Luck or Cunning as the Main Means of Organic Modification

Samuel Butler (1835-1902)
⎸
Luck or Cunning?, by Samuel Butler

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Luck or Cunning?, by Samuel Butler (#11 in our series by Samuel Butler)
Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the header without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
Title: Luck or Cunning?
Author: Samuel Butler
Release Date: January, 2004 [EBook #4967] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on April 5, 2002] [Most recently updated: April 5, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, LUCK OR CUNNING? ***

Transcribed by David Price, email [email protected] from the 1922 Jonathan Cape edition

LUCK, OR CUNNING AS THE MAIN MEANS OF ORGANIC MODIFICATION

NOTE

This second edition of Luck, or Cunning? is a reprint of the first edition, dated 1887, but actually published in November, 1886. The only alterations of any consequence are in the Index, which has been enlarged by the incorporation of several entries made by the author in a copy of the book which came into my possession on the death of his literary executor, Mr. R. A. Streatfeild. I thank Mr. G. W. Webb, of the University Library, Cambridge, for the care and skill with which he has made the necessary alterations; it was a troublesome job because owing to the re-setting, the pagination was no longer the same.
Luck, or Cunning? is the fourth of Butler's evolution books; it was followed in 1890 by three articles in The Universal Review entitled "The Deadlock in Darwinism" (republished in The Humour of Homer), after which he published no more upon that subject.
In this book, as he says in his Introduction, he insists upon two main points: (1) the substantial identity between heredity and memory, and (2) the reintroduction of design into organic development; and these two points he treats as though they have something of that physical life with which they are so closely associated. He was aware that what he had to say was likely to prove more interesting to future generations than to his immediate public, "but any book that desires to see out a literary three-score years and ten must offer something to future generations as well as to its own." By next year one half of the three-score years and ten will have passed, and the new generation by their constant enquiries for the work have already begun to show their appreciation of Butler's method of treating the subject, and their readiness to listen to what was addressed to them as well as to their fathers.
HENRY FESTING JONES. March, 1920.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION

This book, as I have said in my concluding chapter, has turned out very different from the one I had it in my mind to write when I began it. It arose out of a conversation with the late Mr. Alfred Tylor soon after his paper on the growth of trees and protoplasmic continuity was read before the Linnean Society--that is to say, in December, 1884--and I proposed to make the theory concerning the subdivision of organic life into animal and vegetable, which I have broached in my concluding chapter, the main feature of the book. One afternoon, on leaving Mr. Tylor's bedside, much touched at the deep disappointment he evidently felt at being unable to complete the work he had begun so ably, it occurred to me that it might be some pleasure to him if I promised to dedicate my own book to him, and thus, however unworthy it might be, connect it with his name. It occurred to me, of course, also that the honour to my own book would be greater than any it could confer, but the time was not one for balancing considerations nicely, and when I made my suggestion to Mr. Tylor on the last occasion that I ever saw him, the manner in which he received it settled the question. If he had lived I should no doubt have kept more closely to my plan, and should probably have been furnished by him with much that would have enriched the book and made it more worthy of his
Continue reading on your phone by scaning this QR Code

 / 107
Tip: The current page has been bookmarked automatically. If you wish to continue reading later, just open the Dertz Homepage, and click on the 'continue reading' link at the bottom of the page.