Unconscious Memory(Fiscle Part-3) by Samuel Butler (best novels ever .TXT) 📖
- Author: Samuel Butler
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Visitor, Called Butler's Attention To This Essay, Which He Himself
Only Knew From An Article In "Nature." Herein Professor E. Ray
Lankester Had Referred To It With Admiring Sympathy In Connection
With Its Further Development By Haeckel In A Pamphlet Entitled "Die
Perigenese Der Plastidule." We May Note, However, That In His
Collected Essays, "The Advancement Of Science" (1890), Sir Ray
Lankester, While Including This Essay, Inserts On The Blank Page
{0b}--We Had Almost Written "The White Sheet"--At The Back Of It An
Apology For Having Ever Advocated The Possibility Of The Transmission
Of Acquired Characters.
"Unconscious Memory" Was Largely Written To Show The Relation Of
Butler's Views To Hering's, And Contains An Exquisitely Written
Translation Of The Address. Hering Does, Indeed, Anticipate Butler,
And That In Language Far More Suitable To The Persuasion Of The
Scientific Public. It Contains A Subsidiary Hypothesis That Memory
Has For Its Mechanism Special Vibrations Of The Protoplasm, And The
Acquired Capacity To Respond To Such Vibrations Once Felt Upon Their
Repetition. I Do Not Think That The Theory Gains Anything By The
Introduction Of This Even As A Mere Formal Hypothesis; And There Is
No Evidence For Its Being Anything More. Butler, However, Gives It A
Warm, Nay, Enthusiastic, Reception In Chapter V (Introduction To
Professor Hering's Lecture), And In His Notes To The Translation Of
The Address, Which Bulks So Large In This Book, But Points Out That
He Was "Not Committed To This Hypothesis, Though Inclined To Accept
It On A Prima Facie View." Later On, As We Shall See, He Attached
More Importance To It.
The Hering Address Is Followed In "Unconscious Memory" By
Translations Of Selected Passages From Von Hartmann's "Philosophy Of
The Unconscious," And Annotations To Explain The Difference From This
Personification Of "The Unconscious" As A Mighty All-Ruling, All-
Creating Personality, And His Own Scientific Recognition Of The Great
Part Played By Unconscious Processes In The Region Of Mind And
Memory.
These Are The Essentials Of The Book As A Contribution To Biological
Philosophy. The Closing Chapters Contain A Lucid Statement Of
Objections To His Theory As They Might Be Put By A Rigid
Necessitarian, And A Refutation Of That Interpretation As Applied To
Human Action.
But In The Second Chapter Butler States His Recession From The Strong
Logical Position He Had Hitherto Developed In His Writings From
"Erewhon" Onwards; So Far He Had Not Only Distinguished The Living
From The Non-Living, But Distinguished Among The Latter Machines Or
Tools From Things At Large. {0c} Machines Or Tools Are The External
Organs Of Living Beings, As Organs Are Their Internal Machines: They
Are Fashioned, Assembled, Or Selected By The Beings For A Purposes So
They Have A Future Purpose, As Well As A Past History. "Things At
Large" Have A Past History, But No Purpose (So Long As Some Being
Does Not Convert Them Into Tools And Give Them A Purpose): Machines
Have A Why? As Well As A How?: "Things At Large" Have A How? Only.
Introduction Pg 6
In "Unconscious Memory" The Allurements Of Unitary Or Monistic Views
Have Gained The Upper Hand, And Butler Writes (P. 23):-
"The Only Thing Of Which I Am Sure Is, That The Distinction Between
The Organic And Inorganic Is Arbitrary; That It Is More Coherent With
Our Other Ideas, And Therefore More Acceptable, To Start With Every
Molecule As A Living Thing, And Then Deduce Death As The Breaking Up
Of An Association Or Corporation, Than To Start With Inanimate
Molecules And Smuggle Life Into Them; And That, Therefore, What We
Call The Inorganic World Must Be Regarded As Up To A Certain Point
Living, And Instinct, Within Certain Limits, With Consciousness,
Volition, And Power Of Concerted Action. It Is Only Of Late,
However, That I Have Come To This Opinion."
I Have Italicised The Last Sentence, To Show That Butler Was More Or
Less Conscious Of Its Irreconcilability With Much Of His Most
Characteristic Doctrine. Again, In The Closing Chapter, Butler
Writes (P. 275):-
"We Should Endeavour To See The So-Called Inorganic As Living In
Respect Of The Qualities It Has In Common With The Organic, Rather
Than The Organic As Non-Living In Respect Of The Qualities It Has In
Common With The Inorganic."
We Conclude Our Survey Of This Book By Mentioning The Literary
Controversial Part Chiefly To Be Found In Chapter Iv, But Cropping Up
Elsewhere. It Refers To Interpolations Made In The Authorised
Translation Of Krause's "Life Of Erasmus Darwin." Only One Side Is
Presented; And We Are Not Called Upon, Here Or Elsewhere, To Discuss
The Merits Of The Question.
