Transcribed from the 1910 A C Fifield edition by David Price emailccx074coventryacukUNCONSCIOUS MEMORYAs this paper contains nothing which deserves the name either ofexperiment or discovery and as it is in fact destitute of everyspecies of merit we should have allowed it to pass among themultitude of those articles which must always find their way into thecollections of a society which is pledged to publish two or threevolumes every year     We wish to raise our feeble voice againstinnovations that can have no other effect than to check the progressof science and renew all those wild phantoms of the imaginationwhich Bacon and Newton put to flight from her templeOpeningParagraph of a Review of Dr Youngs Bakerian Lecture  EdinburghReview January 1803 p 450Youngs work was laid before the Royal society and was made the1801 Bakerian Lecture  But he was before his time  The secondnumber of the Edinburgh Review contained an article levelled againsthim by Henry afterwards Lord Brougham and this was so severe anattack that Youngs ideas were absolutely quenched for fifteen yearsBrougham was then only twentyfour years of age  Youngs theory wasreproduced in France by Fresnel  In our days it is the acceptedtheory and is found to explain all the phenomena of lightTimesReport of a Lecture by Professor Tyndall on Light April 27 1880This BookIs inscribed toRICHARD GARNETT ESQOf the British MuseumIn grateful acknowledgment of the unwearying kindness with which hehas so often placed at my disposal his varied store of informationContents   Note by R A Streatfeild   Introduction by Marcus Hartog   Authors Preface   Unconscious MemoryNOTEFor many years a link in the chain of Samuel Butlers biologicalworks has been missing  Unconscious Memory was originallypublished thirty years ago but for fully half that period it hasbeen out of print owing to the destruction of a large number of theunbound sheets in a fire at the premises of the printers some yearsago  The present reprint comes I think at a peculiarly fortunatemoment since the attention of the general public has of late beendrawn to Butlers biological theories in a marked manner by severaldistinguished men of science notably by Dr Francis Darwin who inhis presidential address to the British Association in 1908 quotedfrom the translation of Herings address on Memory as a UniversalFunction of Original Matter which Butler incorporated intoUnconscious Memory and spoke in the highest terms of Butlerhimself  It is not necessary for me to do more than refer to thechanged attitude of scientific authorities with regard to Butler andhis theories since Professor Marcus Hartog has most kindly consentedto contribute an introduction to the present edition of UnconsciousMemory summarising Butlers views upon biology and defining hisposition in the world of science  A word must be said as to thecontroversy between Butler and Darwin with which Chapter IV isconcerned  I have been told that in reissuing the book at all I amcommitting a grievous error of taste that the world is no longerinterested in these old unhappy faroff things and battles longago and that Butler himself by refraining from republishingUnconscious Memory tacitly admitted that he wished the controversyto be consigned to oblivion  This last suggestion at any rate hasno foundation in fact  Butler desired nothing less than that hisvindication of himself against what he considered unfair treatmentshould be forgotten  He would have republished Unconscious Memoryhimself had not the latter years of his life been devoted to allengrossing work in other fields  In issuing the present edition I amfulfilling a wish that he expressed to me shortly before his deathR A STREATFEILDApril 1910INTRODUCTION By Marcus Hartog MA  DSc FLS FRHSIn reviewing Samuel Butlers works Unconscious Memory gives us aninvaluable lead for it tells us Chaps II III how the author cameto write the Book of the Machines in Erewhon 1872 with itsforeshadowing of the later theory Life and Habit 1878Evolution Old and New 1879 as well as Unconscious Memory1880 itself  His fourth book on biological theory was Luck orCunning 1887 0aBesides these books his contributions to biology comprise severalessays  Remarks on Romanes Mental Evolution in Animals containedin Selections from Previous Works 1884 incorporated into Luckor Cunning The Deadlock in Darwinism Universal Review AprilJune 1890 republished in the posthumous volume of Essays on LifeArt and Science 1904 and finally some of the Extracts fromthe Notebooks of the late Samuel Butler edited by Mr H FestingJones now in course of publication in the New Quarterly ReviewOf all these LIFE AND HABIT 1878 is the most important the mainbuilding to which the other writings are buttresses or at mostannexes  Its teaching has been summarised in Unconscious Memory infour main principles  1 the oneness of personality between parentand offspring 2 memory on the part of the offspring of certainactions which it did when in the persons of its forefathers 3 thelatency of that memory until it is rekindled by a recurrence of theassociated ideas 4 the unconsciousness with which habitual actionscome to be performed  To these we must add a fifth  thepurposiveness of the actions of living beings as of the machineswhich they make or selectButler tells Life and Habit p 33 that he sometimes hoped thatthis book would be regarded as a valuable adjunct to Darwinism  Hewas bitterly disappointed in the event for the book as a whole wasreceived by professional biologists as a gigantic jokea jokemoreover not in the best possible taste  True its central ideaslargely those of Lamarck had been presented by Hering in 1870 asButler found shortly after his publication they had been favourablyreceived developed by Haeckel expounded and praised by RayLankester  Coming from Butler they met with contumely even fromsuch men as Romanes who as Butler had no difficulty in provingwere unconsciously inspired by the same ideasNur mit ein bischenandern WorterIt is easy looking back to see why Life and Habit so missed itsmark  Charles Darwins presentation of the evolution theory had forthe first time rendered it possible for