The Humour of Homer and Other Essays by Samuel Butler
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essay in the light of Cavaliere Negri's discoveries, the value of
which he fully recognized. As it stands the essay requires so much revision that I have decided to omit it altogether and to postpone giving English readers a full account of Tabachetti's career until a second edition of Butler's "Ex Voto," in which Tabachetti's work is discussed in detail, is required. Meanwhile I have given a brief summary of the main facts of Tabachetti's life in a note (p. 195) to the essay on "Art in the Valley of Saas." Anyone who desires further details concerning the sculptor and his work will find them in Cavaliere Negri's pamphlet "Il Santuario di Crea" (Alessandria, 1902). The three essays grouped together under the title The Deadlock in Darwinism may be regarded as a postscript to Butler's four books on evolution, viz. Life and Habit, Evolution Old and New, Unconscious Memory, and Luck or Cunning? When these essays were first published in book form in 1904, I ventured to give a brief summary of Butler's position with regard to the main problem of evolution. I need now only refer readers to Mr. Festing Jones's biographical sketch and, for fuller details, to the masterly introduction contributed by Professor Marcus Hartog to the new edition of Unconscious Memory (A. C. Fifield, 1910), and recently reprinted in his Problems of Life and Reproduction (John Murray, 1913), in which Butler's work in the field of biology and his share in the various controversies connected with the study of evolution are discussed with the authority of a specialist. R. A. STREATFEILD. July, 1913. |
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