x Preface

the Weekly Press •>/ igth June, 1912, containing the Dialogue
again reprinted and a facsimile reproduction of Darwin's letter.
/ thank Mr. W. H. Triggs, the present editor of the Press,
Christchurch, New Zealand, also Miss Colbornc-Ved and the
members of the staff for their industry and perseverance in search-
ing for and identifying Butler's early contributions to the news-
paper.

The other principal items not actually in the Note-Books,
the letter to T. W. G. Butler (pp. 53-5 post), "A Psalm
of Montreal" (pp. 388-9 post) and "The Righteous Man"
(pp. 390-1 post). / suppose Butler kept all these out of his
notes because he considered that they had served their purpose;
"but they have not hitherto appeared in a form now accessible to
the general reader.

All the footnotes are mine and so are all those prefatory notes
which are printed in italics and the explanatory remarks in
square brackets which occur occasionally in the text. I have also
preserved, in square brackets, the date of a note when anything
seemed to turn on it. And I have made the index.

The Biographical Statement is founded on a skeleton Diary
which is in the Note-Books. It is intended to show, among other
things, how intimately the great variety of subjects touched
upon in the notes entered into and formed part of Butler's
working life. It does not stop at the iSlh of June, 1902, because,
as he says (p. 23 post), " Death is not more the end of some
than it is the beginning of others " ; and, again (p. 13 post),
for those who come to the true birth the life we live beyond ftie
grave is our truest life. The Biographical Statement has ac-
cordingly been carried on to the present time so as to include
the principal events that have occurred during the opening period
of the " good average three-score years and ten of immortality >y
which he modestly hoped he might inherit in the life of the world
to come.

HENRY FESTING JONES.

Mount Eryx,

Trapani, Sicily,

August, 1912.