The Note-Books of Samuel Butler

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ncerning them which, right or wrong, we must make the best of without more words, for

ou cannot have a thing "matter" by itself which shall have no motion in it, nor yet a thing "motion" by itself which shall exist apart from matter; you must have both or neither. Yo

one state one name, and another another, as though it were a man or a dog; but it is the state not the matter that we cognise, just as it is the man's moods and outward semblance that we alone note, while knowing nothing of

es of Luck or Cunning? but I am not going to be at the trouble of seeing. For, if the substance is eternal and unknowable and

esides, we cannot have substance changing without condition changing, and if we could we might as well ignore condition. Does it not seem as though, since the motions or states are all

s and chairs and stones that appear not to be moving, and this

and absolute latency being unattainable), and lay down that motion latent as motion becomes patent as subst

severe influenza and have no do

r and

existence of mind. I doubt it. I doubt how far we have an

hing we are hearing of. But when we try to think of matter apart from every attribute of matter (and this I suspect comes ultimately to "apart from every attribute of mind") we get no image before our closed eyes-we realise nothing to ourselves. Perhaps we

rtainty, union and separateness. There is no absolute heat, life, certainty

ts not having still a few degrees of cold in it which can be extracted. Heat and cold are always relative to one another, they are never absolute. So with life and death, there is neither perfect life nor perfect death, but in the highest life there is some

i

soul-a somethin

ion without something that is moving, so we cannot imagine an energy

it as capable of some kind of working power or energy-we canno

see them. They are the helpmeets to one another that cross each other and undo each

and In

nderstand their own. What we call inorganic matter cannot understand the animals' an

for our senses or for any of those appliances with which we assist them. It

that ice was a fluid, so it has taken them and will continue to take th

r to mak

n not to mistake it any more, we should say oxygen was alive. The older life is, the more unerring it becomes in respect of things about which

on, and was gravity once-or rather, were things once

ife is I will tell him whether

esence of

then, the inorganic world has not got an intelligence. Even this is now being denied. Death is being defeated at all points. No sooner do we think we have got a bona fide barrier than it breaks down. The divisions between varieties, species, genu

r-Organi

and as the organic kingdom supervened upon the inorganic (vestiges of the old being, again, carried over into and still persisting in the new) so a th

and habits now prevailing among ourselves than we are by those still obtaining among stones or water. Nevertheless, if a man be shot out of a cannon, or fall from a great height, he is to all intents and purposes a mere stone. Place anyth

el

part distinguish. He is a substance feeling equilibrium or want of equilibrium; that is to say, he is

r foundation in volition and deal largely in convention; as we should not be word-ridden so neither should we be feeling-ridden; feelings can de

government which is frequently at a loss to know what feeling to apply. Sometimes it happens to discern the right feeling and apply it, sometimes it hits upon an inappropriate one and is thus induced to proceed from solecism to solecism till the consequences lead to a crisis from which we recover and which, then becoming a leading case, forms one of the decisions on which our future action is based. Sometimes it applies a feeling that is too inappro

t some of the organic in it. We know that we have nerves and that we feel, it does not follow that other things do not feel because they have no nerves-it only follows that they do not feel as we do. The difference between the organic and the inorganic kingdoms will some da

between man and the lower animals is one of degree and not of kind. The inorganic is less expert in differentiating its feelings, therefore its memory of them must be less enduring; it cannot recognise what it could scarcely cognise. One might as well for some purposes, perhaps, say at once, as indeed people generally do for most purposes, that the inorganic does not feel; n

s and plants is to that of inorganic things. In each case it is greater discriminating power (and this is ment

n and

ial conflict without attendant clash of opinion. Opinion and matter act and react as do all things else; they come up hand in hand out of somethi

Infl

e. I come a little nearer. It makes a worse face and raises itself up on its haunches. I stand and look. It jumps down from its shelf and

that one can make that other more uncom

d Physica

um, how like it is to wasps flying up and down an apricot tree that

nd Prose

so, to our own way of thinking, and, when it sticks to its own opinion and refuses to be converted, we say it disagrees with us. An animal that refuses to let another eat it ha

paring it for new ideas. All food must first be prepared for us by animals and plants, or we cannot assimilate it; and so thoughts are more easily assimilated that have been already digested by other minds. A man should a

hould be no row. As we get older we must digest more quietly still, our appetite is less, our gastric juices are no longer so eloquent, they have lost that cogent fluency whi

Sick

pression of the pain we feel on seeing a proselyte es

ige

of our own arguments; but it may also arise from an attempt on the part of the stomach to be too damned clever, and to de

ion and P

are acts of persecution. Our aim should be to persecute nothing but such things as are absolutely incapable of resisti

initely Su

vided into pieces smaller than a certain size; and, if we can know nothing about it when so divide

fer

rything can in the end be united with everything by easy stages if a way long enough and round-about enough be taken. Hence to the metaphysician everything will become one, being united with everything else by degrees so

and Se

iscence of union. When they are most separate, the atoms seem to bear in mind that they may one day have to come together again; when

the puzzled sense of a vast number of things which feel they are in an illogical position and should be more either of one thing or the other than they are. So they will first be this and t

ing, we fling it away from us. All disruption and dissolution is a

It is swayed by its sense of being a separate thing-of having a life to itself which nothing can share; it is also swayed by the feeling that, in spite of this, it is

and Mu

hand, we can no longer unify things as we once could; we are driven to ultimate atoms, each one of which is an individuality. So that we have an

