'Evolution, Old and New', by Samuel Butler (1879)
In his second book on evolution Butler surveyed the contributions of the early theorists – Buffon, Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck – alongside the more recent theories of Herbert Spencer, St George Mivart and Charles Darwin, attempting to present his own ideas as a continuation of the scientific history. The book dramatically concluded that Charles Darwin’s work was little more than a rehashing of Erasmus Darwin’s and Lamarck’s, combined with a denial of ‘the purposiveness or teleology inherent in evolution as first propounded’.
It wasn’t until after Charles Darwin’s death, in April 1882, that Butler came to regret the rather one-sided feud he had propagated through his relentless challenging of Darwin and his work. In his preface to the second edition of Evolution Old and New, Butler conceded: ‘I have always admitted myself to be under the deepest obligations to Mr. Darwin’s works; and it was with the greatest reluctance, not to say repugnance, that I became one of his opponents. … I cannot be blind to the fact that no man can be judge in his own case, and that after all Mr. Darwin may have been right, and I wrong.’