwin among the Machines," reprinted in The
Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912). The letter begins:
"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 goes on to
say that, as the vegetable kingdom was developed from the mineral,
and as the animal kingdom supervened upon the vegetable, "so now, in
the last few ages, an entirely new kingdom has sprung up of which we
as yet have only seen what will one day be considered the
antediluvian types of the race." He then speaks of the minute
members which compose the beautiful and intelligent little animal
which we call the watch, and of how it has gradually been evolved
from the clumsy brass clocks of the thirteenth century.


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