Unconscious Memory(Fiscle Part-3) by Samuel Butler (classic books to read .TXT) 📕

Good And All,  And Look So Much As If It Were Alive That,  Whether We

Liked It Or Not,  We Should Be Compelled To Think It And Call It So;

And Whether The Being Alive Was Not Simply The Being An Exceedingly

Complicated Machine,  Whose Parts Were Set In Motion By The Action

Upon Them Of Exterior Circumstances; Whether,  In Fact,  Man Was Not A

Kind Of Toy-Mouse In The Shape Of A Man,  Only Capable Of Going For

Seventy Or Eighty Years,  Instead Of Half As Many Seconds,  And As Much

More Versatile As He Is More Durable?  Of Course I Had An Uneasy

Feeling That If I Thus Made All Plants And Men Into Machines,  These

Machines Must Have What All Other Machines Have If They Are Machines

At All--A Designer,  And Some One To Wind Them Up And Work Them; But I

Thought This Might Wait For The Present,  And Was Perfectly Ready

Then,  As Now,  To Accept A Designer From Without,  If The Facts Upon

Examination Rendered Such A Belief Reasonable.

If,  Then,  Men Were Not Really Alive After All,  But Were Only Machines

Of So Complicated A Make That It Was Less Trouble To Us To Cut The

Difficulty And Say That That Kind Of Mechanism Was "Being Alive," Why

Should Not Machines Ultimately Become As Complicated As We Are,  Or At

Any Rate Complicated Enough To Be Called Living,  And To Be Indeed As

Living As It Was In The Nature Of Anything At All To Be?  If It Was

Only A Case Of Their Becoming More Complicated,  We Were Certainly

Doing Our Best To Make Them So.

I Do Not Suppose I At That Time Saw That This View Comes To Much The

Same As Denying That There Are Such Qualities As Life And

Consciousness At All,  And That This,  Again,  Works Round To The

Assertion Of Their Omnipresence In Every Molecule Of Matter,  Inasmuch

As It Destroys The Separation Between The Organic And Inorganic,  And

Maintains That Whatever The Organic Is The Inorganic Is Also.  Deny

It In Theory As Much As We Please,  We Shall Still Always Feel That An

Organic Body,  Unless Dead,  Is Living And Conscious To A Greater Or

Less Degree.  Therefore,  If We Once Break Down The Wall Of Partition

Between The Organic And Inorganic,  The Inorganic Must Be Living And

Conscious Also,  Up To A Certain Point.

I Have Been At Work On This Subject Now For Nearly Twenty Years,  What

I Have Published Being Only A Small Part Of What I Have Written And

Destroyed.  I Cannot,  Therefore,  Remember Exactly How I Stood In

1863.  Nor Can I Pretend To See Far Into The Matter Even Now; For

When I Think Of Life,  I Find It So Difficult,  That I Take Refuge In

Death Or Mechanism; And When I Think Of Death Or Mechanism,  I Find It

So Inconceivable,  That It Is Easier To Call It Life Again.  The Only

Thing Of Which I Am Sure Is,  That The Distinction Between The Organic

And Inorganic Is Arbitrary; That It Is More Coherent With Our Other

Ideas,  And Therefore More Acceptable,  To Start With Every Molecule As

A Living Thing,  And Then Deduce Death As The Breaking Up Of An

Association Or Corporation,  Than To Start With Inanimate Molecules

And Smuggle Life Into Them; And That,  Therefore,  What We Call The

Inorganic World Must Be Regarded As Up To A Certain Point Living,  And

Instinct,  Within Certain Limits,  With Consciousness,  Volition,  And

Power Of Concerted Action.  It Is Only Of Late,  However,  That I Have

Come To This Opinion.

One Must Start With A Hypothesis,  No Matter How Much One Distrusts

It; So I Started With Man As A Mechanism,  This Being The Strand Of

The Knot That I Could Then Pick At Most Easily.  Having Worked Upon

It A Certain Time,  I Drew The Inference About Machines Becoming

Animate,  And In 1862 Or 1863 Wrote The Sketch Of The Chapter On

Machines Which I Afterwards Rewrote In "Erewhon."  This Sketch

Appeared In The Press,  Canterbury,  N.Z.,  June 13,  1863; A Copy Of It

Is In The British Museum.

I Soon Felt That Though There Was Plenty Of Amusement To Be Got Out

Of This Line,  It Was One That I Should Have To Leave Sooner Or Later;

I Therefore Left It At Once For The View That Machines Were Limbs

Which We Had Made,  And Carried Outside Our Bodies Instead Of

Incorporating Them With Ourselves.  A Few Days Or Weeks Later Than

June 13,  1863,  I Published A Second Letter In The Press Putting This

View Forward.  Of This Letter I Have Lost The Only Copy I Had; I Have

Not Seen It For Years.  The First Was Certainly Not Good; The Second,

If I Remember Rightly,  Was A Good Deal Worse,  Though I Believed More

In The Views It Put Forward Than In Those Of The First Letter.  I Had

Lost My Copy Before I Wrote "Erewhon," And Therefore Only Gave A

Couple Of Pages To It In That Book; Besides,  There Was More Amusement

In The Other View.  I Should Perhaps Say There Was An Intermediate

Extension Of The First Letter Which Appeared In The Reasoner,  July 1,

1865.

