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How I came to write "Evolution, Old and New" Mr Darwin's "brief but imperfect" sketch of the opinions of the writers on evolution who had preceded him The reception which "Evolution, Old and New," met with. Though my book was out in 1877, it was not till January 1878 that I took an opportunity of looking up Professor Ray Lankester's account of Professor Hering's lecture.
I readily admit it; but why have so many of our leaders shown such a strong hankering after the theory, if there is nothing in it? The deadlock that I have pointed out as existing in Darwinism will, I doubt not, lead ere long to a consideration of Professor Hering's theory.
Francis Darwin had made several public allusions to Life and Habit; and in September, 1908, in his inaugural address to the British Association at Dublin, he did Butler the posthumous honour of quoting from his translation of Hering's lecture "On Memory," which is in Unconscious Memory, and of mentioning Butler as having enunciated the theory contained in Life and Habit.
This rather alarmed Butler, but he deferred looking up the reference until after December, 1877, when his book was out, and then, to his relief, he found that Hering's theory was very similar to his own, so that, instead of having something sprung upon him which would have caused him to want to alter his book, he was supported.
When, for example, Professor Ray Lankester first called attention to Professor Hering's address, he did not understand Mr. Spencer to be intending this. Spencer's polar forces or polarities of physiological units." He evidently found the prominence given to memory a help to him which he had not derived from reading Mr. Spencer's works.
I am not committed to the vibration theory of memory, though inclined to accept it on a prima facie view. All I am committed to is, that if memory is due to persistence of vibrations, so is heredity; and if memory is not so due, then no more is heredity. Finally, I may say that Professor Hering's lecture, the passage quoted from Dr.
This last, indeed, is perhaps the main purpose of the earlier chapters of this book. I shall presently give a translation of a lecture by Professor Ewald Hering of Prague, which appeared ten years ago, and which contains so exactly the theory I subsequently advocated myself, that I am half uneasy lest it should be supposed that I knew of Professor Hering's work and made no reference to it.
This rather alarmed Butler, but he deferred looking up the reference until after December, 1877, when his book was out, and then, to his relief, he found that Hering's theory was very similar to his own, so that, instead of having something sprung upon him which would have caused him to want to alter his book, he was supported.
As the book went on, I saw I was on firm ground, and the paradox was dropped. When I found what Professor Hering had done, I put him forward as best I could at once. I then learned German, and translated him, giving his words in full in "Unconscious Memory;" since then I have always spoken of the theory as Professor Hering's. Mr. Few except Mr. Romanes will say this.
Romanes is upholding the same opinions as Professor Hering's and my own, but their effect and tendency is more plain here than in Mr. Romanes' own book, where they are overlaid by nearly 400 long pages of matter which is not always easy of comprehension. The late Mr. Darwin himself, indeed whose mantle seems to have fallen more especially and particularly on Mr.
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