Life and Habit

Life and Habit

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(#13 in our series by Samuel Butler)
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Title: Life and Habit
Author: Samuel Butler
Release Date: July, 2004 [EBook #6138] [Yes, we are more than one

year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on November 18,
2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, LIFE AND
HABIT ***

Transcribed from the 1910 Jonathan Cape edition by David Price,
email [email protected]

LIFE AND HABIT

PREFACE

Since Samuel Butler published "Life and Habit" thirty-three {1} years
have elapsed--years fruitful in change and discovery, during which
many of the mighty have been put down from their seat and many of
the humble have been exalted. I do not know that Butler can truthfully
be called humble, indeed, I think he had very few misgivings as to his
ultimate triumph, but he has certainly been exalted with a rapidity that
he himself can scarcely have foreseen. During his lifetime he was a
literary pariah, the victim of an organized conspiracy of silence. He is
now, I think it may be said without exaggeration, universally accepted
as one of the most remarkable English writers of the latter part of the
nineteenth century. I will not weary my readers by quoting the
numerous tributes paid by distinguished contemporary writers to
Butler's originality and force of mind, but I cannot refrain from
illustrating the changed attitude of the scientific world to Butler and his
theories by a reference to "Darwin and Modern Science," the collection
of essays published in 1909 by the University of Cambridge, in
commemoration of the Darwin centenary. In that work Professor

Bateson, while referring repeatedly to Butler's biological works, speaks
of him as "the most brilliant and by far the most interesting of Darwin's
opponents, whose works are at length emerging from oblivion." With
the growth of Butler's reputation "Life and Habit" has had much to do.
It was the first and is undoubtedly the most important of his writings on
evolution. From its loins, as it were, sprang his three later books,
"Evolution Old and New," "Unconscious Memory," and "Luck or
Cunning", which carried its arguments further afield. It will perhaps
interest Butler's readers if I here quote a passage from his note-books,
lately published in the "New Quarterly Review" (Vol. III. No. 9), in
which he summarizes his work in biology:
"To me it seems that my contributions to the theory of evolution have
been mainly these
"1. The identification of heredity and memory, and the corollaries
relating to sports, the reversion to remote ancestors, the phenomena of
old age, the causes of the sterility of hybrids, and the principles
underlying longevity--all of which follow as a matter of course. This
was 'Life and Habit' [1877].
"2. The re-introduction of teleology into organic life, which to me
seems hardly, if at all, less important than the 'Life and Habit' theory.
This was 'Evolution Old and New' [1879].
"3. An attempt to suggest an explanation of the physics of memory.
This was Unconscious Memory' [1880]. I was alarmed by the
suggestion and fathered it upon Professor Hering, who never, that I can
see, meant to say anything of the kind, but I forced my view upon him,
as it were, by taking hold of a sentence or two in his lecture, 'On
Memory as a Universal Function of Organised Matter,' and thus
connected memory with vibrations.
"What I want to do now (1885) is to connect vibrations not only with
memory but with the physical constitution of that body in which the
memory resides, thus adopting Newland's law (sometimes called
Mendelejeff's law) that there is only one substance, and that the
characteristics of the vibrations going on within it at any given time
will determine whether it will appear to us as, we will say, hydrogen, or
sodium, or chicken doing this,