In 1870 And 1871,  When I Was Writing "Erewhon," I Thought The Best

Way Of Looking At Machines Was To See Them As Limbs Which We Had Made

And Carried About With Us Or Left At Home At Pleasure.  I Was Not,

However,  Satisfied,  And Should Have Gone On With The Subject At Once

If I Had Not Been Anxious To Write "The Fair Haven," A Book Which Is

A Development Of A Pamphlet I Wrote In New Zealand And Published In

London In 1865.

As Soon As I Had Finished This,  I Returned To The Old Subject,  On

Which I Had Already Been Engaged For Nearly A Dozen Years As

Continuously As Other Business Would Allow,  And Proposed To Myself To

See Not Only Machines As Limbs,  But Also Limbs As Machines.  I Felt

Immediately That I Was Upon Firmer Ground.  The Use Of The Word

"Organ" For A Limb Told Its Own Story; The Word Could Not Have Become

So Current Under This Meaning Unless The Idea Of A Limb As A Tool Or

Machine Had Been Agreeable To Common Sense.  What Would Follow,  Then,

If We Regarded Our Limbs And Organs As Things That We Had Ourselves

Manufactured For Our Convenience?

The First Question That Suggested Itself Was,  How Did We Come To Make

Them Without Knowing Anything About It?  And This Raised Another,

Namely,  How Comes Anybody To Do Anything Unconsciously?  The Answer

"Habit" Was Not Far To Seek.  But Can A Person Be Said To Do A Thing

By Force Of Habit Or Routine When It Is His Ancestors,  And Not He,

That Has Done It Hitherto?  Not Unless He And His Ancestors Are One

And The Same Person.  Perhaps,  Then,  They Are The Same Person After

All.  What Is Sameness?  I Remembered Bishop Butler's Sermon On

"Personal Identity," Read It Again,  And Saw Very Plainly That If A

Man Of Eighty May Consider Himself Identical With The Baby From Whom

He Has Developed,  So That He May Say,  "I Am The Person Who At Six

Months Old Did This Or That," Then The Baby May Just As Fairly Claim

Identity With Its Father And Mother,  And Say To Its Parents On Being

Born,  "I Was You Only A Few Months Ago."  By Parity Of Reasoning Each

Living Form Now On The Earth Must Be Able To Claim Identity With Each

Generation Of Its Ancestors Up To The Primordial Cell Inclusive.

Again,  If The Octogenarian May Claim Personal Identity With The

Infant,  The Infant May Certainly Do So With The Impregnate Ovum From

Which It Has Developed.  If So,  The Octogenarian Will Prove To Have

Been A Fish Once In This His Present Life.  This Is As Certain As

That He Was Living Yesterday,  And Stands On Exactly The Same

Foundation.

I Am Aware That Professor Huxley Maintains Otherwise.  He Writes:

"It Is Not True,  For Example,  . . . That A Reptile Was Ever A Fish,

But It Is True That The Reptile Embryo" (And What Is Said Here Of The

Reptile Holds Good Also For The Human Embryo),  "At One Stage Of Its

Development,  Is An Organism,  Which,  If It Had An Independent

Existence,  Must Be Classified Among Fishes." {17}

This Is Like Saying,  "It Is Not True That Such And Such A Picture Was

Rejected For The Academy,  But It Is True That It Was Submitted To The

President And Council Of The Royal Academy,  With A View To Acceptance

At Their Next Forthcoming Annual Exhibition,  And That The President

And Council Regretted They Were Unable Through Want Of Space,  &C.,

&C." --And As Much More As The Reader Chooses.  I Shall Venture,

Therefore,  To Stick To It That The Octogenarian Was Once A Fish,  Or

If Professor Huxley Prefers It,  "An Organism Which Must Be Classified

Among Fishes."

But If A Man Was A Fish Once,  He May Have Been A Fish A Million Times

Over,  For Aught He Knows; For He Must Admit That His Conscious

Recollection Is At Fault,  And Has Nothing Whatever To Do With The

Matter,  Which Must Be Decided,  Not,  As It Were,  Upon His Own Evidence

As To What Deeds He May Or May Not Recollect Having Executed,  But By

The Production Of His Signatures In Court,  With Satisfactory Proof

That He Has Delivered Each Document As His Act And Deed.

This Made Things Very Much Simpler.  The Processes Of Embryonic

Development,  And Instinctive Actions,  Might Be Now Seen As

Repetitions Of The Same Kind Of Action By The Same Individual In

Successive Generations.  It Was Natural,  Therefore,  That They Should

Come In The Course Of Time To Be Done Unconsciously,  And A

Consideration Of The Most Obvious Facts Of Memory Removed All Further

Doubt That Habit--Which Is Based On Memory--Was At The Bottom Of All

The Phenomena Of Heredity.

I Had Got To This Point About The Spring Of 1874,  And Had Begun To

Write,  When I Was Compelled To Go To Canada,  And For The Next Year

And A Half Did Hardly Any Writing.  The First Passage In "Life And

Habit" Which I Can Date With Certainty Is The One On Page 52,  Which

Runs As Follows:-

"It Is One Against Legion When A Man Tries To Differ From His Own

Past Selves.  He Must Yield Or Die