The three essays grouped together under the title The Deadlock in Darwinism may be regarded as a postscript to Butler’s four books on evolution, viz. Life and Habit, Evolution Old and New, Unconscious Memory, and Luck or Cunning? When these essays were first published in book form in 1904, I ventured to give a brief summary of Butler’s position with regard to the main problem of evolution. I need now only refer readers to Mr. Festing Jones’s biographical sketch and, for fuller details, to the masterly introduction contributed by Professor Marcus Hartog to the new edition of Unconscious Memory (A. C. Fifield, 1910), and recently reprinted in his Problems of Life and Reproduction (John Murray, 1913), in which Butler’s work in the field of biology and his share in the various controversies connected with the study of evolution are discussed with the authority of a specialist.
R. A. STREATFEILD. July, 1913.
Sketch of the Life of Samuel Butler
Author of Erewhon
(1835-1902)
by Henry Festing Jones
Note
This sketch of Butler’s life, together with the portrait which forms the frontispiece to this volume, first appeared in December, 1902, in The Eagle, the magazine of St. John’s College, Cambridge. I revised the sketch and read it before the British Homœopathic Association at 43 Russell Square, London, W.C., on the 9th February, 1910; some of Butler’s music was performed by Miss Grainger Kerr, Mr. R. A. Streatfeild, Mr. J. A. Fuller Maitland, and Mr. H. J. T. Wood, the secretary of the Association. I again revised it and read it before the Historical Society of St. John’s College, Cambridge, in the combination room of the college on the 16th November, 1910; the Master (Mr. R. F. Scott), who was also Vice-Chancellor of the University, was in the chair, and a vote of thanks was proposed by Professor William Bateson, F.R.S.
As the full Memoir of Butler on which I am engaged is not yet ready for publication, I have again revised the sketch, and it is here published in response to many demands for some account of his life.
H. F. J.
August, 1913.
Sketch of the Life of Samuel Butler
Author of Erewhon (1835-1902)
Samuel Butler was born on the 4th December, 1835, at the Rectory, Langar, near Bingham, in Nottinghamshire. His father was the Rev. Thomas Butler, then Rector of Langar, afterwards one of the canons of Lincoln Cathedral, and his mother was Fanny Worsley, daughter of John Philip Worsley of Arno’s Vale, Bristol, sugar-refiner. His grandfather was Dr. Samuel Butler, the famous headmaster of Shrewsbury School, afterwards Bishop of Lichfield. The Butlers are not related either to the author of Hudibras, or to the author of the Analogy, or to the present Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Butler’s father, after being at school at Shrewsbury under Dr. Butler, went up to St. John’s College, Cambridge; he took his degree in 1829, being seventh classic and twentieth senior optime; he was ordained and returned to Shrewsbury, where he was for some time assistant master at the school under Dr. Butler. He married in 1832 and left Shrewsbury for Langar. He was a learned botanist, and made a collection of dried plants which he gave to the Town Museum of Shrewsbury.