Life and Habit

by Samuel Butler

Life and death, then, should be memory and forgetfulness, for we are dead to all that we have forgotten.

Life is that property of matter whereby it can remember. Matter which can remember is living; matter which cannot remember is dead.

Life, then, is memory. The life of a creature is the memory of a creature. We are all the same stuff to start with, but we remember different things, and if we did not remember different things we should be absolutely like each other. As for the stuff itself of which we are made, we know nothing save only that it is “such as dreams are made of.”

I am aware that there are many expressions throughout this book, which are not scientifically accurate. Thus I imply that we tend towards the centre of the earth, when, I believe, I should say we tend towards to the centre of gravity of the earth. I speak of “the primordial cell,” when I mean only the earliest form of life, and I thus not only assume a single origin of life when there is no necessity for doing so, and perhaps no evidence to this effect, but I do so in spite of the fact that the amœba, which seems to be “the simplest form of life,” does not appear to be a cell at all. I have used the word “beget,” of what, I am told, is asexual generation, whereas the word should be confined to sexual generation only. Many more such errors have been pointed out to me, and I doubt not that a larger number remain of which I know nothing now, but of which I may perhaps be told presently.

I did not, however, think that in a work of this description the additional words which would have been required for scientific accuracy were worth the paper and ink and loss of breadth which their introduction would entail. Besides, I know nothing about science, and it is as well that there should be no mistake on this head; I neither know, nor want to know, more detail than is necessary to enable me to give a fairly broad and comprehensive view of my subject. When for the purpose of giving this, a matter importunately insisted on being made out, I endeavoured to make it out as well as I could; otherwise—that is to say, if it did not insist on being looked into, in spite of a good deal of snubbing, I held that, as it was blurred and indistinct in nature, I had better so render it in my work.

Nevertheless, if one has gone for some time through a wood full of burrs, some of them are bound to stick. I am afraid that I have left more such burrs in one part and another of my book, than the kind of reader whom I alone wish to please will perhaps put up with. Fortunately, this kind of reader is the best-natured critic in the world, and is long suffering of a good deal that the more consciously scientific will not tolerate; I wish, however, that I had not used such expressions as “centres of thought and action” quite so often.

As for the kind of inaccuracy already alluded to, my reader will not, I take it, as a general rule, know, or wish to know, much more about science than I do, sometimes perhaps even less; so that he and I shall commonly be wrong in the same places, and our two wrongs will make a sufficiently satisfactory right for practical purposes.

Of course, if I were a specialist writing a treatise or primer on such and such a point of detail, I admit that scientific accuracy would be de rigueur; but I have been trying to paint a picture rather than to make a diagram, and I claim the painter’s license “quidlibet audendi.” I have done my utmost to give the spirit of my subject, but if the letter interfered with the spirit, I have sacrificed it without remorse.

May not what is commonly called a scientific subject have artistic value which it is a pity to neglect? But if a subject is to be treated artistically—that is to say, with a desire to consider not only the facts, but the way in which the reader will feel concerning those facts, and the way in which he will wish to see them rendered, thus making his mind a factor of the intention, over and above the subject itself—then the writer must not be denied a painter’s license. If one is painting a hillside at a sufficient distance, and cannot see whether it is covered with chestnut-trees or walnuts, one is not bound to go across the valley to see. If one is painting a city, it is not necessary that one should know the names of the streets. If a house or tree stands inconveniently for one’s purpose, it must go without more ado; if two important features, neither of which can be left out, want a little bringing together or separating before the spirit of the place can be well given, they must be brought together, or separated. Which is a more truthful view, of Shrewsbury, for example, from a spot where St. Alkmund’s spire is in parallax with St. Mary’s—a view which should give only the one spire which can be seen, or one which should give them both, although the one is hidden? There would be, I take it, more representation in the misrepresentation than in the representation—“the half would be greater than the whole,” unless, that is to say, one expressly told the spectator that St. Alkmund’s spire was hidden behind St. Mary’s—a sort of explanation which seldom adds to the poetical value of any work of art. Do what one may, and no matter how scientific one may be, one cannot attain absolute truth. The question is rather, how do people like to have their error? than, will they go without any error at all? All truth and no error cannot be given by the scientist more than by the artist; each has to sacrifice truth in one way or another; and even if perfect truth could be given, it is doubtful whether it would not resolve itself into unconsciousness pure and simple, consciousness being, as it were, the clash of small conflicting perceptions, without which there is neither intelligence nor recollection possible. It is not, then, what a man has said, nor what he has put down with actual paint upon his canvass, which speaks to us with living language—it is what he has thought to us (as is so well put in the letter quoted on page 83), by which our opinion should be guided;—what has he made us feel that he had it in him, and wished to do? If he has said or painted enough to make us feel that he meant and felt as we should wish him to have done, he has done the utmost that man can hope to do.

I feel sure that no additional amount of technical accuracy would make me more likely to succeed, in this respect, if I have otherwise failed; and as this is the only success about which I greatly care, I have left my scientific inaccuracies uncorrected, even when aware of them. At the same time, I should say that I have taken all possible pains as regards anything which I thought could materially affect the argument one way or another.