The Note-Books of Samuel Butler

rat

tions to

butions to the theory of evol

o remote ancestors, the phenomena of old age, the causes of the sterility of hybrids and the princip

, to me, seems hardly (if at all) less important than the L

ever, that I can see, meant to say anything of the kind, but I forced my view on him, as it were, by taking hold of a sentence or two in his

aw (sometimes called Mendelejeff's law) that there is only one substance, and that the characteristics of the vibrations going on within it at any given time will determine whet

to this view the form and characteristics of the elements are as much the living expositions of certain vibrations-are as much our manner of perceiving that the vibrations going on in that part of the one universal substance are such and such-as the colour yellow is our perception that a substanc

hood that I look for the connecti

versal

d is not a thing or, if it be, we know nothing about it; it is a function of matter.

of its opposite; and we should see this substance as at once both material and mental, whether it be in the one condition or in the other. The statical condition r

, which is material, is mentalised. It is like the present, which unites times past and futur

on, and every action involves thought, conscious or unconscious. The action is the point of juncture between bodily change, visible and otherwise sensible, and mental change whi

utely statical state. But when it is not at rest, it becomes perceptible both to itself and others; that is to say, it assumes material guise such as makes it imperceptible both to itself and others. It is then tending towards rest, i.e. in a dynamical state. The not being at rest is the being in a vibratory condition. It is the disturbance of the repose of the universal, in

urbed, but the moment they are disturbed the stuff becomes material and the mind perceptible. It is not easy to disturb them, for the atmosphere protects them. So long as th

we must look for the extension of the world when it has become over-peopled or when, through its g

and P

ittle, unseen impalpable hope sets up a vibrating movement in a messy substance shut in a dark warm place inside the man's skull. The vibrating substance undergo

mory and Chemi

action. Quality is only one mode of action; the action of developing, the desire to make this or that,

substratum into the particular phase of it required and awaken a consciousness of, and a memory of and a desire towards, this particular phase on the part of the molecules which are being vibrated into it. So,

m and Rep

o any fragment that is broken off; whereas in the case of air and water, vibrations get soon effaced and only very recent vibrations get carried into the young air and the young water which are, therefore, born fully grown;

within

lf into a salmon (male or female) in the persons of the single pair of salmon its parents, do we intend that each single one of these germs was a witness of, and a concurring age

admit, after even a very few generations, that each ancestor has contained more germs than could be expressed by a number written in small numerals, beginning a

hat unite to form any given sexually produced individual were not present in the germs, or with the g

virtue of assimilation they have acquired certain periodical rhythms already pre-existing in the parental bodies, and that the communication of the characteristics of th

hat I suppose to be their memory of their previous developments, were not participators in any previous development and cannot therefore remember it. They cannot remember even a single development, much less can they remember that infinite series of developments the recollection and epitomisation of which is a sine qua non for the unconsciousness which we note in normal development.

o form the germs that afterwards become their offspring, is living or non-living. If living, then it has its own memories and life-histories which must be cancelled

been begotten of other like living matter; we deny that it can have become living from non-living. Here, however, within the bodies of animals and vegetables we find equivocal generation a necessity; nor do I see any way out of it except

yet on receipt of such accession set the game of development going and maintain it. It will be observed that the rhythms supposed to be communicated to any germs are such as have been already repeatedly refreshed by rhythms from exterior objects in preceding generations

and Fi

kind of intelligence and free will to atoms or they are talking nonsense. T

less regular or uniform if they had free will than if they had not. By giving them free will we do no more than those who make them bound to obey

everywhere in nature, these are the things that prevent even the most reliable things from being absolutely reliable. It is they that form the point of contact between this universe and

nd less complex than ours as their

volition, and to hold them to be pro tanto, living. We must suppose them able to remember and forget, i.e. to retain certain vibrations that have been once e

in

s equilibrium. It is all a mode of classifying and of criticising with a vi

ili

ciousness there is still consciousness. If there is no consciousness there is no

ium and absolute equilibrium involves absolute unconsciousness. Christ is equilibrium-the not wanting anyth