REVIEW.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1659, 14 June 1879, Page 3

REVIEW.

"LIFE AND HABIT.” This book has all the attractiveness of style and felicity of expression which distinguish other works by the same author. The theory which it attempts to establish is not, in its main features, difficult to comprehend. The reasoning is clear, the illustrations suggestive, and the conclusion arrived at plausible, if not convincing. It partakes, however, of the faults, as well as the excellencies, of all Mr Butler’s writings. There ia always a doubt hanging over the mind of ths reader as to how far he himself is convinced by his own arguments. The impression almost irresistably produced is that ho is not in earnest, but rather that he delights in acleverytw d'esprit, and is all the more pleased if his production offends any set of convictions or prejudices. Just as “ Erewhon ” and “Fair Havens ” assail the tenets of religion, so “ Life and Habit ” strikes at the dogmas of science. It points out the incompleteness of the science of the day, and of the guesses which scientific men have hazarded to account for the phenomena which wo see around us. It professes to account for that which the votaries of the development theory do not, at least satisfactorily, account for, and it deals with a world of which these can offer no very clear explanation. It is not our intention to offer any opinion as to the soundness or otherwise of the views propounded. Wo shall content ourselves with endeavoring to give as short and concise a sketch as possible of the general bearings of the argument. Wo cannot, however, pretend, within the space allotted to us, to give anything like a complete view of all the considerations upon which that argument is based. There are many points, indeed, which we cannot even allude to.

Wo begin by noticing briefly the exceptions which he takes to Darwinism. He maintains that, as an explanation of the origin of species, the theory of natural selection is faulty in two respects. Firstly, because it attributes the origin of species to variations, without explaining the cause which produces the variations. It is ignotuvi per ignotius, Secondly, even supposing the theory to be sufficient, it is incorrect, because it assumes that these variations are fortuitous. Mr Butler denies that there is anything like chance in the matter.

So far as our present purpose is concerned, the doctrine of natural selection may be described as follows:—All living organisms have a tendency to (and do in fact) vary indefinitely in every conceivable direction. Some variations are well fitted for the circumstances in which they are placed—these thrive and prosper, while those variations whose structure or constitution is not adapted to the circumstances perish and disappear. Thus it is found that races, whether of plants or animals, are at home in the sphere in which they move. The existing species, then, of plants and animals owe their origin to a series of blind, purposeless, and gratuitous variations, revised, corrected, and modified by means of natural selection—that is to say, by the survival of the fittest.

This appears, so far as it goes, a reasonable and consistent hypothesis, for we can easily imagine that no organism can survive if placed in circumstances fatal to it; and on the other hand, that an organism, placed in circumstances favorable to it, will thrive and prosper. It is to the assumption that variations are fortuitous that Mr Butler objects. He maintains that every variation is a result of contrivance and design—a contrivance and design not from without on the part of a Supreme Being, but from within, on the part of the organism which adopts such variations.

In order to understand the argument, we will endeavour to compress in a few words Mr Butler’s ideas of the primal state of organic life. Originally living organisms were all on a dead level. There was nothing but a uniform substance, known to philosophers under the name of protoplasm. As time went on this protoplasm separated into different portions and took different forms. These forms were determined by the desire of each particular piece of protoplasm to better itself or to avoid some inconvenience. Thns one piece, wo may say, having wandered on into cold regions felt it necessary to provide itself with some protection against the rigour of the weather ; it therefore made for itself a thick shaggy coat. Another hit upon the expedient of making itself feathers, and so on. But it was in every case a sense of need and a desire to better itself which detormired the variation. Ho denies, moreover, altogether the doctrine of personal identity as commonly accepted, Eovery race of beings, he maintains, is one creature, -not metaphorically, but actually. We are not only like our forefathers, but we are identical with them—that is to say, our protoplasm is the same as theirs. The principle of life is the same, and the only difference is, or may bo, that we have assimilated different outside matter. Whatever experience has been gained by the race, as a race, has been gained by all; our memories are their memories, our traditions their traditions, their personality our personality. The forefathers and descendants are the same person. To use his own way of putting it, wo must thoroughly grasp the conception that every race is one creature, and that each individual phase of that creature is many millions of years old, so that for instance all the pigeons in the one line of an infinite number of generations are still one pigeon only. It follows naturally from this that what we call instinct in animals has in reality no existence. It is a word without meaning, and when we attribute any effect to this cause we are only saying in a roundabout way that we know nothing of the matter. Instinct, Mr Butler maintains is, in fact, memory—a memory on the part of the being exhibiting instinct, of operations which it has been performing through countless millions of ages, and which from constant practice it has come to do perfectly. Whenever anything happens to it with which it has become familiar during its long life, it knows exactly what to do. It has only to do over again -what it has been doing as often as it has been placed in the same or similar circumstances. In illustration of this ilea ho gives the example of an old piece of wolf’s skin with the hair all worn away being set before a little dog. The animal was thrown into convulsions of fear by the slight scent attaching to the skin. The dog had never seen a wolf and, therefore, wo can only explain the alarm by supposing that the smell of the wolf’s skin brought up the ideas with which it had been associated in the dog’s mind during many previous existences. It is true that the dog may not have been conscious of remembering the danger from wolves to which it had been exposed during these previous existences. But the very fact that it did not know that it remembered was the most conclusive proof that it remembered most perfectly. This indeed is one of Mr Butler’s main propositions, and may be shortly stated thus: Whatever we know and remember unconsciously wo know and remember perfectly; and conversely, whatever wo are conscious of knowing and remembering we know and remember imperfectly. In support of this ho gives several very apt and familiar illustrations, among which wo take the following on the acquired art of reading, “ How many thousands of individual letters,” ho says “do our eyes run over every morning in the “Times” newspaper, how few of them do wo notice or remember having noticed. Yet there was a time when we .had such difficulty in reading even the simplest words that we had to

