PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION

Having been enabled by the kindness of the public to get through an unusually large edition of “Erewhon” in a very short time, I have taken the opportunity of a second edition to make some necessary corrections, and to add a few passages where it struck me that they would be appropriately introduced; the passages are few, and it is my fixed intention never to touch the work again.

I may perhaps be allowed to say a word or two here in reference to “The Coming Race,” to the success of which book “Erewhon” has been very generally set down as due.  This is a mistake, though a perfectly natural one.  The fact is that “Erewhon” was finished, with the exception of the last twenty pages and a sentence or two inserted from time to time here and there throughout the book, before the first advertisement of “The Coming Race” appeared.  A friend having called my attention to one of the first of these advertisements, and suggesting that it probably referred to a work of similar character to my own, I took “Erewhon” to a well-known firm of publishers on the 1st of May 1871, and left it in their hands for consideration.  I then went abroad, and on learning that the publishers alluded to declined the Ms., I let it alone for six or seven months, and, being in an out-of-the-way part of Italy, never saw a single review of “The Coming Race,” nor a copy of the work.  On my return, I purposely avoided looking into it until I had sent back my last revises to the printer.  Then I had much pleasure in reading it, but was indeed surprised at the many little points of similarity between the two books, in spite of their entire independence to one another.

I regret that reviewers have in some cases been inclined to treat the chapters on Machines as an attempt to reduce Mr. Darwin’s theory to an absurdity.  Nothing could be further from my intention, and few things would be more distasteful to me than any attempt to laugh at Mr. Darwin; but I must own that I have myself to thank for the misconception, for I felt sure that my intention would be missed, but preferred not to weaken the chapters by explanation, and knew very well that Mr. Darwin’s theory would take no harm.  The only question in my mind was how far I could afford to be misrepresented as laughing at that for which I have the most profound admiration.  I am surprised, however, that the book at which such an example of the specious misuse of analogy would seem most naturally levelled should have occurred to no reviewer; neither shall I mention the name of the book here, though I should fancy that the hint given will suffice.

I have been held by some whose opinions I respect to have denied men’s responsibility for their actions.  He who does this is an enemy who deserves no quarter.  I should have imagined that I had been sufficiently explicit, but have made a few additions to the chapter on Malcontents, which will, I think, serve to render further mistake impossible.