Introduction and Preface - Page 2

reissuing the book at all I am committing a grievous error of taste, that the world is no longer interested in these "old, unhappy far-off things and battles long ago," and that Butler himself, by refraining from republishing "Unconscious Memory," tacitly admitted that he wished the controversy to be consigned to oblivion. This last suggestion, at any rate, has no foundation in fact. Butler desired nothing less than that his vindication of himself against what he considered unfair treatment should be forgotten. He would have republished "Unconscious Memory" himself, had not the latter years of his life been devoted to all- engrossing work in other fields. In issuing the present edition I am fulfilling a wish that he expressed to me shortly before his death.

R. A. STREATFEILD.
April, 1910.

INTRODUCTION By Marcus Hartog, M.A. D.Sc., F.L.S., F.R.H.S.

In reviewing Samuel Butler's works, "Unconscious Memory" gives us an invaluable lead; for it tells us (Chaps. II, III) how the author came to write the Book of the Machines in "Erewhon" (1872), with its foreshadowing of the later theory, "Life and Habit," (1878), "Evolution, Old and New" (1879), as well as "Unconscious Memory" (1880) itself. His fourth book on biological theory was "Luck? or Cunning?" (1887). [0a]

Besides these books, his contributions to biology comprise several essays: "Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals, contained in "Selections from Previous Works" (1884) incorporated into "Luck? or Cunning," "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: "(1) 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 by 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