“ Life and Habit," by Samuel Butler, Loudon, Trabner and Co., Ludgate Hill,

take great pains to impress them upon our memory so as to know them when wo came to them again. Now, not even a single word of all we have seen will remain with us, unless it is a now one, or an old one used in an unfamiliar sense, in which case we notice and may, very likely, remember it. Our memory retains the substance only, the substance only being unfamiliar. Nevertheless, although we do not perceive more than the general result of our perception, there can be no doubt of our having perceived every letter in every word that we have read at all, for, if we come upon a word misspelt, our attention is at once aroused ; unless, indeed, wo have actually corrected the misspelling, as well as noticed it, unconsciously, through exceeding familiarity with the way in which it ought to be spelt. Not only do we perceive the letters we have seen without noticing that we have perceived them, but we find it almost impossible to notice them when we have once learned to read fluently. To try to do so puts us out, and prevents our being able to read. Wo may even go so far as to say that if a man can attend to the individual characters, it is a sign that he cannot yet read fluently. If wo know how to read well, wo are unconscious of the means and processes whereby wo attain the desired result, as wo are about the growth of our hair or the circulation of the blood. So that hero again it would seem that wo only know what we know still to some extent imperfectly, and that what wo know thoroughly escapes our conscious perception; though now the less actually perceived. Our perception, in fact, passes into a latent stage, as also our memory and volition.” In the same manner we have examples of the unconscious, or almost unconscious, perception of the notes in music by a perfect musician, or of the formation of letters in writing. These are all acquired habits, however—acquired, not by the protoplasm of the race, but by the individual in his present phase of existence. The memory of the acquisition of these arts does not go back sufficiently far, and therefore the practice of them has not been repeated a sufficient number of times altogether to obliterate the various processes. The general conclusion drawn from these illustrations of our own experience is that, whenever wo observe a person able to do any complicated action unconsciously, we may assume that he must have done it very often before lie could acquire so great proficiency, and also that there must have been a time when he did not know how to do it at all.

