were at this time imperilled by unsound investments; some of these were Canadian. and it was during a series of distracting visits to the Dominion, in an attempt to
save the wreck of his invested capital, that Butler produced one of his most original and argumentative works, entitled 'Life and Habit,' dedicated to Charles
Paine-Pauli, a New Zealand acquaintance (Dec. 1877). The line of argument which he there took up against the tyranny of natural selection was completed in 'Evolution, Old and New' (1879), 'Unconscious Memory' (1880), 'Luck or Cunning' (1886), 'The Deadlock in Darwinism' (Universal Review, 1890), and ' Notes,' afterwards
reprinted in the 'New Quarterly Review' of 1910. These books and papers were a revolt against what Butler considered as a conspiracy of the Darwins to banish mind
from the universe, and the scientific controversy was complicated by a grievance partly justified even now, wholly justified as far as Butler could possibly then have seen against Charles Darwin's method
of interpreting a private communication
(see Festing Jones, Darwin and Butler: a Step towards Reconciliation, 1911). Butler brought to the subject in dispute tenacity, memory, and power of concentration, which
enabled him to discover certain defects in
the armour of natural selection. A Prague
professor, Ewald Hering, had formulated a
theory connecting heredity with memory a
few years before. Butler knew nothing of
this until his 'Life and Habit' was on the
eve of publication, but when he looked at
Hering' s lecture he found the kernel of
Hering's theory was practically identical
Avith his own. His object was to show that
variation was due less to chance and environ-
ment, and more to cunning and effort,
design, or memory whether conscious or
unconscious than Darwin had supposed.
As a guiding principle; however, his views
though highly suggestive have not proved
of direct service, save as a stimulus to
fresh hypotheses.
Butler was now at the parting of the ways ; his most successful picture, 'Mr. Heatherley's Holiday' (the drawing master mending the studio skeleton), now in the Tate Gallery, had appeared at the Royal Academy in 1874, but the influence of literature had triumphed, and Butler eventually surrendered himself to a succession of controversies, which have not in the main greatly enhanced his reputation. Meanwhile as a topographer of Italian Switzerland and critic of Italian art he did creative work in 'Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino' (1881). Butler's headquarters in north Italy were primarily at Faido and then at Varallo, where he stayed repeatedly from 1871 to 1901. 'Alps and Sanctuaries omitted Varallo, to which he promised to devote a separate book. The town gave Butler a civic dinner in August 1887, and he redeemed his pledge next year with his 'Ex Voto,' an account of the Sacro Monte or New Jerusalem at Varallo-Sesia, with some notes of Tabachetti's remaining work at the Sanctuary of Oca. Archæologically speaking, this is a far more elaborate study than its predecessor ; it is a revelation of the higlily original art of Tabachetti and Gaudenzio Ferrari. An article 'Art in the Valley of Saas' followed in the 'Universal Review' (1890). In 1886 Butler's financial position, which had become a good deal involved, was relieved by the death of his father (29 Dec.). He now spent most of the summer abroad, but lived habitually at his chambers in Clifford's Inn, London, working steadily at the British Museum.
In 1886 he was an unsuccessful candidate for the Slade professorship at Cambridge. Every evening when in London he was wont to visit his friend, Mr. H. Festing Jones, at Staple Inn, mainly for the purpose of musical study. Together they began to compose at first Handelian minuets and gavottes. They next wrote and issued an oratorio buffo, 'Narcissus' (1888), about shepherds losing money in Capel Court, studied counterpoint with W. S. Rockstro and designed a Ulysses oratorio (published in 1904). Butler committed much of the 'Odyssey' to memory, and he was so impressed by the peculiar mental attitude of certain portions of the narrative, that he conceived the theory that the epic was written by a woman, while he identified the dwelling-place of the writer as Trapam in Sicily (see his 'On the Trapanese Origin of the Odyssey,' 1893). He embodied this view in 'The Authoress of the Odyssey,' published in 1897, after a visit to the Troad and a careful study of the Sicilian coast. He translated the 'Iliad' in 1898, and the 'Odyssey' in 1900 into colloquial prose. Other works produced in his lifetime were 'The Life of Samuel Butler, bishop of Lich field and Coventry' (2 vols. 1896), published from family papers which had come to him in 1886 ; 'Shakespeare's Sonnets Reconsidered' (1899), upholding the view that the sonnets were addressed to a man of humble birth, a speculation which has found extremely few adherents ; and
