Selections from Previous Works / With Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals, and a Psalm of Montreal

Transcribed from the 1884 Trübner & Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
WITH REMARKS ON MR. G. J. ROMANES’ “ MENTAL EVOLUTION IN ANIMALS ” and A PSALM OF MONTREAL
by SAMUEL BUTLER
“The course of true science, like that of true love, never did run smooth.” Professor Tyndall, Pall Mall Gazette , Oct 30, 1883.
(Op. 7)
Ballantyne Press ballantyne, hanson and co. edinburgh and london
This Mr. Romanes has not thought it incumbent upon him to give. I am told I ought not to have expected him to give it, inasmuch as it is no longer usual for men of any but the lowest scientific standing to correct their misstatements when they are brought to book. Science is made for Fellows of the Royal Society, and for no one else, not Fellows of the Royal Society for science; and if the having achieved a certain position should still involve being obliged to be as scrupulous and accurate as other people, what is the good of the position? This view of the matter is practical, but I
regret that Mr. Romanes should have taken it, for his having done so has prevented my being able to tell the reader what Canon Kingsley said about memory and instinct, and this he might have been glad to know.
I suspect, however, that what Canon Kingsley said was after all not very important. If it had been, Mr. Romanes would have probably told us what it was in his own book. I should think it possible that Mr. Romanes—not finding Canon Kingsley’s words important enough to be quoted, or even referred to correctly, or never having seen them himself and not knowing exactly what they were, yet being anxious to give every one, and more particularly Canon Kingsley, his due—felt that this was an occasion on which he might fairly take advantage of his position and say at large whatever he was in the humour for saying at the moment.
I should not have thought this possible if I had not ere now had reason to set Mr. Romanes down as one who was not likely to be squeamish about trifles. Nevertheless, on this present occasion I certainly did think that he had only made a slip such as we all make sometimes, and such as he would gladly take the earliest opportunity to correct. As it is, I do not know what to think, except that D.C.L.’s and F.R.S.’s seem to be made of much the same frail materials as we ordinary mortals are.