and others, it was nowhere--even after the appearance of "Life and
Habit"--explicitly recognised by them, but, on the contrary, masked
by inconsistent statements and teaching. Not Luck but Cunning, not
the uninspired weeding out by Natural Selection but the intelligent
striving of the organism, is at the bottom of the useful variety of
organic life. And the parallel is drawn that not the happy accident
of time and place, but the Machiavellian cunning of Charles Darwin,
succeeded in imposing, as entirely his own, on the civilised world an
uninspired and inadequate theory of evolution wherein luck played the
leading part; while the more inspired and inspiring views of the
older evolutionists had failed by the inferiority of their luck. On
this controversy I am bound to say that I do not in the very least
share Butler's opinions; and I must ascribe them to his lack of
personal familiarity with the biologists of the day and their modes
of thought and of work. Butler everywhere undervalues the important
work of elimination played by Natural Selection in its widest sense.

The "Conclusion" of "Luck, or Cunning?" shows a strong advance in
monistic views, and a yet more marked development in the vibration
hypothesis of memory given by Hering and only adopted with the
greatest reserve in "Unconscious Memory."


"Our conception, then, concerning the nature of any matter depends
solely upon its kind and degree of unrest, that is to say, on the
characteristics of the vibrations that are going on within it. The
exterior object vibrating in a certain way imparts some of its
vibrations to our brain; but if the state of the thing itself depends
upon its vibrations, it [the thing] must be considered as to all
intents and purposes the vibrations themselves--plus, of course, the