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Charles Darwin & Samuel Butler

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[Press Cutting]

For F Darwin

Cutting from the Granta

Dated January 20 1912

Address of Journal Cambridge

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[Mathematical calculations]

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120, Maida Vale, W. London.

24 Sept. 1910

Dear Sir

I saw the proposed Postscript to what is at present Chapter XXV of my life of Butler. This chapter deals with the year 1887 & was by mentioning that at the close of that year you published the Life & Letter of Charles Darwin & also the new edition of Erasmus Darwin. On page 2 of the Postscript is a paragraph queried. Inserted in this paragraph I think it would be better to insert letter from you to me saying at first hand, & not in the form of a repetition by me, whatever you may

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wish to say. I think also you would probably prefer this. I should like if to come here & not at the end because I do not want anything to come after the sonnet.

Would you please tell me (a) Whether I have omitted anything you think I ought to have said (b) whether I have inserted anything I ought not to have said (c) whether I have misinterpreted anything (d) whether I have made everything clear & lucid & (E) whether I have stated anything in a form you think offensive or that could possibly be considered offensive. With regard

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to this last important consideration, Streatfield & another literary friend have read the MS. & I have said if & Mr. Ernest Wedgwood & they all think I may send it to you as it is. I read it to Mrs Wedgwood because she is the only person I know intimately who knows & is connected with you & your family. She complained of one passage that it was not clear & I altered it after seeing her. Also I slightly varied one or two passages & added the one in MS. (about Mr Darwin not understanding) which has been seen by no one. But I do not think you are likely to object to it.

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I have had the Postscript typed in duplicate, so if you like to keep the copy I am sending you, pray do so. In any remarks you may wish to make it will be enough if you mention the page you refer to.

I am still retaining the correspondence you sent me because you may say something that will make it necessary for me to refer to it again.

Believe me yours very truly

Henry Festing Jones.

Francis Darwin Esq. F.R.S.

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Oct 14 [19]10

Dear Frank

I have read the whole paper twice through, it seems to me enormously diffuse & tiresome & so I don't think any human being will take the trouble to unravel it. But if one does, I think it is clear.

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I feel very strongly the whole Bovill incident should come out. I can't see what it elucidates, for it is of no matter to the world that you would like to have been reconciled to Butler. And Jones seems to think it very

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noble on Butler's part to have said that if you would retract he would forgive, but 6 words would show that, such as: "I have reason to think from Butler's note-books that he would have accepted "any public acknowledgement of error" & would he be only too glad to have let bygones be

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bygones." It seems to me perfectly babyish to put in all that long rigmarole about the dinner party & Crawley & you & Mrs Brodie. And then at the end there is an equally long or two long [illeg] about Shakespere's sonnets.

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& the resurrection & Colymbia & Miss Savage's club that would be so much better away.

The only sentence I care to have given is at the bottom of p. 6 Jan 31 "I was so angry etc"

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After that it seems to me perfectly immaterial what Butler wrote or thought. But however that's me & that sentence will certainly be left in. Have you got Uncommon Memory? I shd rather

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like to read Chapt IV & see how nasty he could be if you would lend it me. What a crooked mind he had! The whole paper seems to me to show the whole odiousness of his character & now he was eaten up with

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perverseness & vanity & suspicion –the nature of a madman & it brings back to me his close, bad, dark, little face –however that's Jones's look out. (Excuse these remarks on yr gt friend) I should not agree to the sentence p. 19 line 4 from top. I think for him to say that you consider

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that our Father behaved improperly because you disapproved at the way the matter was treated is a non sequitur.

And I should not like it to go forth to the world that I admitted that my Father

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did not behave properly.

"With regard to 3 Mr. F. Darwin has said that he disapproved at the way in which the matter was treated." would be inoffensive & true.

Goodbye dear F.

your affect

HEL

see a note of mine p. 17 & I have marked omit in the last pages in one or two places.

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P. S. It is curious now a sense of humour does not keep a man straight if his self is spelt with a sufficiently big S. – e.g. p. 6. he will break bread & he friends with a man whom he thinks has behaved as a literary [sneak] to the mighty dead, but when it is to me then I become very angry & throw off the gloves!