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it at all unless we so conceive it. The only true atom, the only thing which we cannot subdivide and cut in half, is the universe. We cannot cut a bit off the universe and put it somewhere else. Theref

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th through a microscope, would probably think the ants and flies of one year the same as those of the preceding year. I should have added:-So we think we are composed of the same cel

and P

-and it becomes part and parcel of another nervous system. Letters in transitu contain all manner of varied stimuli and shocks, yet to the postman, who is the nerve that conveys

e, to us, as we think of a piece of brain inside our own heads, it seems as absurd to consider that it knows anything at all as it seems to consider that a hen's egg knows anything; but then if the brain could see us, perhaps the brain might say it was a

veying, but, if he does this, he is diseased qua postman. So, maybe, a nerve might

hirts a

full swollen with a strong north-east wind. But mamma's night-gown was not so well pinned on and, instead of being full of steady wind like the others, kept blowing up and down as though she were preaching wildly. We stood and laughed for te

jacent gardens. Then a gentleman's night-shirt from one garden, and a lady's night-gown from the other sho

for the body of a baby is not much more made by the two old babies, after whose pattern it has cut itself out, than the little night-shirt is mad

Orga

eing more than the tools, and these work so smoothly, that we call them the workman himself, making much the same mistake as though we should call the saw the

ter-never forgetting that we can never have either

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ty whether or no it is worth while to get ever such a little near

me for him to get his feet first on the bar and then on the table. He was not at all hungry but he tried, saw it would not be quite easy and gave it up; then he thought better of it and tried again, and saw again that

bled the action of beer trickl

Unio

of timber in the building to settle how a modus vivendi should be arrived at. This is why the crack is said to be caused by a settlement-some parts of the building willing this and some that, and the battle going on, as even the steadiest and most unbroken battles must go, by fits and starts which, though to us appearing as an even tenor, would, if we could see them under a microscope, prove to be a succession of bloody engagements between regiments

hat sometimes coalesce and sometimes conflict within the building. The joys of the rich depositor, the anguish of the bankrupt are nothing to them; the stream of people coming in and going out is as steady, continuous a thing to them as a blo

ity of

frosty morning but he has very little clothing, and there is a dumb despairing look about him which is surely genuine. There passes him a young butcher boy with his tray

plants, some are successful, other have now passed their prime. Look at the failures per se and they make one ve

corporation of things, or as a tentative effort in a wrong direction, or as the dropping off of particles of skin from a healthy limb. This dropping off is the death of any given generation of our cells as they work their way nearer and nearer to our skins and then get rubbed off and go away. It is as

nd His Ki

lls as less parts of themselves than

which is but a thinly veiled travesty of descent? When she eats peas with her knife, he does so too; there is not a bit of bread and butter she puts into her mouth, nor a lump of sugar she drops into her tea, but he knoweth it al

fined something when he pays his grocer or his baker. She is more definitely aware of him than he of her, but it is by way of an overshadowing presence rather than a clear and intelligent comprehension. And though Croesus does not eat his kitchen-maid's meals other

ough her and in her, though knowing no more what he is doing than we know when we digest, but still doing it as by what we call a reflex action. Qui facit pe

. On the first occasion Lady Croesus will send some one rushing down into the kitchen, there will, in fact, be a general flow of blood (i.e. household) to the part affected (that is to say, to the scullery-maid); the doctor will be sent for and all the rest of it. On each repetition of the fits the neighbouring organs, rever

fraid Sarah has

ably be better again soon, and

ce either to papa, the cerebrum, or to mamma, the cerebellum, or even to the medulla oblongata, the ho

n of disturbance therefore there is no consciousness. They forget that the scullery-maid becomes more and more conscious of the fits if they grow upon her, as they probably will, and that Croesus and his lady do show more signs of consciousness, if they are watched closely, than can be detected on first inspection. There is not the same violent per

cook, a valued servant, may take the kitchen-maid's part and go too. The next cook may spoil the dinner and upset Croesus's temper, and from this all manner of consequences may be evolved, even to the dethronement and death of the king himself. Nevertheless as a general rule an injury to such a l

ullery-maid goes also. Still this should be held in the same way as it should be also held that she eats vicariously when Croesus dines. For he must return the balls and the dinn

oes bankrupt, or his kingdom is taken from him and his whole establishment is broken up and dissipated at the auction mart, then, even though not one of its component cells actually dies, the organism as a whole does so, and it is interesting to see that the lowest, least specialised and least highly differentiate parts of the organism, such as the scullery-maid and the stable-boys, most readily find an entry into the life of some new system, while the more specialised and highly differentiated parts, such as the steward, the old housekeeper and, still more so