"Luck, Or Cunning, As The Main Means Of Organic Modification? An
Attempt To Throw Additional Light Upon The Late Mr. Charles Darwin's
Theory Of Natural Selection" (1887), Completes The Series Of
Introduction Pg 7Biological Books. This Is Mainly A Book Of Strenuous Polemic. It
Brings Out Still More Forcibly The Hering-Butler Doctrine Of
Continued Personality From Generation To Generation, And Of The
Working Of Unconscious Memory Throughout; And Points Out That, While
This Is Implicit In Much Of The Teaching Of Herbert Spencer, Romanes,
And Others, It Was Nowhere--Even After The Appearance Of "Life And
Habit"--Explicitly Recognised By Them, But, On The Contrary, Masked
By Inconsistent Statements And Teaching. Not Luck But Cunning, Not
The Uninspired Weeding Out By Natural Selection But The Intelligent
Striving Of The Organism, Is At The Bottom Of The Useful Variety Of
Organic Life. And The Parallel Is Drawn That Not The Happy Accident
Of Time And Place, But The Machiavellian Cunning Of Charles Darwin,
Succeeded In Imposing, As Entirely His Own, On The Civilised World An
Uninspired And Inadequate Theory Of Evolution Wherein Luck Played The
Leading Part; While The More Inspired And Inspiring Views Of The
Older Evolutionists Had Failed By The Inferiority Of Their Luck. On
This Controversy I Am Bound To Say That I Do Not In The Very Least
Share Butler's Opinions; And I Must Ascribe Them To His Lack Of
Personal Familiarity With The Biologists Of The Day And Their Modes
Of Thought And Of Work. Butler Everywhere Undervalues The Important
Work Of Elimination Played By Natural Selection In Its Widest Sense.
The "Conclusion" Of "Luck, Or Cunning?" Shows A Strong Advance In
Monistic Views, And A Yet More Marked Development In The Vibration
Hypothesis Of Memory Given By Hering And Only Adopted With The
Greatest Reserve In "Unconscious Memory."
"Our Conception, Then, Concerning The Nature Of Any Matter Depends
Solely Upon Its Kind And Degree Of Unrest, That Is To Say, On The
Characteristics Of The Vibrations That Are Going On Within It. The
Exterior Object Vibrating In A Certain Way Imparts Some Of Its
Vibrations To Our Brain; But If The State Of The Thing Itself Depends
Upon Its Vibrations, It [The Thing] Must Be Considered As To All
Intents And Purposes The Vibrations Themselves--Plus, Of Course, The
Underlying Substance That Is Vibrating. . . . The Same Vibrations,
Therefore, Form The Substance Remembered, Introduce An Infinitesimal
Dose Of It Within The Brain, Modify The Substance Remembering, And,
In The Course Of Time, Create And Further Modify The Mechanism Of
Both The Sensory And The Motor Nerves. Thought And Thing Are One.
"I Commend These Two Last Speculations To The Reader's Charitable
Consideration, As Feeling That I Am Here Travelling Beyond The Ground
On Which I Can Safely Venture. . . . I Believe They Are Both
Substantially True."
In 1885 He Had Written An Abstract Of These Ideas In His Notebooks
Introduction Pg 8(See New Quarterly Review, 1910, P. 116), And As In "Luck, Or
Cunning?" Associated Them Vaguely With The Unitary Conceptions
Introduced Into Chemistry By Newlands And Mendelejeff. Judging
Himself As An Outsider, The Author Of "Life And Habit" Would
Certainly Have Considered The Mild Expression Of Faith, "I Believe
They Are Both Substantially True," Equivalent To One Of Extreme
Doubt. Thus "The Fact Of The Archbishop's Recognising This As Among
The Number Of His Beliefs Is Conclusive Evidence, With Those Who Have
Devoted Attention To The Laws Of Thought, That His Mind Is Not Yet
Clear" On The Matter Of The Belief Avowed (See "Life And Habit," Pp.
24, 25).
To Sum Up: Butler's Fundamental Attitude To The Vibration Hypothesis
Was All Through That Taken In "Unconscious Memory"; He Played With It
As A Pretty Pet, And Fancied It More And More As Time Went On; But
Instead Of Backing It For All He Was Worth, Like The Main Theses Of
"Life And Habit," He Put A Big Stake On It--And Then Hedged.
The Last Of Butler's Biological Writings Is The Essay, "The Deadlock
In Darwinism," Containing Much Valuable Criticism On Wallace And
Weismann. It Is In Allusion To The Misnomer Of Wallace's Book,
"Darwinism," That He Introduces The Term "Wallaceism" {0d} For A
Theory Of Descent That Excludes The Transmission Of Acquired
Characters. This Was, Indeed, The Chief Factor That Led Charles
Darwin To Invent His Hypothesis Of Pangenesis, Which, Unacceptable As
It Has Proved, Had Far More To Recommend It As A Formal Hypothesis
Than The Equally Formal Germ-Plasm Hypothesis Of Weismann.
The Chief Difficulty In Accepting The Main Theses Of Butler And
Hering Is One Familiar To Every Biologist, And Not At All Difficult
To Understand By The Layman. Everyone Knows That The Complicated
Beings That We Term "Animals" And "Plants," Consist Of A Number Of
More Or Less Individualised Units, The Cells, Each Analogous To A
Simpler Being, A Protist--Save In So Far As The Character Of The Cell
Unit Of The Higher Being Is Modified In Accordance With The Part It
Plays In That Complex Being As A Whole. Most People, Too, Are
Familiar With The Fact That The Complex Being Starts As A Single
Cell, Separated From Its Parent; Or, Where Bisexual Reproduction
Occurs, From A Cell Due To The Fusion Of Two Cells, Each Detached
From Its Parent. Such Cells Are Called "Germ-Cells." The Germ-Cell,
Whether Of Single Or Of Dual Origin, Starts
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