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Cutting from the Cambridge Review

Dated December 7 1911

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For F. Darwin

Literary World

Cutting from issue dated Feb 1912

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For F. Darwin

Irish Independent

Cutting from issue dated 19-2-1912

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For F. Darwin

The Western Morning News

Cutting from issue dated 13 Mar 1912

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Cutting from the Birmingham Post

Dated February 7 1912

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rough draft To Jones Nov 3/10

Dear Sir

I am glad to say that I have but few criticisms of any moment to make on yr P.S; I should like to point them not in order of yr pages

p 19 line 1

I dislike the expression "did not behave properly though I allow that from your point of view it is a reasonable phrase – Could you find some other words – I should say he was wrong in the sense of making a mistake in the line he took.

p 19 line 3

"I gave up, by admitting that Butler might have been wrong" – I think that this should read "was wrong" or "must have been wrong" (as you put

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it on p 16)

It seems to me that on this same page (p 19) something might be done with the Mrs Bovill incident which I & some of my family dislike much I naturally do not like appearing in a mixed role if futility & brutality in which I appear, but I also dislike Butler appearing at the begging of your discussion as an imposter of bad motives. I certainly did not wish to pose as placables I imagine that after meeting Mrs B I relapsed into feeling that any reconcile was hopeless. I cannot remember that I ever had a hint that Butler wd care for it. Indeed I am pretty sure that Crawley discouraged the notion.

What I should suggest is something of this

"I find in Butler's notebook (for    ) that FD had in very similar words inferred to a [illeg] B's his regret

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that a v v settlement had not been attempted in 18, It is possible that this covers "might have led the way to a reconciliation, for Butler records" If Darwin wd make any kind of public acknow of errors, any the least kind of public apology which I could accept, if he would offer this I should be bound to let bygones be bygones. I should be only too thankful to do so" But no further pour-parlers occurred, and nothing came of the matter."

p 11 line 11 "because of other matter" this seems to me to want some amplification, but as this might possibly [illeg] your sentence. I would suggest a footnote, some of the sort:-

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*Dr K

"The 'other matter' consisted in a reference by Mr D to Dr K's essay which had become incorrect on the omission by Dr/ K of certain biographical details from his part of the book.

In the Preface as originally written Mr D apologised for a certain duplication of biographical detail, which was in fact due to new matter added by Krause to the original artical. [sic] When K read the apology in the proof sheets of the Preface to Mr Darwin's essay, I am however inclined to think that my fathers longer letter to the Athenaeum if you are inclined to print it, would make the whole affair clearer

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p 12 line 10

I do not think it correct to say that the translated artical [sic] was in effect an attack." The attack is surely a vy small part of the whole

In the next sentence on p 12 "As Butler wrote…, it would give any reader the impression that you agree that CD went out of his way to say what was not true – which I am sure is not yr intention. Could you not say, "Butler's view of the situation is given in Unconscious M"

[In margin:] p 17 line 4 fr foot read some of his [illeg] L. Stephen & Huxley

or to give my view

p 19. I feel bound (not said) to say that the word "Butler was wrong," in my mind cover much more then you could [illeg] to admit the real cause of the whole affair viz Butlers narrowly suspicious & bitter interpretation of what as far as intention went were perfectly innocent words & deeds of my father

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If I might make one general comment, it wd be this, that the P.S is rather too long & spread out. It must always be hard enough to get people to read this sort of statement, and I think anything that makes it simpler & shorter is worth considering omit p 19 Dr Krause line 3 fr foot, to p 21 line 1 Revisited. Krause is dead & no one reads his CD book.

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p 7 see LD

p. 9 It was in a paper read at the Br Assoc at Cardiff 181, & published in the Annals of Botany Vol VI 1892 under the title On the A[rtificial] Prod[uction] of Rhythm in Plants by Fr D & Dor[othea] F M Pertz.

This repeating power may be that find [process] of living matter, wh stretches for inches on one side to memory (1) on the other…

(1) See Mr S.B's Life & Habit

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p 3-4 I don't see the use of printing the Mrs Bovill incident-

p 7. I do not remember having seen After all Mr D--- in the preface to the 2nd edit Evoln

14 I do not think B's letter ungentlemanlike, but hostile

19 Butler might have been wrong

19 My sentence abt wishing I had gone to Butler – is much better than the Bovill – wouldn't Bovill come here as a note

20 what is Ch IV of Uncons mem

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The chief thing I want to say is -- & this is omitted by Jones that Butler began the attack [crossed] affair with obvious hostility.

Also that his position about CD & himself was of the same unbal char as his accusations about CD & Eras D & Lamarck &c

[doodle]

Also suggest printing CD to Athenaeum

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Oct 21 10

CRIPPS CORNER

FOREST ROW,

SUSSEX.

