{16} “The doctrine preached by Weismann was that to start with the body
and inquire how its characters got into the germ was to view the sequence
from the wrong end; the proper starting point was the germ, and the real
question was not ‘How do the characters of the organism get into the
germ-cell _which it_ produces?’ but ‘How are the characters of an
organism represented in the germ _which produces it_?’ Or, as Samuel
Butler has it, the proper statement of the relation between successive
generations is not to say that a hen produces another hen through the
medium of an egg, but to say that a hen is merely an egg’s way of
producing another egg.” _Breeding and the Mendelian Discovery_, by A. D.
Darbishire. Cassell & Co., 1911, p. 187–8.
“It has, I believe, been often remarked that a hen is only an egg’s way
of making another egg.” _Life and Habit_, Trübner & Co., 1878, chapter
viii, p. 134.
And compare the idea underlying “The World of the Unborn” in _Erewhon_.
{26} The two chapters entitled “The Rights of Animals” and “The Rights
of Vegetables” appeared first in the new and revised edition of _Erewhon_
1901 and form part of the additions referred to in the preface to that
book.
{30} On the Alps
It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh,
Which some did die to look on: and all this—
It wounds thine honour that I speak it now—
Was borne so like a soldier, that thy cheek
So much as lank’d not.—_Ant. & Cleop._, I. iv. 66–71.
{31} _Walks in the Regions of Science and Faith_, by Harvey Goodwin,
D.D., Lord Bishop of Carlisle. John Murray, 1883.
{32a} This quotation occurs on the title page of _Charles Dickens and
Rochester_ by Robert Langton. Chapman & Hall, 1880. Reprinted with
additions from the Papers of the Manchester Literary Club, Vol. VI, 1880.
But the italics are Butler’s.
{32b} This is Butler’s note as he left it. He made it just about the
time he hit upon the theory that the _Odyssey_ was written by a woman.
If it had caught his eye after that theory had become established in his
mind, he would have edited it so as to avoid speaking of Homer as the
author of the poem.
{41} _Life and Habit_ is dated 1878, but it actually appeared on
Butler’s birthday, 4th December, 1877.
{92} The five notes here amalgamated together into “Croesus and his
Kitchen-Maid” were to have been part of an article for the _Universal
Review_, but, before Butler wrote it, the review died. I suppose, but I
do not now remember, that the article would have been about Mind and
Matter or Organs and Tools, and, possibly, all the concluding notes of
this group, beginning with “Our Cells,” would have been introduced as
illustrations.
{106} Cf. the note “Reproduction,” p. 16 ante.
{107} _Evolution Old & New_, p. 77.
{128} _Twelve Voluntaries and Fugues for the Organ or Harpsichord with
Rules for Tuning_. By the celebrated Mr. Handel. Butler had a copy of
this book and gave it to the British Museum (Press Mark, e. 1089). We
showed the rules to Rockstro, who said they were very interesting and
probably authentic; they would tune the instrument in one of the mean
tone temperaments.
{131} Mr. Kemp lived in Barnard’s Inn on my staircase. He was in the
box-office at Drury Lane Theatre. See a further note about him on p. 133
post.
{136} If I remember right, the original Jubilee sixpence had to be
altered because it was so like a half-sovereign that, on being gilded, it
passed as one.
{147} Raffaelle’s picture “The Virgin and child attended by S. John the
Baptist and S. Nicholas of Bari” (commonly known as the “Madonna degli
Ansidei”), No. 1171, Room VI in the National Gallery, London, was
purchased in 1885. Butler made this note in the same year; he revised
the note in 1897 but, owing to changes in the gallery and in the
attributions, I have found it necessary to modernise his descriptions of
the other pictures with gold thread work so as to make them agree with
the descriptions now (1912) on the pictures themselves.
{151} Cf. the passage in _Alps and Sanctuaries_, chapter XIII, beginning
“The question whether it is better to abide quiet and take advantages of
opportunities that come or to go further afield in search of them is one
of the oldest which living beings have had to deal with. . . . The
schism still lasts and has resulted in two great sects—animals and
plants.”