But while knowledge and skill acquired after birth, such as the arts of reading, writing, or music, are never exercised in total unconsciousness, it is otherwise with the knowledge and skill acquired before birth by the protoplasm of a race. Each separate race, though part of the universal protoplasm, is protoplasm which has entered upon a separate existence. It has been forced into a certain groove of its own. Thus there has arisen one protoplasm of man, another of horse, another of fowl, and so on, and the reason for its taking these different forms is that the respective portions of protoplasm having encountered difficulties, or having espied a means of bettering themselves, have so modified their structure or their habits as to enable them to meet those difficulties or effect that improvement. Moreover, in the early ages of its separate existence the race or protoplasm was much more impressionable than afterwards, and much more capable of altering its habits. Once hardened into one groove any change would be much more painful. In the earlier period its choice of means would be much larger. If it got a fit of indigestion, for instance, it would, as the amoeba does now, extemporise a stomach. If it was an early bit of moa protoplasm in danger from Dr, Haast’s moa-hunters, it would extemporise wings or some other moans of escape. But as the protoplasm got more fixed in one groove, it had to work out its destiny in that groove. It still retained the power of modifying itself, but not to such an extent as in the innocence of infancy. But these modifications, whether made in the earliest ages of impressionable infancy or at a later stage, were, if successful, immediately recorded in the register of the race’s memories. Wo may suppose, for instance, that the original horse-protoplasm took a fancy to some particularly sweet or succulent grass. The pleasure which it experienced 'in eating it was immediately recorded in the memories of that protoplasm, and in order to enjoy its green foed (he better it grew itself a stomach capable of digesting its meal. Being in danger from enemies it grew itself legs by which it could avoid them. All these improvements entered into the memories of the protoplasm or race, and they were repeated so often that at last the horse-protoplasm performed all these acts in total unconsciousness, and therefore knew how to perform them perfectly. Its skill and proficiency bad become absolutely perfect from practice during endless ages. Again, he says, a baby when it sucks, shews that it knows (thongh it does not know that it knows) the whole principle of the pump, and, therefore, has a profound knowledge of the laws of pneumatics and hydrostatics. It oxygenised its blood millions of years before Sir Humphrey Davy discovered oxygen. It sees and hears, thus performing the most difficult operations involving a knowledge of the facts concerning optics and acoustics. Now, ho asks, how can a babv perform these very complicated and difficult operations without knowing how to do them, and without ever having done them before ? •‘ls it reasonable,” ho says, “to say that the baby does these things without knowing how to do them, and without ever having done them before, and continues to do them by a series of life-long flukes. It would bo well,” he adds, “if those who feel inclined to hazard such ar assertion would find some other instances of intricate processes gone through by people who knew nothing about them and never had any practice therein.” Hero, perhaps, wo have the contrast with Darwinism. The doctrine of natural selections assumes that all these intricate processes are gone through by a series of life-long flukes. Among the endless specimens of life which are constantly being produced, some happen to come into the world with the requisite machinery of the pump, while others do not.

Again, with regard to the chicken while still in the egg-shell. It not only makes itself bones, flesh, feathers, eyes, and claws for future use, but it also makes itself a horny tip to its bill, so that it may peck all round the larger end of the egg-shell and make a hole for itself to get out at, and, having once got outside, it throws away this horny tip as of no further use. It is unreasonable to suppose that it would have grown this horny tip at all unless it had known that it would want something with which to break the egg-shell ; nor is it agreeable to our experience that such elaborate machinery should be made “ without endeavour, failure, perseverance, intelligent contrivance, experience, and practice.” It is quite common, he says, to hear men of education deny that this operation is the result of experience, contrivance and practice. The chicken does indeed “ peck all round the end of the shell, which, if it wanted to get out, would certainly be the easiest way of effecting its purpose, but it did not, they say, peck because it was aware of this, but promiscuously. Curious, such a uniformity of promiscuous action among so many eggs for so many generations. If we see a man knock a hole in a wall, on finding that he cannot get out of a place by any other means, and if we sec him knock this hole in a very workmanlike way with an implement which he has been at great pains to make for a long time past, but which he throws away ns soon as ho has no longer use for it, thus showing that ho had made it expressly for the purpose of escape, do we say that this person made the implement and broke the wall of his prison promiscuously ? No jury would acquit a burglar on those grounds. Then why should we not suppose that with chickens, as with men, signs of contrivance are indeed signs of con'rivance.” He maintains further that the law of natural selection, inasmuch as its operation is not guided by intelligence and design towards a definite end, could not, in any conceivable period of time, have brought about the results which wo see around us. That law accounts for the origin of species by assuming that a set of blind, purposeless, and minute variations have taken place during past. ages. His objection he states as followslf the difference between an elephant and a tadpole is duo to an accumulation of small fortuitous variations that have had no direction given to them by intelligence and sense of needs, then no time conceivable by man would suffice for their development. But the time that can bo allowed for this fortuitous development is not by any means unlimited. Philosophers who have studied the subject have arrived at the conclusion that the existing state of things on the earth, life on the earth, all geological history showing continuity of life, must bo

limited within some such period of past time aa one hundred million of years. This, ho argues, would not be sufficient time to allow for that combination of chances which is required to work out such a result as we seo before us.

Wo should like to have gone more minutely into the whole of the points which aro raised in this book, and more especially we ehonld have wished to do justice to the exuberant wealth of illustration with which it is filled. As our space forbids this, we must content ourselves by recommending our readers to study the book for themselves, and we think that it will repay the trouble.