My dear Frank,

What a muddled affair is Enclosed. As you say it wont be much read, and is not of much consequence. I should, therefore, if I were you, avoid as far as possible all responsibility. He seems as if he would like you to be nearly in the position of joint author, or fully responsible. I should in you shoes only

P.S. I suppose you rub out pencil note E.g. 'silly' on p 20.

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sanction in place or page 2 something like this:-

FD "who is glad to have had an opportunity of reading what I have written, and even more glad to have helped towards clearing up this misunderstanding."

If you sanction all he says it might have uncomfortable results, Is it accurate, in the first place? p. 3 did you mean Mrs B to pass on this to Butler? p 8 Do you agree you attacked Butler contemptuously?

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Personally I should avoid too detailed criticism so as to avoid responsibility. Could not you say that you cannot take responsibility, because if you did you would have to allude to what seems to you his almost insane behaviour in starting the quarrel, and also to show that Father (may have) had some ground for annoyance in Butlers book on Evolution Old & New, which justified his advising K. not to notice it. I should prefer this to asking him to put in any such sentence as that – suggested on p. 19. Then again if your sanction can be quoted, it may be quoted,

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unfairly no doubt, in connection with the restatement of Butler's that Father had lied: p 6 "Mr Darwin knew perfectly well that he was not &c &c, for example.

p 8 ditto. In fact my main point is don't take any responsibility.

Minor points, p. 7 It is not clear which entries are not from B's notes. p 17 I suppose I objected in Feb. 80, at a great family fair when L. S. & Co gave their advice.

I don't feel sure it is quite fair to give the names of L.S, H, & R B L, to cover Father's retreat, Could it be 2 distinguished mem & a relative?

Your affect

L. D.

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11, EGERTON PLACE, S.W.

Oct: 17th

My dear Frank,

I am glad to see this proof of Mr Festing Jones, & his letter. It is clear he means well & wishes to bring out facts clearly.

I don't see what can be done to cure his longwindedness. I should agree with Hen: as to cutting out most of his paragraphs as marked by her, especially the very silly one marked by her at the end, but no doubt he does not ask your opinion on this point.

I think on page 17 you should put 'I and one or two of my brothers.' I only heard vaguely of the matter & that it had been put before Huxley & others: if neither George or Horace had doubts, I think I should put accurately 'I and one of my brothers.' Referring back to page 2 I am inclined to think a definite line from you to Mr Jones would be well. I quite agree on page 18 that as to clause 2 'was' should stand instead of might have been!

In clause 3 I should say that acted under unfortunate (or mistaken) advice actually expressed the state of the case, which is entirely different from 'improperly'. When he had once laid the matter before Huxley & the others he was almost bound to follow their advice.

I think if I were Mr Festing Jones I should leave out Bovill incident, it

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shows a nasty spirit in Butler, & is not really necessary.

I quite agree that if any one reads the whole statement carefully he will see how the unfortunate business arose.

I have written a very untidy letter.

I should much fear as to the general success of Jones' work as a biographer.

Your affectionately,

WE Darwin

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POSTSCRIPT

It will be more convenient to give here the conclusion of the controversy which arose out of Dr. Krause's Kosmos article, although the doing so will necessitate referring to a correspondence which took place between Mr. Francis Darwin and myself so recently as 1910, more than thirty years after the appearance of the article. It was not till then that I understood what had really happened and how there would have been no trouble but for the unfortunate fact that Mr. Darwin inadvertently struck out certain words from his proofs and forgot that he had done so – forgot that they had ever been there. The whole story reads as though it were an illustration of something Butler often said when speaking of his life:-

Of mental suffering I have had my share- as who has not?- but most of what I have suffered has been, though I did not think so at the time, either imaginary or unnecessary and, so far, it has been soon forgotten. It has been much less than it very easily might have been if the luck had not now and again gone with me, and probably I have suffered less than most people, take it all round; like everyone else, however, I have got scars of old wounds. Very few of these wounds were caused by anything which was essential in the nature of things; most,

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if not all of them, have been due to faults of heart and head on my own part and on that of others, which, one would have thought, might have been easily avoided if in practice it had not turned out otherwise. (Condensed from the Note-Books)

In order that I might not inadvertently represent Mr. Francis Darwin as saying something he did not mean, I have submitted this Postscript to him; he has very kindly read it and authorises me to say that it does not in any way misrepresent him. This must not be taken to imply that he endorses what I have put down as having been thought or said by Butler nor what I say on my own responsibility, it only refers to what I report as having been written by Mr. F. Darwin.

