Village books

" In September, 1877, when
Life and Habit was on the eve of publication, Mr. Francis Darwin
came to lunch with him in Clifford's Inn and, in course of
conversation, told him that Professor Ray Lankester had written
something in Nature about a lecture by Dr. Ewald Hering of Prague,
delivered so long ago as 1870, "On Memory as a Universal Function of
Organized Matter." 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. He at once wrote to the Athenaeum, calling attention
to Hering's lecture, and then pursued his studies in evolution.
Life and Habit was followed in 1879 by Evolution Old and New,
wherein he compared the teleological or purposive view of evolution
taken by Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck with the view taken
by Charles Darwin, and came to the conclusion that the old was
better.


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