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.