In 1894 we had been frequently seeing Mrs. Alfred Bovill and in September Butler made this note:-

X FRANK DARWIN AND MYSELF

Mrs. Bovill told me in July that she had been staying at Cambridge and had dined at the Frank Darwins'. He took her in to dinner and in the course of it asked her if she had ever met a very charming writer etc. Samuel Butler. She said I was one of her most intimate friends (just as though Crawley

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hadn't told him so ever so many times).

"I have not seen him," said he, "for many years and I should greatly like to do so."

"Then why dont you call on him or ask him to come and see you?"

"Ah! this is a painful story. He said some things about my father which is was impossible for me to pass over and we have never met since, but I have often felt that the fault was in great part mine. If at the time I had gone up to him and talked the matter over with him, it could all have been made straight" &c. &c.

He then went on to say that I had been a charming companion and so on, and that the whole thing had been a great grief to him.

N.r (I take it that Frank Darwin meant all this to come round to me and intended that Mrs. Bovill should, if possible, effect a reconciliation. Nothing would suit me better; if Darwin would make any kind of public acknowledgement of error – any the least kind of public apology which I could accept – if he would offer this, I should be bound to let by-gones be by-gones. I should be only too thankful to do so. Without this, the acceptance by me of any overtures on his part would be immediately turned into an admission by me that the Darwins, father and son,

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had not behaved as badly as I have said in public that they did. What Darwin wants – for that he does want it I do not doubt – is that I should appear to retreat, and this I cannot do. In the meantime he poses to Mrs. Bovill as the placable and I as the implacable disputant.

Butler left among his papers the following summary; it is undated, but I give it here because I have no doubt that he made it in 1894 in consequence of his conversation with Mrs. Bovill. Besides, it will serve to refresh the reader's memory. The letters referred to and the extracts from some of the other documents will be found in the Appendix (post).

CHARLES DARWIN AND S. BUTLER.

1879. Feb. 12 Dr. Krause's article on Erasmus Darwin appeared in Kosmos (German Magazine)

-- Feb. 22 My book Evolution Old and New was announced as about to contain comparison between Erasmus Darwin and Charles Darwin.

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1879 Mar. 1st – (or thereabouts, but not sooner) Charles Darwin wrote to Krause proposing to have an English translation of Krause's article, and to write an introductory biographical sketch himself.

-- May 4 – My book Evolution Old and New was published.

-- May or June My book was sent to Dr. Krause and Darwin expressly asked Dr. K. not to notice it. ("Mr. D expressly solicited me to take no notice whatever of Mr. Butler's book." Letter from Dr. K to Nature, Jan. 27, 1881.)

-- June to Oct. Dr. Krause recast his article with Evolution Old and New before him, cut out much, and added much, taking certainly one important passage from Evolution Old and New, and apparently a second passage. He wound up with an angry attack on Evolution Old and New leaving the book (i.e. the altered article) as a pistol pointed at my head, but never (in consequence, no doubt, of Charles Darwin's request) mentioning it by name.

-- November – Charles Darwin's Erasmus Darwin appeared, with the amended edition of Dr. Krause's article. In the preface it was expressly declared that the article was an accurate translation of the article that had appeared in the February number of Kosmos. It was also expressly declared that "Mr.

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Butler's work Evolution Old and New" had appeared "since the publication of Dr. Krause's article". No mention was made of the fact that the article had been rewritten with an eye to Evolution Old and New. In fact the preface made this supposition impossible. Mr. Darwin knew perfectly well that he was not giving what he said he was giving: he knew he was saying that what he was publishing had appeared previously to my book, and he knew also that my book had in reality appeared prior to this by many months, and that Dr. Krause's article had been modified into an attack upon it.

1880 Jan. 2 – I wrote to Charles Darwin and asked an explanation – very civilly.

-- Jan. 3 – Darwin replied, acknowledged the revision and said that if a second edition was called for he would state that the article had been revised. There was no offer of any correction by way of erratum pasted into the book or letter to Times or Athenæum.

Jan. 31. – I was so angry at finding Darwin treat me exactly as he had treated Erasmus Darwin, Buffon, Lamarck and (the author of) The Vestiges, that I wrote to the Athenæum at once and stated the facts. January 31st the letter appeared. There was no reply from any one, which I took to mean that no

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reply was possible.