{153} Prince was my cat when I lived in Barnard’s Inn. He used to stray
into Mr. Kemp’s rooms on my landing (see p. 131 ante). Mrs. Kemp’s
sister brought her child to see them, and the child, playing with Prince
one day, made a discovery and exclaimed:
“Oh! it’s got pins in its toes.”
Butler put this into _The Way of all Flesh_.
{162} Philippians i. 15–18:—
Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife; and some also of
good will:
The one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add
affliction to my bonds:
But the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defence of the
gospel.
What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in
truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will
rejoice.
{176} _Narcissus_, “Should Riches mate with Love.”
{235} Butler gave this as a subject to Mr. E. P. Larken who made it into
a short story entitled “The Priest’s Bargain,” which appeared in the
_Pall Mall Magazine_, May, 1897.
{203} All things have I seen in the days of my vanity: there is a just
man that perisheth in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man that
prolongeth his life in his wickedness.
Be not righteous over much; neither make thyself over wise: why shouldest
thou destroy thyself?
Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldest thou die
before thy time? (Eccles. vii. 15, 16, 17).
{204} Cf. “Imaginary Worlds,” p. 233 post.
{225} “So, again, it is said that when Andromeda and Perseus had
travelled but a little way from the rock where Andromeda had so long been
chained, she began upbraiding him with the loss of her dragon who, on the
whole, she said, had been very good to her. The only things we really
hate are unfamiliar things.” _Life & Habit_, Chapter viii, p. 138/9.
{251} This note is one of those that appeared in the _New Quarterly
Review_. The Hon. Mrs. Richard Grosvenor did not see it there, but a few
years later I lent her my copy. She wrote to me 31 December, 1911.
“The notes are delightful. By the way I can add to one. When Mr.
Butler came to tell me he was going to stay with Dr. Creighton, he
told me that Alfred had decided he might go on finding the little
flake of tobacco in the letter. Then he asked me if I would lend him
a prayer-book as he thought the bishop’s man ought to find one in his
portmanteau when he unpacked, the visit being from a Saturday to
Monday. I fetched one and he said:
“‘Is it cut?’”
{261} “Ramblings in Cheapside” in _Essays on Life_, _Art and Science_.
{263} Edmund Gurney, author of _The Power of Sound_, and Secretary of
the Society for Psychical Research.
{279} Cf. Wamba’s explanation of the Saxon swine being converted into
Norman pork on their death. _Ivanhoe_, Chap. I.
{282} See “A Medieval Girl School” in _Essays on Life_, _Art & Science_.
{333} “Above all things, let no unwary reader do me the injustice of
believing in _me_. In that I write at all I am among the damned. If he
must believe in anything, let him believe in the music of Handel, the
painting of Giovanni Bellini, and in the thirteenth chapter of St. Paul’s
First Epistle to the Corinthians” (_Life and Habit_, close of chapter
II).
{343} “No one can hate drunkenness more than I do, but I am confident
the human intellect owes its superiority over that of the lower animals
in great measure to the stimulus which alcohol has given to
imagination—imagination being little else than another name for illusion”
(_Alps and Sanctuaries_, chapter III).
{364} There are letters from these people in _The Life and Letters of
Dr. Samuel Butler_.
{369} Butler made this note in 1899 before the publication of
_Shakespeare’s Sonnets Reconsidered_, which was published in the same
year. _The Odyssey Rendered info English Prose_ appeared in 1900 and
_Erewhon Revisited_, the last book published in his lifetime, in 1901.
He made no analysis of the sales of these three books, nor of the sales
of _A First Year in Canterbury Settlement_ published in 1863, nor of his
pamphlet _The Evidence for the Resurrection_, published in 1865. _The
Way of all Flesh_ and _Essays on Life_, _Art_, _and Science_ were not
published till after his death. I do not know what he means by _A Book
of Essays_, unless it may be that he incurred an outlay of £3 11s. 9d. in
connection with a projected republication of his articles in the
_Universal Review_ or of some of his Italian articles about the
_Odyssey_.
{376} Butler had two separate grounds of complaint against Charles
Darwin, one scientific, the other personal. With regard to the personal
quarrel some facts came to light after Butler’s death and the subject is
dealt with in a pamphlet entitled Charles Darwin and Samuel Butler: A
Step towards Reconciliation, by Henry Festing Jones (A. C. Fifield,
1911).