forty per cent, instead of only ten. One of these companies was a
Canadian undertaking, of which he became a director; it was necessary
for someone to go to headquarters and investigate its affairs; he
went, and was much occupied by the business for two or three years.
By the beginning of 1876 he had returned finally to London, but most
of his money was lost and his financial position for the next ten
years caused him very serious anxiety. His personal expenditure was
already so low that it was hardly possible to reduce it, and he set
to work at his profession more industriously than ever, hoping to
paint something that he could sell, his spare time being occupied
with 'Life and Habit', which was the subject that really interested
him more deeply than any other.

Following his letter in the 'Press', wherein he had seen machines as
in process of becoming animate, he went on to regard them as living
organs and limbs which we had made outside ourselves. What would
follow if we reversed this and regarded our limbs and organs as
machines which we had manufactured as parts of our bodies? In the
first place, how did we come to make them without knowing anything
about it? But then, how comes anybody to do anything unconsciously?
The answer usually would be: By habit. But can a man be said to do
a thing by habit when he has never done it before? His ancestors
have done it, but not he. Can the habit have been acquired by them
for his benefit? Not unless he and his ancestors are the same
person. Perhaps, then, they are the same person.

In February, 1876, partly to clear his mind and partly to tell
someone, he wrote down his thoughts in a letter to his namesake,
Thomas William Gale Butler, a fellow art-student who was then in New
Zealand; so much of the letter as concerns the growth of his theory