PREFACE ix 



thus adopting Newland's law (sometimes called Men- 

 delejeff 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, or chicken doing the other." 

 [This is touched upon in the concluding chapter of 

 " Luck or Cunning ? " 1887]. 



The present edition of " Life and Habit " is practi- 

 cally a re-issue of that of 1878. I find that about the 

 year 1890, although the original edition was far from 

 being exhausted, Butler began to make corrections of 

 the text of "Life and Habit," presumably with the 

 intention of publishing a revised edition. The copy of 

 the book so corrected is now in my possession. In the 

 first five chapters there are numerous emendations, 

 very few of which, however, affect the meaning to any 

 appreciable extent, being mainly concerned with the 

 excision of redundancies and the simplification of style. 

 I imagine that by the time he had reached the end of 

 the fifth chapter Butler realised that the corrections 

 he had made were not of sufficient importance to 

 warrant a new edition, and determined to let the book 

 stand as it was. I believe, therefore, that I am carry- 

 ing out his wishes in reprinting the present edition 

 from the original plates. I have found, however, 

 among his papers three entirely new passages, which 

 he probably wrote during the period of correction and 

 no doubt intended to incorporate into the revised 

 edition. Mr. Henry Festing Jones has also given me 

 a copy of a passage which Butler wrote and gummed 

 into Mr. Jones's copy of " Life and Habit." These four 

 passages I have printed as an appendix at the end of 

 the present volume. 



