underlying substance that is vibrating. . . . The same vibrations,
therefore, form the substance remembered, introduce an infinitesimal
dose of it within the brain, modify the substance remembering, and,
in the course of time, create and further modify the mechanism of
both the sensory and the motor nerves. Thought and thing are one.

"I commend these two last speculations to the reader's charitable
consideration, as feeling that I am here travelling beyond the ground
on which I can safely venture. . . . I believe they are both
substantially true."


In 1885 he had written an abstract of these ideas in his notebooks
(see New Quarterly Review, 1910, p. 116), and as in "Luck, or
Cunning?" associated them vaguely with the unitary conceptions
introduced into chemistry by Newlands and Mendelejeff. Judging
himself as an outsider, the author of "Life and Habit" would
certainly have considered the mild expression of faith, "I believe
they are both substantially true," equivalent to one of extreme
doubt. Thus "the fact of the Archbishop's recognising this as among
the number of his beliefs is conclusive evidence, with those who have
devoted attention to the laws of thought, that his mind is not yet
clear" on the matter of the belief avowed (see "Life and Habit," pp.
24, 25).

To sum up: Butler's fundamental attitude to the vibration hypothesis
was all through that taken in "Unconscious Memory"; he played with it
as a pretty pet, and fancied it more and more as time went on; but
instead of backing it for all he was worth, like the main theses of
"Life and Habit," he put a big stake on it--and then hedged.