Life and Habit - Softcover

Butler, Samuel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1596056991 ISBN 13: 9781596056992

Publisher: Cosimo Classics, 2005

Synopsis

I cannot think that "natural selection," working upon small, fortuitous, indefinite, unintelligent variations, would produce the results we see around us. One wants something that will give a more definite aim to variations, and hence, at times, cause bolder leaps in advance. One cannot but doubt whether so many plants and animals would be being so continually saved "by the skin of their teeth"... -from "Lamarck and Mr. Darwin" George Bernard Shaw called him "the greatest English writer of the latter half of the nineteenth century." Samuel Butler, the son of an Anglican clergyman who grew up to be one of the most prominent freethinkers of the Victorian era, was a vocal apologist for theism, and his Life and Habit, published in 1877, is a beautifully written critique of Charles Darwin and his theory of natural selection, one that laments its lack of call for a creative mind behind the evolution of life. This is a vital work for appreciating Butler's other criticisms of scientific rationalism, including his 1879 book Evolution, Old and New, as well as the evolution of the concept of evolution itself. Also available from Cosimo Classics: Butler's God the Known and God the Unknown. British author SAMUEL BUTLER (1835-1902) is best known for his satire Erehwon.

About this title

Book Description

Best remembered today as the author of the novels Erewhon and The Way of All Flesh, Butler argues here that much of inheritance was based on habit making a feature ingrained, to the extent that it could pass between generations; but he was also a firm opponent of natural selection.

About the Author

Samuel Butler (1835-1902) is best known for his utopian satire Erewhon, his posthumous novel The Way of All Flesh, and his translations of Homer. His family background made a career in the Church inevitable, but, while serving a low-income parish in London, he began to question his faith. He lived in New Zealand for five years, and later in life spent time in Italy.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cosimo Classics
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1596056991
• ISBN 13: 9781596056992
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 324