Luck, or Cunning, as the Main Means of Organic Modification

This second edition of Luck, or Cunning? is a reprint of the first edition, dated 1887, but actually published in November, 1886.  The only alterations of any consequence are in the Index, which has been enlarged by the incorporation of several entries made by the author in a copy of the book which came into my possession on the death of his literary executor, Mr. R. A. Streatfeild.  I thank Mr. G. W. Webb, of the University Library, Cambridge, for the care and skill with which he has made the necessary alterations; it was a troublesome job because owing to the re-setting, the pagination was no longer the same.

Luck, or Cunning? is the fourth of Butler’s evolution books; it was followed in 1890 by three articles in The Universal Review entitled “The Deadlock in Darwinism” (republished in The Humour of Homer), after which he published no more upon that subject.

In this book, as he says in his Introduction, he insists upon two main points:  the substantial identity between heredity and memory, and the reintroduction of design into organic development; and these two points he treats as though they have something of that physical life with which they are so closely associated.  He was aware that what he had to say was likely to prove more interesting to future generations than to his immediate public, “but any book that desires to see out a literary three-score years and ten must offer something to future generations as well as to its own.”  By next year one half of the three-score years and ten will have passed, and the new generation by their constant enquiries for the work have already begun to show their appreciation of Butler’s method of treating the subject, and their readiness to listen to what was addressed to them as well as to their fathers.