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Unconscious Memory by Samuel Butler
page 4 of 251 (01%)

In reviewing Samuel Butler's works, "Unconscious Memory" gives us an
invaluable lead; for it tells us (Chaps. II, III) how the author came
to write the Book of the Machines in "Erewhon" (1872), with its
foreshadowing of the later theory, "Life and Habit," (1878),
"Evolution, Old and New" (1879), as well as "Unconscious Memory"
(1880) itself. His fourth book on biological theory was "Luck? or
Cunning?" (1887). {0a}

Besides these books, his contributions to biology comprise several
essays: "Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals, contained
in "Selections from Previous Works" (1884) incorporated into "Luck?
or Cunning," "The Deadlock in Darwinism" (Universal Review, April-
June, 1890), republished in the posthumous volume of "Essays on Life,
Art, and Science" (1904), and, finally, some of the "Extracts from
the Notebooks of the late Samuel Butler," edited by Mr. H. Festing
Jones, now in course of publication in the New Quarterly Review.


Of all these, "LIFE AND HABIT" (1878) is the most important, the main
building to which the other writings are buttresses or, at most,
annexes. Its teaching has been summarised in "Unconscious Memory" in
four main principles: "(1) the oneness of personality between parent
and offspring; (2) memory on the part of the offspring of certain
actions which it did when in the persons of its forefathers; (3) the
latency of that memory until it is rekindled by a recurrence of the
associated ideas; (4) the unconsciousness with which habitual actions
come to be performed." To these we must add a fifth: the
purposiveness of the actions of living beings, as of the machines
which they make or select.
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