BUTLER, SAMUEL

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) was born in Nottinghamshire, England, on December 4. He was an early critic of evolutionary theory and was among the first to raise philosophical questions about human-machine relations. After being educated at Cambridge University Butler decided to forgo an anticipated ordination and moved to New Zealand to become a sheep rancher (1859–1864). There he read the biologist Charles Darwin's (1809–1882) On the Origin of Species (1859), whose theory of evolution became an obsession. Butler died in London on June 18.

At first Butler was convinced by the theories of Darwin; the two corresponded, and Butler became close friends with Darwin's son, Frances. Upon returning to England, Butler was initially a staunch defender of evolution. As a contribution to that defense he began a book to supplement Darwin's theory by elucidating the role of habit in relation to inheritance. However, while doing research Butler discovered the theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics of Jean Baptiste de Lamarck (1744–1829) as well as the biologist St. George Jackson Mivart's (1827–1900) critique of natural selection, Genesis of Species (1871). Now that he was convinced that Darwin was wrong, Butler's book, Life and Habit (1878), became an attack. It was followed by a series of other critiques that did not have wide influence: Evolution, Old and New (1879), Unconscious Memory (1880), and Luck, or Cunning? (1887).

Best known in the early 2000s for his novel The Way of All Flesh (published posthumously in 1903), Butler achieved literary and financial success during his life from two satirical novels that often are described as Swiftian: Erewhon (1872) and its sequel Erewhon Revisited (1900). Those works, which originated in an essay titled "Darwin among the Machines" (1863) and continued his lifelong preoccupation with evolution, are of particular interest in regard to the ethics of technology.

The books whose titles are the word nowhere spelled backward envision a dystopian society in which machine development has been limited consciously and severely. In the first novel an unnamed narrator accidentally visits Erewhon, a land ruled by philosophers and prophets who equate morality with beauty and health and illness with crime. In Chapters 23 to 25, collectively called "The Book of the Machines," the narrator (whose name, Higgs, is revealed in the continuation) reads a treatise that considers the possible evolution of machine consciousness and details the Erewhonian revolution that led to the prohibition of machines to prevent their domination of the human race. The author argues that the rapid evolution of "higher machines" will lead to their consciousness if steps are not taken "to nip the mischief in the bud and to forbid them further progress."

The narrative further speculates on the nature of consciousness and offers a prescient description of modern DNA testing, anticipating a time when it may "be possible, by examining a single hair with a powerful microscope, to know whether its owner could be insulted with impunity." There is also a linking of machine consciousness with miniaturization and a consideration of whether human life may be merely a step in machine evolution. Chapter 23 concludes:

We cannot calculate on any corresponding advance in man's intellectual or physical powers which shall be a set-off against the far greater development which seems in store for the machines. Some people may say that man's moral influence will suffice to rule them; but I cannot think it will ever be safe to repose much trust in the moral sense of any machine.

Selections from "The Book of Machines" have been reprinted frequently and often are used to initiate discussions of issues that remain fundamental to the ethics of technology.

JAMES A. LYNCH

SEE ALSO Utopia and Dystopia.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Breuer, Hans-Peter. (1975). "Samuel Butler's 'Book of the Machines' and the Argument from Design." Modern Philosophy 72: 365–383. Discusses Butler's reading of Darwin's theories.

Butler, Samuel. (1970). Erewhon, ed. Peter Mudford. New York: Viking. A standard reprint.

Pauly, Philip. (1982). "Samuel Butler and his Darwinian Critics." Victorian Studies 25: 161–180. A history of the rift between Butler and Darwin.