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Unconscious memory by S Butler

We should not have to take any notice of this recently published book which is chiefly filled by translations of German writings which appeared a great many years ago if it did not, joint to an article which had appeared in "Kosmos Feb 1879/ upon Dr Erasmus Darwin, throw forth a quantity of malicious accusations & calumnies against Mr Charles Darwin: It appears to me so much the more only clearly the entire untenableness. It appears to me to be so much the more only clearly to show the entire unteneblness of this attack, as Mr Darwin wrote to me on my asking him, that he did not think of reading at all Butlers opus w.

Immediately upon the reception of the said number of Kosmos, Mr Darwin expressed to me in a letter dated 12 of February 1879 his pleasure in the article, & informed me a few days after in the name of his brother Erasmus as well as

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himself, his intention to have the essay translated into English. I expressed only the wish the sketch first to revise the sketch & received from Mr Darwin as well as other things, the treatise of Dr Darwin about his grandfather, till then unknown to me. When my work was ready for translation I read in the English papers the announcement of Butlers opus the title of which also bore the name Erasmus Darwin. I waited then till this book had appeared (May 1879), but my hope to find therein a furthering of my work was in vain, for the scientific discussion only joined nearly on to a peace in the Zoonomea already thoroughly analysed by me, which the "Botanical Garden" was only used in a quite unimportance peace, the highly interesting "Temple of Nature" & Physiology were not used at all. Therefore I could not with the best will take anything new from this book about Erasmus Darwin

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scientific importants, & might entirely have ignored it, if it had not contained entirely untenable fancies upon the far sweepingness of the opinions of Erasmus Darwin as well as of Buffon & Goethe. Mr Darwin advised me decidedly against taking any notice of Butlers book; but I could not possibly deny myself the pleasure of at least printing in a concluding sentence & without naming any names, that there were people at this day who looked upon Erasmus Darwin's conception of the living world as the only soul saving one.

The translation of my essay came then to be printed in the English book, a preliminary notice provided by Mr Darwin, & without any appendisc on his part; Mr Darwin only cut out some places which partly through his preliminary notice had become superfluous. This detailed information will suffice to crush Mr Butler's imputations repeated at different

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places, as if Mr Darwin had himself taken some notice of his opus w, & had only had my essay translated to attack him & to be able to discredit his book. The new work was begun at least two months before the appearance of his book! The further heightened reproof (which reckons on readers who will make no comparisons) that I have revised my work "by the light" of his, is only based by him thereon, that I — one may well be astonished! A single word, which also appears in opus w (& the source of which is more exactly quoted by me than by him) & moreover like him have made a quotation from Buffon.

That I might have used something from his own thoughts Mr Butler does not maintain, he might have taken very much out of my essay that concerned E Darwin's scientific achievements ,I on the contrary could not have taken a line from his

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[in Darwin's hand:] translation of a sentence of Krause.

IV

As far as regards his chief ground of complaint, namely that the revision of my paper, which I made, is not indicated in the preface, a child might see that we are not here dealing with intention: If an It would obviously be absurd for an author in a post dated article were desirous to wish to of attacking a previous book in an by means of a article (pre ante) dated I don't know wh. Is correct English

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Through an unhappy chance probably because the preface at last & in a hurry was added, Mr Darwin forgot to mention in the same that my essay before its reprinting received some changes, & although he has regretted this mistake in a friendly private letter to Mr Butler & promised redress, yet the latter advances with terrible pathos everywhere the complaint, of a purposed falsifying, of quite quite a conspiracy directed against him etc. etc.

This designating of the negelectance to give a particular reference to what is almost understood of [illeg] & is certainly practised by every writer before a reprint, a revision of his work, as a purposed falsification thought of for his harm, would sound childish, if there was not present in the complanant the intention to deceive on his side, & to confuse the judgment of the public. In fact this oversight can only have been in the highest degree pleasing to Mr 

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Butler, then for if any one in consequence of this oversight should have been led astray & should have been led to the belief that he had before him the unchanged article of Feb 1879, then he would not be able to refer the concluding sentence to the book which appeared three months later; & if he does this with a just look nevertheless, takes a just view of this then he cannot be in doubt for a moment that the observation upon the exactness of the translation can only refer to an interpolated manuscript, a falsification or purposed confusion could therefore in no case be intended.

No health minded man would designate as a falsification a statement the falseness of which springs to ones eyes, & we fear Mr Butler will with his fearful complaints at most give himself over to general merriment.

References:

Butler, Samuel. 1879. Evolution old and new. London: Hardwick & Bogue. CUL-DAR.LIB.98 PDF

Butler, Samuel. 1880. Evolution old and new. Athenaeum (31 January): 155. CUL-DAR92.B108 Image CUL-DAR92.B121. Image

Butler, Samuel. 1880. Unconscious memory: a comparison between the theory of Dr. Ewald Hering and the "philosophy of the unconscious" of Dr. Edward von Hartmann. London: David Bogue. [CUL-DAR240] PDF

Butler, Samuel. 1881. Mr. S. Butlers's "Unconscious memory". Nature 23 (3 February): 312-313. CUL-DAR92.B118-B119 Image

Darwin, C. R. 1879. Preliminary notice. Krause, Erasmus Darwin. London: Murray. Text PDF F1319 Draft in CUL-DAR212 and a fragment in CUL-DAR99.199a-199b. Proofs: CUL-DAR213.14 Image. Darwin's annotated copy: PC-Virginia-Erasmus-F1319 Image PDF

Darwin, C. R. 1887. Preliminary notice. In Ernst Krause, Erasmus Darwin. Translated from the German by W. S. Dallas, with a preliminary notice by Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 2d ed. Text PDF F1321 [Notice added to 2d ed. only, PDF=complete book] which contains the added note on p. v: "Mr. Darwin accidentally omitted to mention that Dr. Krause revised, and made certain additions to, his Essay before it was translated. Among these additions is an allusion to Mr. Butler's book, 'Evolution, Old and New.'"

Krause, Ernst. 1879. Erasmus Darwin. Kosmos 4: 397-424. PDF

Krause, Ernst. 1880. Erasmus Darwin und seine Stellung in der Geschichte der Descendenz-Theorie. Mit seinem Lebens- und Charakterbilde von Charles Darwin. (Darwinistische Schriften, Nr. 6.) Leipzig: Ernst Günther. [Darwin Library-CUL] [Copy not found, CCD28:366] Text Image PDF

Krause, Ernst. 1881. [Review of] Samuel Butler, Unconscious memory. Kosmos 8: 321-322. CUL-DAR92.B122. Image

Krause, Ernst. 1881. Unconscious memory - Mr. Samuel Butler. Nature 23 (27 January): 288. CUL-DAR92.B117. Image Text

See 'The Darwin-Butler Controversy' in Barlow, Nora ed. 1958. The autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809-1882. With the original omissions restored. Edited and with appendix and notes by his grand-daughter Nora Barlow. London: Collins, pp. 167ff. See also Correspondence vol. 28.