Transcribed from the 1910 Jonathan Cape edition by DavidPrice, email ccx074@pglaf.lorg
Life and Habit
By
Samuel Butler
Jonathan Cape
Eleven Gower Street, London
SECONDEDITION 1878
NEW EDITIONWITH ADDENDA AND
PREFACE BY R. A. STREATFEILD1910
REPRINTED 1924
PRINTED INGREAT BRITAIN BY BUTLER AND TANNER LTD., FROME ANDLONDON
p. vTHIS BOOK ISINSCRIBED
TO
CHARLES PAINE PAULI, Esq.
BARRISTER-AT-LAW
IN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF HISINVALUABLE
CRITICISM OF THE PROOF-SHEETS OF THISAND
OF MY PREVIOUS BOOKS
AND IN RECOGNITION OF AN OLD AND
WELL-TRIED-FRIENDSHIP
p.viiPREFACE.
Since Samuel Butler published“Life and Habit” thirty-three [vii] years have elapsed—yearsfruitful in change and discovery, during which many of the mightyhave been put down from their seat and many of the humble havebeen exalted. I do not know that Butler can truthfully becalled humble, indeed, I think he had very few misgivings as tohis ultimate triumph, but he has certainly been exalted with arapidity that he himself can scarcely have foreseen. Duringhis lifetime he was a literary pariah, the victim of an organizedconspiracy of silence. He is now, I think it may be saidwithout exaggeration, universally accepted as one of the mostremarkable English writers of the latter part of the nineteenthcentury. I will not weary my readers by quoting thenumerous tributes paid by distinguished contemporary writers toButler’s originality and force of mind, but I cannotrefrain from illustrating the changed attitude of the scientificworld to Butler and his theories by a reference to “Darwinand Modern Science,” the collection of essays published in1909 by the University of Cambridge, in commemoration of theDarwin centenary. In that work Professor Bateson, whilereferring repeatedly to Butler’s biological works, speaksof him as “the most brilliant and by far the mostinteresting of Darwin’s opponents, whose works are atlength emerging from oblivion.” p. viiiWith thegrowth of Butler’s reputation “Life and Habit”has had much to do. It was the first and is undoubtedly themost important of his writings on evolution. From itsloins, as it were, sprang his three later books, “EvolutionOld and New,” “Unconscious Memory,” and“Luck or Cunning”, which carried its argumentsfurther afield. It will perhaps interest Butler’sreaders if I here quote a passage from his note-books, la