48o 



NATURE 



\ March 27, 1879 



and organs is said to be unconsciously remembered, 

 when the same or analogous conditions recalls it to the 

 dormant memory. 



In another very ingenious and suggestive chapter en- 

 titled "What we might expect," it is maintained that the 

 preceding facts and principles lead up to and explain all 

 the curious phenomena of growth, reproduction, variation, 

 and heredity, as set forth in the works of Darwin, Spencer, 

 and other writers ; and the same principles are applied 

 in succeeding chapters to the phenomena of instinct, and 

 the theories of Lamarck, Darwin, Mivart, and others. 

 The argument is then summed up, and the conclusion 

 arrived at that "Life is that property of matter whereby 

 it can remember. Matter which can remember is living ; 

 matter which cannot remember is dead. The life of a 

 creature is the memory of a creature. We are all of the 

 same stuff to start with, but we remember different 

 things. As for the stuff itself of which we are made, 

 we know nothing save only that it is ' such as dreams are 

 made of.' " 



Such a brief notice as this can give no adequate idea 

 of the originality and the logical completeness of Mr. 

 Butler's remarkable work, which is far less known than 

 it deserves to be. It may be truly said of it that it is 

 more amusing than most novels, while it contains more 

 material for thought than is to be found in most books of 

 double the size. It will be seen that there is a certain 

 agreement with Mr. Murphy, but Mr. Butler goes much 

 further, in tracing the former writer's vague and un- 

 localised "unconscious intelligence" to the physiological 

 elements of all organisms ; and, however wild and im- 

 probable the theory may seem, it receives, strange to 

 say, considerable support from the views of Haeckel and 

 other German physiologists of the most advanced school. 

 If the reader will turn to Nature, vol. xix. p. 115, he 

 will find Haeckel maintaining that " in the Infusoria a 

 single cell performs all the different functions of life, 

 including the mental functions." .... "By the same 

 right by which we ascribe an independent ' soul ' to these 

 unicellular Infusoria, we must ascribe one to all other cells, 

 because their most important active substance, the proto- 

 plasm, shows everywhere the same psychic properties of 

 sensitiveness (sensation) and movability (voHtion). The 

 difference in the higher organisms is only that there the 

 numerous single cells give up their individual indepen- 

 dence, and like good state citizens, subordinate them- 

 selves to the ' state-soul,' which represents the unity of 

 will and sensation in the cell-association." 



We have here an extraordinary agreement with Mr. 

 Butler, although, as we are informed, he was quite un- 

 acquainted with Haeckel' s works when he wrote his 

 book ; and this fact should induce us to give a more 

 careful consideration to the views of a writer who, 

 although professedly ignorant of all science, yet possesses 

 " scientific imagination " and logical consistency to a 

 degree very rarely found among scientific men. The 

 want of a practical acquaintance with natural history 

 leads the author to take an erroneous view of the bearing 

 of his own theories on those of Mr. Darwin. There is 

 really nothing to prevent their harmonious combination, 

 and they may even be said to be in great part comple- 

 mentary to each other. Mr. Butler's book is so full of 

 strange fancies and witty conceits, as to have led some 



readers to look upon the whole as an elaborate jest. 

 Beneath this sparkling surface there is, however, much 

 solid matter, and though we can at present only con- 

 sider the work as a most ingenious and paradoxical 

 speculation, it may yet afford a clue to some of the 

 deepest mysteries of the organic world. 



Alfred R. Wallace 



RODWELLS ETNA 



Etna : a History of the Mowitain and of its Eruptions. 



By G. F. Rodwell, Science Master in Marlborough 



College. With Maps and Illustrations. Pp. 142. 



(London : C. Kegan Paul and Co., 1878.) 



T N this little volume Mr. Rodwell has essayed to do for 



-L Etna that which the late Prof. Phillips accomplished 



so successfully in the case of Vesuvius, namely, to write 



a popular and at the same time accurate account of the 



past and present conditions of a mountain, which from 



the very earliest periods to which human history and 



tradition go back, has powerfully arrested the attention 



and excited the imagination of mankind. The scope and 



aim of these two works being so nearly the same it is 



hard to avoid drawing a comparison between them. 



The first and fifth chapters of the work of Mr. Rodwell, 

 which deal with the past history of the mountain and the 

 record of its eruptions, indicate much learning and 

 careful research on the part of the author, and indeed 

 these portions of his volume may compare not unfavour- 

 ably with the equivalent parts of Prof. Phillips' work ; 

 higher praise than this can scarcely be given to it* 

 Almost equally praiseworthy are the second and fourth 

 chapters, which give a general sketch of the physical 

 features of Etna and an account of the origin, the past 

 history, and the present condition of the numerous towns 

 which are crowded about the flanks of the great volcano. 

 The third chapter, giving details concerning the author's 

 own ascent of the mountain, though sufficiently interesting 

 in itself, is perhaps better fitted for the pages of a popular 

 journal than of a work like the present, since ascents of 

 Etna are now sufficiently common and every-day occur- 

 rences. 



It is when we come to the more purely scientific por- 

 tions of the volume that a comparison of the work of Mr. 

 Rodwell with that of Prof. Phillips places the former in 

 such a disadvantageous light. It is rather startling to 

 find the more general and popular descriptions occupying 

 five chapters, including 113 pages, while the account [ 

 of the geology and mineralogy of the mountain is con- 

 densed into a single chapter of 29 pages, and when I 

 these pages are read we cannot help feeling that the! 

 questions treated of in them are handled in a somewhat [ 

 imperfect and perfunctory manner. Any one turning toj 

 a treatise professing to deal with the geology and mine- 

 ralogy of Etna might fairly expect to find a fuller andj 

 clearer account than Mr. Rodwell gives us of the exact! 

 relations of the volcanic masses to the stratified andj 

 highly fossiliferous deposits with which they are so inti-j 

 mately associated. Equally disappointing is it to find that I 

 the important question of the elevation hypothesis of von! 

 Buch is so summarily dealt with by Mr. Rodwell, especiallyf 

 when we remember that in the discussion on this subject: 

 which took place between tXiQ de Beaumont and Dufrenoy 



