Transcribed from the 1910 A. C. Fifield edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org
Unconscious Memory
By
Samuel Butler
Author of “Life and Habit,” “Erewhon,” “The Way of All Flesh,” etc.
* * * * *
New Edition, entirely reset, with an Introduction
by Marcus Hartog, M.A., D.SC., F.L.S., F.R.H.S., Pro-
fessor of Zoology in University College, Cork.
* * * * *
OP. 5
* * * * *
London
A. C. Fifield, 13 Clifford’s Inn, E.C.
1910
* * * * *
“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
PAGE
NOTE. By R. A. Streatfeild viii
INTRODUCTION. By Professor Marcus Hartog ix
AUTHOR’S PREFACE xxxvii
CHAPTER I. Introduction—General ignorance on the subject 1
of evolution at the time the “Origin of Species” was
published in 1859