Knowing that Charles Darwin would not care about a newspaper letter, I wrote my book Unconscious Memoryand stated the facts in full. It appeared November 1880.

1880 Dec. 2 A savage attack on Unconscious Memory in the St. James's Gazette, full of gross misrepresentation.

-- Dec. 8. I replied and stated the facts. There was no reply.

1881 Jan. 27 A coarsely vituperative article on Unconscious Memory by Romanes in Nature, and a long letter from Dr. Krause.

-- Feb. 3 I replied at some length.

-- Feb. 10. an angry irrelevant reply from Romanes, and a note from the editor that the discussion must close. Here the matter ended.

1882 April 19 Death of Mr. Darwin.

-- April 21 Preface to the second edition of Evolution Old and New "After all Mr. Darwin may have been right, and I wrong"

(I think the summary incomplete without the following and the preceding reference and I do not know why Butler omitted them. H.F.J.)

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I wrote Alps and Sanctuaries (1881) with no reference to the dispute. I published my Selections (1884) with again no reference to the dispute. So also in 1886 Luck or Cunning and again did not return to the dispute.

1885 – Dr. Krause attacked me savagely in his Life of Charles Darwin published in Germany, but I did not reply.

1887 Frank Darwin published his father's Life and Letters in which he attacked me contemptuously on this matter.

-- Nov. 22 I at once wrote to the Athenæum and briefly recapitulated the facts. There was no answer.

1887 Dec. 1 (about) Frank Darwin published a second edition of Erasmus Darwin unaltered except for the addition of foot-note stating that Dr. Krause's article had been revised and added to before translation, and that among the additions there was an allusion to Evolution Old and New.

-- Dec. 14 I wrote to the Academy, called attention to the fact that the new edition had appeared and traversed Frank Darwin's contention that Mr. Darwin had "accidentally omitted" to say that Mr. Krause had revised his article before translation.

There was no answer.

Since then I have made no reference to the matter.

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Both before and after Butler's death (which occurred in 1902) Mr. Francis Darwin alluded in public to Life and Habit, speaking of it with approval and in 1908, when President of the British Association, in his inaugural Address at Dublin, he paid Butler the posthumous honour of quoting from his translation of Hering's lecture which is in Unconscious Memory and of mentioning Butler as having independently arrived at a theory similar to Hering's.

[Insertion:] Ordinary type x x I believe this is so. There is a letter to Butler from Marcus Hartog about a meeting at Cardiff (?) (2 pages this year) & I fancy I have read of other occasions before the Dublin meeting.

In May, 1910, Mr. Streatfield, as Butler's literary executor, published a new edition of Unconscious Memory, with an introduction by Professor Marcus Hartog summarising Butler's views on biology and defining his position in the world of science. It seemed a fortunate moment for this reprint to appear, first because Mr. Francis Darwin's Presidential Address; secondly because many sheets of the original edition of the book had been destroyed in a fire at Ballantyne's some years before, so that anyone who might have wanted to refer to Hering's address would be unable to buy Butler's translation of it; and thirdly because of the changed views of scientific men in regard to biology and what is called "Darwinism".

In June, 1910, Mr. Francis Darwin put himself into communication with me thinking that, as Butler's biographer, I

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ought to see certain letters referring to the controversy which were written in 1879, 1880 and 1881. He sent me the correspondence which was extremely interesting and threw much light on what had happened.

The reader will remember that Mr. Darwin, on receiving Butler's preliminary letter of 2 Jan. 1880, replied the next day and admitting that Dr. Krause had altered his article and that the altered MS. had been sent to Mr. Dallas for translation, continued thus: "This is so common a practice that it never occurred to me to state that the article had been modified; but now I much regret that I did not do so". Butler understood him to mean that he had expressly said nothing about the alterations because it was so common a practice to alter articles on republication that it never occurred to him to mention them. No one could guess from Mr. Darwin's words that, as a matter of fact, it had occurred to him to state that the article had been modified and that he had inadvertently struck the statement out of his preface and forgotten all about it; yet the letters sent me by Mr. F. Darwin disclose that this is what actually happened.

