20 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



of the great part played by unconscious processes in the region 

 of mind and memory. 



These are the essentials of the book as a contribution to 

 biological philosophy. The closing chapters contain a lucid 

 statement of objections to his theor}' as they might be put by 

 a rigid necessitarian, and a refutation of that interpretation as 

 applied to human action. 



But in the second chapter Butler states his recession from 

 the strong logical position he had hitherto developed in his 

 writings from Erewlion onwards ; so far he had not only dis- 

 tinguished the living from the non-living, but distinguished 

 among the latter machines or tools from things at large} Machines 

 or tools are the external organs of living beings, as organs are 

 their internal machines : they are fashioned, assembled or 

 selected by the beings for a purpose, so they have a future 

 purpose as well as a past history. " Things at large " have a 

 past history, but no purpose (so long as some being does not 

 convert them into tools and give them a purpose). Machines 

 have a Why? as well as a How?: "things at large" have a 

 How? only. 



In Unconscious Memory the allurements of unitary or monistic 

 views have gained the upper hand, and Butler writes (p. 23) : 



"The only thing of which I am sure is, that the distinction 

 between the organic and inorganic is arbitrary, that it is more 

 coherent with our other ideas, and therefore more acceptable, 

 to start with every molecule as a living thing, and then deduce 

 death as the breaking up of an association or corporation, than 

 to start with inanimate molecules and smuggle life into them ; 

 and that, therefore, what we call the inorganic world must be 

 regarded as up to a certain point living, and instinct, without 

 certain limits, with consciousness, volition, and power of con- 

 certed action. // is only of late, however, that I have come to this 

 opinion^ 



I have italicised the last sentence, to show that Butler was 

 more or less conscious of its irreconcilability with much of 

 his most characteristic doctrine. Again, in the closing chapter, 

 Butler writes (p. 275) : 



' The distinction was merely implicit in his published writings but has been 

 printed since his death from his " Notebooks," New Quarterly Reviezu, April 

 1908. I had developed this thesis, without knowing of Butler's explicit anticipa- 

 tion, in an article then in the press : " Mechanism and Life," Contemporary Review, 

 May 1908. 



