Samuel Butler continued to write Life and Habit (1878),Evolution, Old and New (1879) and Unconscious Memory (1880) without a break after completing his first novel Erewhon.

     It is said that these three evolution-related books were written in comparison with Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859).

     After reading Charles Darwin’s book, Butler was deeply moved by Darwin’s theory of evolution, and respected him deeply. However, he gradually began to have some doubts about the theory, and finally accomplished his own creative theory on evolution, which he called “unconscious memory.”

     This paper deals first with how Samuel Butler wrote Life and Habit , and then how the ideas in the book influenced other famous philosophers and psychologists in the 20th century.