Among the correspondence are the drafts of the two separate letters which Mr. Darwin prepared for the Athenæum in reply to Butler's public accusation of 31 January. They are both dated

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1 Feb. 1880; in one of them, speaking of his preface to Erasmus Darwin he wrote: I find in the first proofs received from Messrs. Clowes these words: "Dr. Krause had added largely to his essay as it appeared in Kosmos." These words were afterwards accidentally omitted, and when I wrote privately to Mr. Butler I had forgotten that they had ever been written." [Barlow 1958]There is a longer passage to the same effect in the other draft; but Mr. Darwin sent neither of the letters to the Athenæum nor did he ever tell Butler that he had written these words in his preface. They formed part of a paragraph which was struck out at the request of Dr. Krause because of other matter which it contained and not with the intention of making it appear that the article had been translated without modification.

But the preface contained also two notes – one at the beginning which guaranteed the accuracy of the translation by Mr. Dallas of the article and the other at the end which stated that Evolution Old and New had appeared since the original article. so long as the paragraph with the words about the article having been modified was in the preface all was well, the first note guaranteed the accuracy of the translation of the modified article and the second note explained how it had been possible for Dr. Krause to modify his article with Butler's book before him. But when the

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paragraph was struck out the unforeseen result followed that the two notes changed their meaning. The first note about Mr. Dallas now referred to the unaltered article and practically declared that it had been translated as it originally appeared in Kosmos; and the second note that Evolution Old and New had appeared since Kosmos, confirmed this meaning by implying particularly that nothing in the translated article could possibly have got there in consequence of Evolution Old and New. And yet the translated article contained passages taken from, and was in effect an attack upon, that book. As Butler wrote in Unconscious Memory. "It was not merely that I did not occur to Mr. Darwin to state that the article had been modified since it was written – this would have been bad enough under the circumstances – but that it did occur to him to go out of his way to say what was not true." That is: Butler was complaining of two things. 1. Mr. Darwin's act of omission in saying nothing about the alterations; and 2. Mr. Darwin's act of commission in making the statements that were conveyed by the two notes; and of the two acts the latter was the more serious.

And why had Mr. Darwin put these two notes into his preface? – for, although the reference to the alterations might have been omitted by accident, notes get into prefaces only by design. Butler always wanted a reason for everything – if only some kind of working hypothesis to start with; he was fresh from

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the writing of Evolution Old and New and took the teleological view that Mr. Darwin had put the notes into his preface intending his reader to conclude that if the article as translated contained anything condemnatory of Evolution Old and New this "would show hoe little worthy I must be to consideration when my opinions were refused in advance by one who could have no bias in regard to them" (Unconscious Memory, Chap. IV.) He showed clearly in his letter to the Athenæum 31 Jan. 1880 that this was the conclusion he had arrive at and thereby gave <r. Darwin an opportunity of correcting him if he was wrong. Mr. Darwin said nothing and Butler construed his silence into an admission that the accusation was just. All that Butler wrote afterwards in the Athenæum and other papers and in Unconscious Memory was written in ignorance of there being any explanation other than this one which he had extracted from the facts, as they appeared to him, and from Mr. Darwin's private letter of 3 Jan. 1880.

On the 4th February, 1880, Mr. Darwin wrote to Dr. Krause: "I enclose a page from the Athenæum with a fierce attack by Mr. Butler on both of us, especially me. No doubt I committed a great error in not having stated that you had largely altered the article in Kosmos; but I now find that there was a sentence to this effect in the first proof-sheet, which was afterwards omitted." [Correspondence 28, p. 71] It is, of course, idle to say so now, but I wish Mr.

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Darwin had written this to Butler or that he had sent one of his draft letters to the Athenæum. He goes on to give the reason for his silence: "have consulted three men well capable of judging and they unanimously think Mr Butler's letter so ungentlemanlike as not to deserve an answer from me. He seems to insinuate that I suggested to you or persuaded you to add passages attacking his book, or that I myself interpolated such passages. As far as I can remember the sole suggestion which I made to you was to take no notice of Mr. Butler's book." [Ibid, p. 71]

I should expect everyone to take as prejudiced any opinion I might express as to whether Butler's attack was so ungentlemanlike as not to deserve an answer, accordingly I express none, but the letter to the Athenæum 31 Jan. 1880 will be found in the Appendix (post) and any reader who considers himself as well capable of judging as Sir Leslie Stephen, Professor Huxley and the other (who, I take it, was Mr. Litchfield, Mr. Darwin's son-in-law) can form his own opinion about it.

