LIFE AND HABIT




PREFACE



Since Samuel Butler published "Life and Habit" thirty-three {1} years
have elapsed--years fruitful in change and discovery, during which
many of the mighty have been put down from their seat and many of the
humble have been exalted. I do not know that Butler can truthfully
be called humble, indeed, I think he had very few misgivings as to
his ultimate triumph, but he has certainly been exalted with a
rapidity that he himself can scarcely have foreseen. During his
lifetime he was a literary pariah, the victim of an organized
conspiracy of silence. He is now, I think it may be said without
exaggeration, universally accepted as one of the most remarkable
English writers of the latter part of the nineteenth century. I will
not weary my readers by quoting the numerous tributes paid by
distinguished contemporary writers to Butler's originality and force
of mind, but I cannot refrain from illustrating the changed attitude
of the scientific world to Butler and his theories by a reference to
"Darwin and Modern Science," the collection of essays published in
1909 by the University of Cambridge, in commemoration of the Darwin
centenary. In that work Professor Bateson, while referring
repeatedly to Butler's biological works, speaks of him as "the most
brilliant and by far the most interesting of Darwin's opponents,
whose works are at length emerging from oblivion." With the growth