Life and Habit

Transcribed from the 1910 Jonathan Cape edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.lorg
By Samuel Butler
Jonathan Cape Eleven Gower Street, London
FIRST PUBLISHED 1878
SECOND EDITION 1878
NEW EDITION WITH ADDENDA AND PREFACE BY R. A. STREATFEILD 1910
REPRINTED 1924
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY BUTLER AND TANNER LTD., FROME AND LONDON
THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED TO CHARLES PAINE PAULI, Esq. BARRISTER-AT-LAW IN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF HIS INVALUABLE CRITICISM OF THE PROOF-SHEETS OF THIS AND OF MY PREVIOUS BOOKS AND IN RECOGNITION OF AN OLD AND WELL-TRIED-FRIENDSHIP
“To me it seems that my contributions to the theory of evolution have been mainly these:
The present edition of “Life and Habit” is practically a re-issue of that of 1878. I find that about the year 1890, although the original edition was far from being exhausted, Butler began to make corrections of the text of “Life and Habit,” presumably with the intention of publishing a revised edition. The copy of the book so corrected is now in my possession. In the first five chapters there are numerous emendations, very few of which, however, affect the meaning to any appreciable extent, being mainly concerned with the excision of redundancies and the simplification of style. I imagine that by the time he had reached the end of the fifth chapter Butler realised that the corrections he had made were not of sufficient importance to warrant a new edition, and determined to let the book stand as it was. I believe, therefore, that I am carrying out his wishes in reprinting the present edition from the original plates. I have found, however, among his papers three entirely new passages, which he probably wrote during the period of correction and no doubt intended to incorporate into the revised edition. Mr. Henry Festing Jones has also given me a copy of a passage which Butler wrote and gummed into Mr. Jones’s copy of “Life and Habit.” These four passages I have printed as an appendix at the end of the present volume.