i6 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



several essays, notably "The Deadlock in Darwinism" (Universal 

 Review, April-June 1890), republished in the posthumous volume 

 of Essays on Life, Art, and Science (1904), and, finally, some of 

 the " Extracts from the Notebooks of the late Samuel Butler" 

 edited by Mr. H. Festing Jones, now in course of publication 

 in the New Quarterly Review. 



Of all these, Life and Habit (1878) is the most important, 

 the main building to which the other writings are buttresses 

 or, at most, annexes. Its teaching has been summarised in 

 Unconscious Memory in four main principles: "(i)the oneness 

 of personality between parent and offspring ; (2) memory on 

 the part of the offspring of certain actions which it did when 

 in the persons of its forefathers ; (3) the latency of that memory 

 until it is rekindled b}' a recurrence of the associated ideas ; (4) 

 the unconsciousness with which habitual actions come to be 

 performed." To these we must add a fifth : the purposiveness 

 of the actions of living beings, as of the machines which they 

 make or select. 



Butler tells {Life and Habit, p. 33) that he sometimes hoped 

 ** that this book would be regarded as a valuable adjunct to 

 Darwinism." He was bitterly disappointed in the event, for 

 the book, as a whole, was received by professional biologists 

 as a gigantic joke — a joke, moreover, not in the best possible 

 taste. True, its central ideas, largely those of Lamarck, had 

 been presented by Hering in 1870 (as Butler found shortly after 

 his publication) ; they had been favourably received, developed 

 by Haeckel, expounded and praised by Ray Lankester. Coming 

 from Butler, they met with contumely — even from such men 

 as Romanes, who, as Butler had no difficulty in proving, were 

 unconsciously inspired by the same ideas, ^' Ntir viit ein bischen 

 ander'n JVorter" 



It is easy, looking back, to see why Life and Habit so missed 

 its mark. Charles Darwin's presentation of the evolution 

 theory had, for the first time, rendered it possible for a " sound 

 naturalist " to accept the doctrine of common descent with 

 divergence ; and so given a real meaning to the term " natural 

 relationship," which had forced itself upon the older naturalists, 

 despite their belief in special and independent creations. The 

 immediate aim of the naturalists of the day was now to fill 

 up the gaps in their knowledge, so as to strengthen the fabric 