Mr. Francis Darwin sent me this unpublished passage from his father's Autobiography "Owing to my having accidentally omitted to mention that Dr. Krause had enlarged & corrected his article in German before it was translated, Mr Samuel Butler abused me with almost insane violence. How I

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offended him so bitterly, I have never been able to understand." [Barlow 1958]

Mr. Darwin not understanding why Butler was so much offended would perhaps make another reason for his leaving the accusation unanswered. But Butler thought he had been clear enough. His letter to the Athenæum 31 Jan. 1880 is given in full in the Appendix (post) where will also be found extracts from Unconscious Memory. This is the passage from the Athenæum in which he attempted to convey his meaning: "It is doubtless a common practice for writers to take an opportunity of revising their works, but it is not common when a covert condemnation of an opponent has been interpolated into a revised edition, the revision of which has been concealed, to declare with every circumstance of distinctness that the condemnation was written prior to the book which might appear to have called it forth, & thus lead readers to suppose that it must be an unbiassed opinion."

Dr. Krause in his account of the matter in his Charles Darwin (1885) says: "In vain did Mr. Darwin write to his accuser expressing regret for his 'serious oversight' and promising in a future edition to remove the cause". It is true that Mr. Darwin had expressed regret in writing to Butler but

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he did not speak to him of a "serious oversight" – on the contrary he used words which Butler understood to mean that he had intentionally omitted all reference to the modifications because it was so common a practice to alter articles on republication that it never occurred to him to mention them. It is true also that he promised to state that the article had been modified, but this was only to be done "should there be a reprint of the English Life".

In 1887 Mr. Francis Darwin in the Life and Letters of Charles Darwin also referred to the natter as an "oversight", In the same year he also published a new edition of Erasmus Darwin and took the opportunity of fulfilling his father's promise to Butler by inserting a third foot-note to the preface: "Mr. Darwin accidentally omitted to mention that Dr. Krause revised and made certain alterations to his essay before it was translated. Among these additions is an allusion to Mr. Butler's book Evolution Old and New." Butler saw that this third foot-note changed the sense which the other two notes had borne when they stood alone in the preface to the first edition, and wrote to the Academy, 17th Dec. 1887: "Mr. Francis Darwin has now stultified his father's preface." In so writing he did not know, and he had no means of knowing, that Mr. Francis Darwin's third foot-note had restored to the preface the meaning which Charles Darwin had originally intended it to bear.

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The expressions "oversight" and "accidentally omitted" apply well enough to the omission by Mr. Darwin to state that Dr. Krause's article had been modified, though they cannot, of course, apply to the words of Mr. Darwin's private letter to Butler that it never occurred to him to mention the alterations, inasmuch as it had occurred to him to do so. But it is not clear how "oversight" and "accidentally omitted" can be made to apply to the second and more serious of Butler's complaints, that Mr. Darwin had intentionally made the statements conveyed by the two notes as they stood in the first edition. Nevertheless, now that we have they key to the enigma which puzzled to what caused the preface to appear with the absence of all reference to the alterations and the presence of the two notes we can see that they may apply to Mr. Darwin's inadvertence in striking out the words stating that the article had been modified. Thus we see that Butler's two complaints of omission and commission were directed against what was really a single error which, though originally of accidental omission, remained to be apparently of intentional commission.

With regard to Mr. Darwin's lapse of memory nothing need be said about it – no one's memory is infallible and Mr. Darwin was near the end of his life. Nor do I desire to make any

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comment upon his subsequent treatment of the incident. Even if I did so desire, I should suppress the comment for the following reason. It appears from the correspondence that Mr. Darwin, in leaving his private letter of 3 January 1880 uncorrected and it taking no public notice of Butler's public accusation, acted upon the advice of some (but not all) of the members of his family and also of Sir (then Mr.) Leslie Stephen and of Professor Huxley. Mr. Francis Darwin has authorised me to state that, certainly, in January 1881 and, perhaps, earlier, he and one or two of his brothers, disapproving of this advice, wished a fly sheet should be inserted in the unsold copies of the Life if Erasmus Darwin stating as an erratum on p. 1. 10 lines from top that Krause's article in Kosmos was altered and enlarged before it was sent to Mr. Dallas for translation." If this had been done as soon as the error was pointed out, then "there would have been no more heard about the matter from' Butler, in which case Chapter IV of Unconscious Memory would never have been written.

In asking Mr. Francis Darwin whether he consented to my bringing out some of these points and especially the point that he and some of his brothers disapproved of the advice given by Professor Huxley and Leslie Stephen, I inquired whether he had had any other special reason for sending me the letters. He gave his consent and added: "I had hoped that the general impression

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of the papers sent you would have led you to suspect that Butler was mistaken, but I do not mean to complain if this is not in any degree the case".

I understood him to mean mistaken in supposing that Mr. Darwin had undertaken his book Erasmus Darwin because of or with reference to Evolution Old and New. Even in 1879-1880 when the events were proceeding I had suspected that Butler might have been mistaken in this and I therefore told Mr. F. Darwin so. I could not tell him that my suspicion arose in consequence of reading the letters he sent me, but I may now say that, after reading them and thinking them over again for the purpose of writing this Postscript, I have become convinced that Butler must have been mistaken. Further I am sure that if he had known what I know now he would have been confirmed in what he wrote in his preface to the second edition of Evolution Old and New. "After all, Mr. Darwin may have been right and I wrong" and he would have taken or made an opportunity of putting the matter straight.

The case then stood thus: Butler's accusation was in three counts:

1. That Mr. Darwin undertook Erasmus Darwin because of or with reference to Evolution Old and New;

2. That his preface contained an error;

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3. That he did not behave properly [crossed] [insertion:] some other expression wanted when the error was pointed out to him.

I gave up 1 by admitting that Butler might have been [crossed] [insertion:] was wrong. We agreed about 2. And Mr. F. Darwin admitted by saying that he disapproved of the way in which the matter was treated.

Having reached this point Mr. F. Darwin wrote in a subsequent letter: "I have often regretted that when the quarrel began I did not go to Butler and have it out viva voce. I also think I was mistaken in not publishing in Life and Letters a full account of the thing." I seemed to have read something like this before, but could not remember where. After a few days consideration I started on a voyage of discovery through Butler's Note-Books and found the passage about Mrs. Bovill and Mr. Francis given above. I had forgotten it as completely as Mr. Darwin forgot about the paragraph he struck out of his preface. I was much pleased to find it, because it showed me that I had treated the opportunity given me by Mr. F. Darwin in the spirit in which Butler himself would have treated it if it had been offered to him.

Dr. Krause in his Charles Darwin, speaking of Butler, says "This not very scrupulous writer, in his endeavour to make it a means of gaining notoriety, accused Darwin", &c. Passing over

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the point that "this Quixotically scrupulous writer" would be a more accurate description of Butler, it is strange that anyone could read the letters in the Appendix (post) and Chapter IV of Unconscious Memory and think the writer was either unscrupulous or seeking to gain notoriety. We must not forget, however, that some of the members of Miss Savage's club read Dr. Dudgeon's Colymbia and thought in was by the author of Erewhon, and that there are people who have read Shakespeare's Sonnets and believe them to have been composed as academic exercises – a fact which Butler was to have forced upon him later in his life.

There is another thing about Chapter IV of Unconscious Memory: it is written with so much dignity and restraint – with such evident sincerity and depth of outraged feeling – it seems impossible that its solemn and haunting words can have anything to do with a misconception. Nevertheless, such apparent impossibilities may happen and, in Butler's own view, something of the kind happened in the case of the Christian religion.

Jesus Christ did not die on the Cross and consequently did not rise from the dead, yet his disciples believed he did and, as I have said elsewhere, what might follow from belief in something which did not actually happen was in Butler's mind in New Zealand, when he was writing his pamphlet about the Resurrection, and remained in his mind till the end of his life, when it

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became the chief motive of Erewhon Revisited.

Mr. Darwin and Butler cannot now meet and adjust their differences. Nevertheless, unknown to themselves, they have met and parted and met again in this correspondence between Mr. Francis Darwin and myself; I trust we have succeeded in composing their quarrel in so far as it may be given to the representatives of dead men to act for them. All the time there has been running in my head the sonnet about immortality which Butler wrote in 1898, for I know that, though he was thinking of immortality in a broad sense, he had not forgotten his dispute with Mr. Darwin whose pupil he had been and whom he also held as foe.

Μέλλοντα Ταύτα

Not on sad Stygian shore, nor in clear sheen

Of far Elysian plain, shall we meet those

Among the dead whose pupils we have been,

Nor those great shades whom we have held as foes;

No meadow of asphodel our feet shall tread,

Nor shall we look each other in the face

To love or hate each other being dead,

Hoping some praise, or fearing some disgrace.

We shall not argue saying "'Twas thus" or "Thus,"

Our argument's whole drift we shall forget;

Who's right, who's wrong, 'twill be all one to us;

We shall not even know that we have met.

Yet meet we shall, and part, and meet again,

Where dead men meet, on lips of living men.