The Book of the Machines (Butler): Introduction

From: Joseph C Fineman (jcf@world.std.com)
Date: Sun Aug 22 1999 - 17:08:10 MDT


I am posting separately a remarkable early application of Darwinian
ideas to the evolution of machines, which seems not to have attracted
the attention of this company. It comprises three chapters of
_Erewhon_, a cheerfully satirical utopia published by Samuel Butler
(1835-1902) in 1872. In their original form they had been published
as articles in a New Zealand newspaper from 1860 to 1864 -- just after
the _Origin of Species_ appeared & Butler read it!

The asterisked footnotes are Butler's; I have inserted a few comments
in square brackets.

I thank Jim Fehlinger for using his scanner to reduce this text to
ASCII.

--- Joe Fineman jcf@world.std.com

||: Government is like fire: too useful to do without, too :||
||: dangerous ever to trust. :||



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