 |
| E-Librarian | Browse | Links | About Us |
The Project Gutenberg EBook of Unconscious Memory, by Samuel Butler
(#15 in our series by Samuel Butler)
Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
Title: Unconscious Memory
Author: Samuel Butler
Release Date: October, 2004 [EBook #6605]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on December 30, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, UNCONSCIOUS MEMORY ***
Transcribed from the 1910 A. C. Fifield edition by David Price, email
ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
UNCONSCIOUS MEMORY
"As this paper contains nothing which deserves the name either of
experiment or discovery, and as it is, in fact, destitute of every
species of merit, we should have allowed it to pass among the
multitude of those articles which must always find their way into the
collections of a society which is pledged to publish two or three
volumes every year. . . . We wish to raise our feeble voice against
innovations, that can have no other effect than to check the progress
of science, and renew all those wild phantoms of the imagination
which Bacon and Newton put to flight from her temple."--Opening
Paragraph of a Review of Dr. Young's Bakerian Lecture. Edinburgh
Review, January 1803, p. 450.
"Young's work was laid before the Royal society, and was made the
1801 Bakerian Lecture. But he was before his time. The second
number of the Edinburgh Review contained an article levelled against
him by Henry (afterwards Lord) Brougham, and this was so severe an
attack that Young's ideas were absolutely quenched for fifteen years.
Brougham was then only twenty-four years of age. Young's theory was
reproduced in France by Fresnel. In our days it is the accepted
theory, and is found to explain all the phenomena of light."--Times
Report of a Lecture by Professor Tyndall on Light, April 27, 1880.
This Book
Is inscribed to
RICHARD GARNETT, ESQ.
(Of the British Museum)
In grateful acknowledgment of the unwearying kindness with which he
has so often placed at my disposal his varied store of information.
Contents:
Note by R. A. Streatfeild
Introduction by Marcus Hartog
Author's Preface
Unconscious Memory
NOTE
For many years a link in the chain of Samuel Butler's biological
works has been missing. "Unconscious Memory" was originally
published thirty years ago, but for fully half that period it has
been out of print, owing to the destruction of a large number of the
unbound sheets in a fire at the premises of the printers some years
ago. The present reprint comes, I think, at a peculiarly fortunate
moment, since the attention of the general public has of late been
drawn to Butler's biological theories in a marked manner by several
distinguished men of science, notably by Dr. Francis Darwin, who, in
his presidential address to the British Association in 1908, quoted
from the translation of Hering's address on "Memory as a Universal
Function of Original Matter," which Butler incorporated into
"Unconscious Memory," and spoke in the highest terms of Butler
himself. It is not necessary for me to do more than refer to the
changed attitude of scientific authorities with regard to Butler and
his theories, since Professor Marcus Hartog has most kindly consented
to contribute an introduction to the present edition of "Unconscious
Memory," summarising Butler's views upon biology, and defining his
position in the world of science. A word must be said as to the
controversy between Butler and Darwin, with which Chapter IV is
concerned. I have been told that in 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.
|
<< Previous Page --------------------------------------- Next Page >>
OR
Jump to page: