Throughout the whole of theAnalogyit ismanifestthat the interest which lay closest to Butler's heart was the ethical. His whole cast of thinking was practical. The moral nature of man, his conduct in life, is that on account of which alone an inquiry into religion is of importance. The systematic account of this moral nature is to be found in the famousSermons preached at the Chapel of the Rolls, especially in the first three. In these sermons Butler has made substantial contributions to ethical science, and it may be said with confidence, that in their own department nothing superior in value appeared during the long interval between Aristotle and Kant. To both of these great thinkers he has certain analogies. He resembles the first in his method of investigating the end which human nature is intended to realize; he reminds of the other by the consistency with which he upholds the absolute supremacy of moral law.
In his ethics, as in his theology, Butler had constantly in view a certain class of adversaries, consisting partly of the philosophic few, partly of the fashionably educated many, who all participated in one common mode of thinking. The keynote of this tendency had been struck by Hobbes, in whose philosophy man was regarded as a mere selfish sensitive machine, moved solely by pleasures and pains. Cudworth and Clarke had tried to place ethics on a nobler footing, but their speculations were too abstract for Butler and not sufficiently "applicable to the several particular relations and circumstances of life."
His inquiry is based on teleological principles. "Every work, both of nature and art, is a system; and as every particular thing both natural and artificial is for some use or purpose out of or beyond itself, one may add to what has been already brought into the idea of a system its conduciveness to this one or more ends." Ultimately this view of nature, as the sphere of the realization of final causes, rests on a theological basis; but Butler does not introduce prominently into his ethics the specifically theological groundwork, and may be thought willing to ground his principle on experience. The ethical question then is, as with Aristotle, what is theτέλοςof man? The answer to this question is to be obtained by an analysis of the facts of human nature, whence, Butler thinks, "it will as fully appear that this our nature,i.e.constitution, is adapted to virtue, as from the idea of a watch it appears that its nature,i.e.constitution or system, is adapted to measure time." Such analysis had been already attempted by Hobbes, and the result he came to was that man naturally is adapted only for a life of selfishness,—his end is the procuring of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. A closer examination, however, shows that this at least is false. The truth of the counter propositions, that man isφύσει πολιτικός, that the full development of his being is impossible apart from society, becomes manifest on examination of the facts. For while self-love plays a most important part in the human economy, there is no less evidently a natural principle of benevolence. Moreover, among the particularpassions, appetites and desires there are some whose tendency is as clearly towards the general good as that of others is towards the satisfaction of the self. Finally, that principle in man which reflects upon actions and the springs of actions, unmistakably sets the stamp of its approbation upon conduct that tends towards the general good. It is clear, therefore, that from this point of view the sum of practical morals might be given in Butler's own words—"that mankind is a community, that we all stand in a relation to each other, that there is a public end and interest of society, which each particular is obliged to promote." But deeper questions remain.
The threefold division into passions and affections, self-love and benevolence, and conscience, is Butler's celebrated analysis of human nature as found in his first sermon. But by regarding benevolence less as a definite desire for the general good as such than as kind affection for particular individuals, he practically eliminates it as a regulative principle and reduces the authorities in the polity of the soul to two—conscience and self-love.
But the idea of human nature is not completely expressed by saying that it consists of reason and the several passions. "Whoever thinks it worth while to consider this matter thoroughly should begin by stating to himself exactly the idea of a system, economy or constitution of any particular nature; and he will, I suppose, find that it is one or a whole, made up of several parts, but yet that the several parts, even considered as a whole, do not complete the idea, unless in the notion of a whole you include the relations and respects which these parts have to each other." This fruitful conception of man's ethical nature as an organic unity Butler owes directly to Shaftesbury and indirectly to Aristotle; it is the strength and clearness with which he has grasped it that gives peculiar value to his system.
The special relation among the parts of our nature to which Butler alludes is the subordination of the particular passions to the universal principle of reflection or conscience. This relation is the peculiarity, thecross, of man; and when it is said that virtue consists in following nature, we mean that it consists in pursuing the course of conduct dictated by this superior faculty. Man's function is not fulfilled by obeying the passions, or even cool self-love, but by obeying conscience. That conscience has a natural supremacy, that it is superior in kind, is evident from the part it plays in the moral constitution. We judge a man to have acted wrongly,i.e.unnaturally, when he allows the gratification of a passion to injure his happiness,i.e.when he acts in accordance with passion and against self-love. It would be impossible to pass this judgment if self-love were not regarded as superior in kind to the passions, and this superiority results from the fact that it is the peculiar province of self-love to take a view of the several passions and decide as to their relative importance. But there is in man a faculty which takes into consideration all the springs of action, including self-love, and passes judgment upon them, approving some and condemning others. From its very nature this faculty is supreme in authority, if not in power; it reflects upon all the other active powers, and pronounces absolutely upon their moral quality. Superintendency and authority are constituent parts of its very idea. We are under obligation to obey the law revealed in the judgments of this faculty, for it is the law of our nature. And to this a religious sanction may be added, for "consciousness of a rule or guide of action, in creatures capable of considering it as given them by their Maker, not only raises immediately a sense of duty, but also a sense of security in following it, and a sense of danger in deviating from it." Virtue then consists in following the true law of our nature, that is, conscience. Butler, however, is by no means very explicit in his analysis of the functions to be ascribed to conscience. He calls it the Principle of Reflection, the Reflex Principle of Approbation, and assigns to it as its province the motives or propensions to action. It takes a view of these, approves or disapproves, impels to or restrains from action. But at times he uses language that almost compels one to attribute to him the popular view of conscience as passing its judgments with unerring certainty on individual acts. Indeed his theory is weakest exactly at the point where the real difficulty begins. We get from him no satisfactory answer to the inquiry, What course of action is approved by conscience? Every one, he seems to think, knows what virtue is, and a philosophy of ethics is complete if it can be shown that such a course of action harmonizes with human nature. When pressed still further, he points to justice, veracity and the common good as comprehensive ethical ends. His whole view of the moral government led him to look upon human nature and virtue as connected by a sort of pre-established harmony. His ethical principle has in it no possibility of development into a system of actual duties; it has no content. Even on the formal side it is a little difficult to see what part conscience plays. It seems merely to set the stamp of its approbation on certain courses of action to which we are led by the various passions and affections; it has in itself no originating power. How or why it approves of some and not of others is left unexplained. Butler's moral theory, like those of his English contemporaries and successors, is defective from not perceiving that the notion of duty can have real significance only when connected with the will or practical reason, and that only in reason which wills itself have we a principle capable of development into an ethical system. It has received very small consideration at the hands of German historians of ethics.
Authorities.—See T. Bartlett,Memoirs of Butler(1839). The standard edition of Butler's works is that in 2 vols. (Oxford, 1844). Editions of theAnalogyare very numerous; that by Bishop William Fitzgerald (1849) contains a valuable Life and Notes. W. Whewell published an edition of theThree Sermons, with Introduction. Modern editions of theWorksare those by W.E. Gladstone (2 vols. with a 3rd vol. ofStudies Subsidiary, 1896), and J.H. Bernard, (2 vols. in the English Theological Library, 1900). For the history of the religious works contemporary with theAnalogy, see Lechler,Gesch. d. Engl. Deismus; M. Pattison, inEssays and Reviews; W. Hunt,Religious Thought in England, vols., ii. and iii.; L. Stephen,English Thought in the 18th Century; J.H. Overton and F. Relton,The English Church from the Accession of George I. to the End of the 18th Century.
(R. Ad.; A. J. G.)
BUTLER, NICHOLAS MURRAY(1862- ), American educator, was born at Elizabeth, New Jersey, on the 2nd of April 1862. He graduated at Columbia College in 1882, was a graduate fellow in philosophy there from 1882 to 1884, when he took the degree of Ph.D., and then studied for a year in Paris and Berlin. He was an assistant in philosophy at Columbia in 1885-1886, tutor in 1886-1889, adjunct professor of philosophy, ethics and psychology in 1889-1890, becoming full professor in 1890, and dean of the faculty of philosophy in 1890-1902. From 1887 until 1891 he was the first president of the New York college for the training of teachers (later the Teachers' College of Columbia University), which he had personally planned and organized. In 1891 he founded and afterwards edited theEducational Review, an influential educational magazine. He soon came to be looked upon as one of the foremost authorities on educational matters in America, and in 1894 was elected president of the National Educational Association. He was also a member of the New Jersey state board of education from 1887 to 1895, and was president of the Paterson (N.J.) board of education in 1892-1893. In 1901 he succeeded Seth Low as president of Columbia University. Besides editing several series of books, including "The Great Educators" and "The Teachers' Professional Library," he publishedThe Meaning of Education(1898), a collection of essays; and two series of addresses,True and False Democracy(1907), andThe American as he is(1908).
BUTLER(orBoteler),SAMUEL(1612-1680), English poet, author ofHudibras, son of Samuel Butler, a small farmer, was baptized at Strensham, Worcestershire, on the 8th of February 1612. He was educated at the King's school, Worcester, under Henry Bright, the record of whose zeal as a teacher is preserved by Fuller (Worthies, Worcestershire). After leaving school he served a Mr Jeffereys of Earl's Croome, Worcestershire, in the capacity of justice's clerk, and is supposed to have thus gained his knowledge of law and law terms. He also employed himself at Earl's Croome in general study, and particularly in painting, which he is said to have thought of adopting as a profession. It is probable, however, that art has not lost by his change of mind, for, according to one of his editors, in 1774 his pictures "served to stop windows and save the tax; indeed they were not fit for much else." He was then recommended to Elizabeth, countess of Kent. At her home at Wrest, Bedfordshire, he had access to a good library, and there too he met Selden, who sometimes employed him as his secretary. But his third sojourn, with Sir Samuel Luke at Cople Hoo, Bedfordshire, was not only apparently the longest, but also much the most important in its effects on his career and works. We are nowhere informed in what capacity Butler served Sir Samuel Luke, or how he came to reside in the house of a noted Puritan and Parliament man. In the family of this "valiant Mamaluke," who, whether he was or was not the original of Hudibras, was certainly a rigid Presbyterian, "a colonel in the army of the Parliament, scoutmaster-general for Bedfordshire and governor of Newport Pagnell," Butler must have had the most abundant opportunities of studying from the life those who were to be the victims of his satire; he is supposed to have taken some hints for his caricature from Sir Henry Rosewell of Ford Abbey, Devonshire. But we know nothing positive of him until the Restoration, when he was appointed secretary to Richard Vaughan, 2nd earl of Carbery, lord president of the principality of Wales, who made him steward of Ludlow Castle, an office which he held from January 1661to January 1662. About this time he married a rich lady, variously described as a Miss Herbert and as a widow named Morgan. His wife's fortune was afterwards, however, lost.
Early in 1663Hudibras: The First Part: written in the Time of the Late Wars, was published, but this, the first genuine edition, had been preceded in 1662 by an unauthorized one. On the 26th of December Pepys bought it, and though neither then nor afterwards could he see the wit of "so silly an abuse of the Presbyter knight going to the wars," he repeatedly testifies to its extraordinary popularity. A spurious second part appeared within the year. This determined the poet to bring out the second part (licensed on the 7th of November 1663, printed 1664), which if possible exceeded the first in popularity. From this time till 1678, the date of the publication of the third part, we hear nothing certain of Butler. On the publication ofHudibrashe was sent for by Lord Chancellor Hyde (Clarendon), says Aubrey, and received many promises, none of which was fulfilled. He is said to have received a gift of £300 from Charles II., and to have been secretary to George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham, when the latter was chancellor of the university of Cambridge. Most of his biographers, in their eagerness to prove the ill-treatment which Butler is supposed to have received, disbelieve both these stories, perhaps without sufficient reason. Butler's satire on Buckingham in hisCharacters(Remains, 1759) shows such an intimate knowledge that it is probable the second story is true. Two years after the publication of the third part ofHudibrashe died, on the 25th of September 1680, and was buried by his friend Longueville, a bencher of the Middle Temple, in the churchyard of St Paul's, Covent Garden. He was, we are told, "of a leonine-coloured hair, sanguine, choleric, middle-sized, strong." A portrait by Lely at Oxford and others elsewhere represent him as somewhat hard-featured.
Of the neglect of Butler by the court something must be said. It must be remembered that the complaints on the subject supposed to have been uttered by the poet all occur in the spurious posthumous works, that men of letters have been at all times but too prone to complain of lack of patronage, that Butler's actual service was rendered when the day was already won, and that the pathetic stories of the poet starving and dying in want are contradicted by the best authority—Charles Longueville, son of the poet's friend—who asserted that Butler, though often disappointed, was never reduced to anything like want or beggary and did not die in any person's debt. But the most significant notes on the subject are Aubrey's,[1]that "he might have had preferments at first, but would not accept any but very good, so at last he had none at all, and died in want"; and the memorandum of the same author, that "satirical wits disoblige whom they converse with, &c., consequently make to themselves many enemies and few friends, and this was his manner and case."
Three monuments have been erected to the poet's memory—the first in Westminster Abbey in 1721, by John Barber, mayor of London, who is spitefully referred to by Pope for daring to connect his name with Butler's. In 1786 a tablet was placed in St Paul's, Covent Garden, by residents of the parish. This was destroyed in 1845. Later, another was set up at Strensham by John Taylor of that place. Perhaps the happiest epitaph on him is one by John Dennis, which calls Butler "a whole species of poets in one."
Hudibrasitself, though probably quoted as often as ever, has dropped into the class of books which are more quoted than read. In reading it, it is of the utmost importance to comprehend clearly and to bear constantly in mind the purpose of the author in writing it. This purpose is evidently not artistic but polemic, to show in the most unmistakable characters the vileness and folly of the anti-royalist party. Anything like a regular plot—the absence of which has often been deplored or excused—would have been for this end not merely a superfluity but a mistake, as likely to divert the attention and perhaps even enlist some sympathy for the heroes. Anything like regular character-drawing would have been equally unnecessary and dangerous—for to represent anything but monsters, some alleviating strokes must have been introduced. The problem, therefore, was to produce characters just sufficiently unlike lay-figures to excite and maintain a moderate interest, and to set them in motion by dint of a few incidents not absolutely unconnected,—meanwhile to subject the principles and manners of which these characters were the incarnation to ceaseless satire and raillery. The triumphant solution of the problem is undeniable, when it has once been enunciated and understood. Upon a canvas thus prepared and outlined, Butler has embroidered a collection of flowers of wit, which only the utmost fertility or imagination could devise, and the utmost patience of industry elaborate. In the union of these two qualities he is certainly without a parallel, and their combination has produced a work which is unique. The poem is of considerable length, extending to more than ten thousand verses, yet Hazlitt hardly exaggerates when he says that "half the lines are got by heart"; indeed a diligent student of later English literature has read great part ofHudibrasthough he may never have opened its pages. The tableaux or situations, though few and simple in construction, are ludicrous enough. The knight and squire setting forth on their journey; the routing of the bear-baiters; the disastrous renewal of the contest; Hudibras and Ralph in the stocks; the lady's release and conditional acceptance of the unlucky knight; the latter's deliberations on the means of eluding his vow; the Skimmington; the visit to Sidrophel, the astrologer; the attempt to cajole the lady, with its woeful consequences; the consultation with the lawyer, and the immortal pair of letters to which this gives rise, complete the argument of the whole poem. But the story is as nothing; throughout we have little really kept before us but the sordid vices of the sectaries, their hypocrisy, their churlish ungraciousness, their greed of money and authority, their fast and loose morality, their inordinate pride. The extraordinary felicity of the means taken to place all these things in the most ridiculous light has never been questioned. The doggerel metre, never heavy or coarse, but framed as to be the very voice of mocking laughter, the astounding similes and disparates, the rhymes which seem to chuckle and to sneer of themselves, the wonderful learning with which the abuse of learning is rebuked, the subtlety with which subtle casuistry is set at nought can never be missed. Keys like those of L'Estrange are therefore of little use. It signifies nothing whether Hudibras was Sir Samuel Luke of Bedfordshire or Sir Henry Rosewell of Devonshire, still less whether Ralph's name in the flesh was Robinson or Pendle, least of all that Orsin was perhaps Mr Gosling, or Trulla possibly Miss Spencer. Butler was probably as little indebted to mere copying for his characters as for his ideas and style. These latter are in the highest degree original. The first notion of the book, and only the first notion, Butler undoubtedly received fromDon Quixote. His obligations to theSatyre Ménippéehave been noticed by Voltaire, and though English writers have sometimes ignored or questioned them, are not to be doubted. The art, perhaps the most terrible of all the weapons of satire, of making characters without any great violation of probability represent themselves in the most atrocious and despicable light, was never perhaps possessed in perfection except by Pithou and his colleagues and by Butler. Against these great merits some defects must certainly be set. As a whole, the poem is no doubt tedious, if only on account of the very blaze of wit, which at length almost wearies us by its ceaseless demands on our attention. It should, however, be remembered that it was originally issued in parts, and therefore, it may be supposed, intended to be read in parts, for there can be little doubt that the second part was written before the first was published. A more real defect, but one which Butler shares with all his contemporaries, is the tendency to delineate humours instead of characters, and to draw from the outside rather than from within.
Attempts have been made to trace the manner and versification ofHudibrasto earlier writers, especially in Cleveland's satires and in theMusarum Deliciaeof Sir John Mennis (Pepys's Minnes) and Dr James Smith (1605-1667). But if it had fewancestors it had an abundant offspring. A list of twenty-seven direct imitations ofHudibrasin the course of a century may be found in the Aldine edition (1893). Complete translations of considerable excellence have been made into French (London, 1757 and 1819) by John Townley (1697-1782), a member of the Irish Brigade; and into German by D.W. Soltau (Riga, 1787); specimens of both may be found in R. Bell's edition. Voltaire tried his hand at a compressed version, but not with happy results.
Bibliography.—Butler's works published during his life include, besidesHudibras:To the Memory of the most renowned Du Vall: A Pindaric Ode(1671); and a prose pamphlet against the Puritans,Two Letters, one from J. Audland ... to W. Prynne, the other Prynne's Answer(1672). In 1715-1717 three volumes, entitledPosthumous Works in Prose and Verse ... with a key to Hudibras by Sir Roger l'Estrange ...were published with great success. Most of the contents, however, are generally rejected as spurious. The poet's papers, now in the British Museum (Addit. MSS. 32,625-6), remained in the hands of his friend William Longueville, and after his death were left untouched until 1759, when Robert Thyer, keeper of the public library at Manchester, edited two volumes of verse and prose under the title ofGenuine Remains in Verse and Prose of Mr Samuel Butler. This collection containedThe Elephant in the Moon, a satire on the Royal Society; a series of sketches in prose,Characters; and some satirical poems and prose pamphlets. Another edition,Poetical Remains, was issued by Thyer in 1827. In 1726 Hogarth executed some illustrations toHudibras, which are among his earliest but not, perhaps, happiest productions. In 1744 Dr Zachary Grey published an edition ofHudibras, with copious and learned annotations; and an additional volume ofCritical and Historical and Explanatory Notesin 1752. Grey's has formed the basis of all subsequent editions.
Other pieces published separately and ascribed to Butler are:A Letter from Mercurius Civicus to Mercurius Rusticus, or London's Confession but not repentance ...(1643), represented in vol. iv. of Somers's tracts;Mola Asinarum, on the unreasonable and insupportable burthen now pressed ... upon this groaning nation ...(1659), included in his posthumous works, which is supposed to have been written by John Prynne, though Wood ascribes it to Butler;The Acts and monuments of our late parliament ...(1659, printed 1710), of which a continuation appeared in 1659; a "character" of Charles I. (1671);A New Ballad of King Edward and Jane Shore ...(1671);A Congratulatory poem ... to Sir Joseph Sheldon ...(1675);The Geneva Ballad, or the occasional conformist display'd(1674);The Secret history of the Calves head club, compleat ...(4th edition, 1707);The Morning's Salutation, or a friendly conference between a puritan preacher and a family of his flock ...(reprinted, Dublin, 1714). Two tracts of his appear in Somers'sTracts, vol. vii.; he contributed toOvid's Epistles translated by several hands(1680); and works by him are included inMiscellaneous works, written by ... George Duke of Buckingham ... also State Poems ... (by various hands)(1704); and inThe Grove ...(1721), a poetic miscellany, is a "Satyr against Marriage," not found in his works.
The life of Butler was written by an anonymous author, said by William Oldys to be Sir James Astrey, and prefixed to the edition of 1704. The writer professes to supplement and correct the notice given by Anthony à Wood inAthenae Oxonienses. Dr Threadneedle Russel Nash, a Worcestershire antiquarian, supplied some additional facts in an edition of 1793. See the Aldine edition of thePoetical Works of Samuel Butler(1893), edited by Reginald Brimley Johnson, with complete bibliographical information. There is a good reprint ofHudibras(edited by Mr A.R. Waller, 1905) in theCambridge Classics.
[1]Letters written by Eminent Persons ... and Lives of Eminent Men, by John Aubrey, Esq. (2 vols., 1813).
[1]Letters written by Eminent Persons ... and Lives of Eminent Men, by John Aubrey, Esq. (2 vols., 1813).
BUTLER, SAMUEL(1774-1839), English classical scholar and schoolmaster, and bishop of Lichfield, was born at Kenilworth on the 30th of January 1774. He was educated at Rugby, and in 1792 went to St John's College, Cambridge. Butler's classical career was a brilliant one. He obtained three of Sir William Browne's medals, for the Latin (1792) and Greek (1793, 1794) odes, the medal for the Greek ode in 1792 being won by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In 1793 Butler was elected to the Craven scholarship, amongst the competitors being John Keate, afterwards headmaster of Eton, and Coleridge. In 1796 he was fourth senior op time and senior chancellor's classical medallist. In 1797 and 1798 he obtained the members' prize for Latin essay. He took the degree of B.A. in 1796, M.A. 1799, and D.D. 1811. In 1797 he was elected a fellow of St John's, and in 1798 became headmaster of Shrewsbury school. In 1802 he was presented to the living of Kenilworth, in 1807 to a prebendal stall in Lichfield cathedral, and in 1822 to the archdeaconry of Derby; all these appointments he held with his headmastership, but in 1836 he was promoted to the bishopric of Lichfield (and Coventry, which was separated from his diocese in the same year). He died on the 4th of December 1839. It is in connexion with Shrewsbury school that Butler will be chiefly remembered. During his headmastership its reputation greatly increased, and in the standard of its scholarship it stood as high as any other public school in England. His edition of Aeschylus, with the text and notes of Stanley, appeared 1809-1816, and was somewhat severely criticized in theEdinburgh Review, but Butler was prevented by his elevation to the episcopate from, revising it. He also wrote aSketch of Modern and Ancient Geography(1813, frequently reprinted) for use in schools, and brought out atlases of ancient and modern geography. His large library included a fine collection of Aldine editions and Greek and Latin MSS.; the Aldines were sold by auction, the MSS. purchased by the British Museum.
Butler's life has been written by his grandson, Samuel Butler, author ofErewhon(Life and Letters of Dr Samuel Butler, 1896); see also Baker'sHistory of St John's College, Cambridge(ed. J.E.B. Mayor, 1869); Sandys,Hist. Class. Schol.(ed. 1908), vol. iii. p. 398.
BUTLER, SAMUEL(1835-1902), English author, son of the Rev. Thomas Butler, and grandson of the foregoing, was born at Langar, near Bingham, Nottinghamshire, on the 4th of December 1835. He was educated at Shrewsbury school, and at St John's College, Cambridge. He took a high place in the classical tripos of 1858, and was intended for the Church. His opinions, however, prevented his carrying out this intention, and he sailed to New Zealand in the autumn of 1859. He owned a sheep run in the Upper Rangitata district of the province of Canterbury, and in less than five years was able to return home with a moderate competence, most of which was afterwards lost in unlucky investments. The Rangitata district supplied the setting for his romance ofErewhon, or Over the Range(1872), satirizing the Darwinian theory and conventional religion.Erewhonhad a sequel thirty years later (1901) inErewhon Revisited, in which the narrator of the earlier romance, who had escaped from Erewhon in a balloon, finds himself, on revisiting the country after a considerable interval, the object of a topsy-turvy cult, to which he gave the name of "Sunchildism." In 1873 he had published a book of similar tendency,The Fair Haven, which purported to be a "work in defence of the miraculous element in our Lord's ministry upon earth" by a fictitious J.P. Owen, of whom he wrote a memoir. Butler was a man of great versatility, who pursued his investigations in classical scholarship, in Shakespearian criticism, biology and art with equal independence and originality. On his return from New Zealand he had established himself at Clifford's Inn, and studied painting, exhibiting regularly in the Academy between 1868 and 1876. But with the publication ofLife and Habit(1877) he began to recognize literature as his life work. The book was followed by three others, attacking Darwinism—Evolution Old and New, or the Theories of Buffon, Dr Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck as compared with that of Mr C. Darwin(1879);Unconscious Memory(1880), a comparison between the theory of Dr E. Hering and thePhilosophy of the Unconsciousof Dr E. von Hartmann; andLuck or Cunning(1886). He had a thorough knowledge of northern Italy and its art. InEx Voto(1888) he introduced many English readers to the art of Tabachetti and Gaudenzio Ferrari at Varallo. He learnt nearly the whole of theIliadand theOdysseyby heart, and translated both poems (1898 and 1900) into colloquial English prose. In hisAuthoress of the Odyssey(1897) he propounded two theories: that the poem was the work of a woman, who drew her own portrait in Nausicaa; and that it was written at Trapani, in Sicily, a proposition which he supported by elaborate investigations on the spot. In another book on theShakespeare Sonnets(1899) he aimed at destroying the explanations of the orthodox commentators.
Butler was also a musician, or, as he called himself, a Handelian, and in imitation of the style of Handel he wrote in collaboration with H. Festing Jones a secular oratorio,Narcissus(1888), and had completed his share of another,Ulysses, at the time of his death on the 18th of June 1902. His other works include:Life and Letters(1896) of Dr Samuel Butler, hisgrandfather, headmaster of Shrewsbury school and afterwards bishop of Lichfield;Alps and Sanctuaries(1881); and two posthumous works edited by R.A. Streatfeild,The Way of All Flesh(1903), a novel; andEssays on Life, Art and Science(1904).
SeeSamuel Butler, Records and Memorials(1903), by R.A. Streatfeild, a collection printed for private circulation, the most important article included being one by H. Festing Jones originally published inThe Eagle(Cambridge, December 1902).
BUTLER, WILLIAM ARCHER(1814-1848), Irish historian of philosophy, was born at Annerville, near Clonmel in Ireland, probably in 1814. His father was a Protestant, his mother a Roman Catholic, and he was brought up as a Catholic. As a boy he was imaginative and poetical, and some of his early verses were remarkable. While yet at Clonmel school he became a Protestant. Later he entered Trinity College, Dublin, where he had a brilliant career. He specially devoted himself to literature and metaphysics, and was noted for the beauty of his style. In 1834 he gained the ethical moderatorship, newly instituted by Provost Lloyd, and continued in residence at college. In 1837 he decided to enter the Church, and in the same year he was elected to the professorship of moral philosophy, specially founded for him through Lloyd's exertions. About the same time he was presented to the prebend of Clondahorky, Donegal, and resided there when not called by his professorial duties to Dublin. In 1842 he was promoted to the rectory of Raymochy. He died on the 5th of July 1848. HisSermons(2 vols., 1849) were remarkably brilliant and forceful. TheLectures on the History of Ancient Philosophy, edited by W. Hepworth Thompson (2 vols., 1856; 2nd ed., 1 vol. 1875), take a high place among the few British works on the history of philosophy. The introductory lectures, and those on the early Greek thinkers, though they evidence wide reading, do not show the complete mastery that is found in Schwegler or Zeller; but the lectures on Plato are of considerable value. Among his other writings were papers in theDublin University Magazine(1834-1837); and "Letters on Development" (in theIrish Ecclesiastical Journal, 1845), a reply to Newman's famousEssay on the Development of Christian Doctrine.
SeeMemoir of W.A. Butler, prefixed by Rev. J. Woodward to first series ofSermons.
BUTLER, SIR WILLIAM FRANCIS(1838- ), British soldier, entered the army as an ensign in 1858, becoming captain in 1872 and major in 1874. He took part with distinction in the Red River expedition (1870-71) and the Ashanti operations of 1873-74 under Wolseley, and received the C.B. in 1874. He served with the same general in the Zulu War (brevet lieut.-colonel), the campaign of Tel-el-Kebir, after which he was made an aide-de-camp to the queen, and the Sudan 1884-85, being employed as colonel on the staff 1885, and brigadier-general 1885-1886. In the latter year he was made a K.C.B. He was colonel on the staff in Egypt 1890-1892, and brigadier-general there until 1892, when he was promoted major-general and stationed at Aldershot, after which he commanded the southeastern district. In 1898 he succeeded General Goodenough as commander-in-chief in South Africa, with the local rank of lieutenant-general. For a short period (Dec. 1898-Feb. 1899), during the absence of Sir Alfred Milner in England, he acted as high commissioner, and as such and subsequently in his military capacity he expressed views on the subject of the probabilities of war which were not approved by the home government; he was consequently ordered home to command the western district, and held this post until 1905. He also held the Aldershot command for a brief period in 1900-1901. Sir William Butler was promoted lieutenant-general in 1900. He had long been known as a descriptive writer, since his publication ofThe Great Lone Land(1872) and other works, and he was the biographer (1899) of Sir George Colley. He married in 1877 Miss Elizabeth Thompson, an accomplished painter of battle-scenes, notably "The Roll Call" (1874), "Quatre Bras" (1875), "Rorke's Drift" (1881), "The Camel Corps" (1891), and "The Dawn of Waterloo" (1895).
BUTLER,a borough and the county-seat of Butler county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on Conoquenessing Creek, about 30 m. N. of Pittsburg. Pop. (1890) 8734; (1900) 10,853, of whom 928 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 20,728. It is served by the Pennsylvania, the Baltimore & Ohio, the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburg, and the Bessemer & Lake Erie railways, and is connected with Pittsburg by two electric lines. It is built on a small hill about 1010 ft. above sea-level, and commands extensive views of the surrounding valley. The Butler County hospital (1899) is located here. A fair is held in Butler annually. Oil, natural gas, clay, coal and iron abound in the vicinity, and the borough has various manufactures, including lumber, railway cars (especially of steel), paint, silk, bricks, plate-glass, bottles and oil-well tools. The value of the city's factory products increased from $1,403,026 in 1900 to $6,832,007 in 1905, or 386.9%, this being much the greatest rate of increase shown by any city in the state having in 1900 a population of 8000 or more. Butler was selected as the site for the county-seat of the newly-formed county in 1802, was laid out in 1803, and was incorporated in the same year. The county and the borough were named in honour of General Richard Butler, a soldier in the War of Independence and leader of the right wing of General St Clair's army, which was sent against the Indians in 1791 and on the 4th of November was defeated, Butler being killed in the engagement.
BUTLER(through the O. Fr.bouteillier, from the Late Lat.buticularius,buticula, a bottle), a domestic servant who superintends the wine-cellar and acts as the chief male servant of a household; among his other duties are the conduct of the service of the table and the custody of the plate. The butler of a royal household was an official of high rank, whose duties, though primarily connected with the supply of wine for the royal table, varied in the different courts in which the office appears. In England, as superintendent of the importation of wine, a duty was payable to him (seeButlerage and Prisage); the butlership of Ireland,Pincerna Hiberniae, was given by John, king of England, to Theobald Walter, who added the name of Butler to his own; it then became the surname of his descendants, the earls, dukes and marquesses of Ormonde (seeButler, family, above).
BUTLERAGE AND PRISAGE.In England there was an ancient right of the crown to purveyance or pre-emption,i.e.the right of buying up provisions and other necessities for the royal household, at a valuation, even without the consent of the owner. Out of this right originated probably that of taking customs, in return for the protection and maintenance of the ports and harbours. One such customs due was that of "prisage," the right of taking one tun of wine from every ship importing from ten to twenty tuns, and two tuns from every ship importing more than twenty tuns. This right of prisage was commuted, by a charter of Edward I. (1302), into a duty of two shillings on every tun imported by merchant strangers, and termed "butlerage," because paid to the king's butler. Butlerage ceased to be levied in 1809, by the Customs Consolidation Act of that year.
BUTO,the Greek name of the Egyptian goddess Uto (hierogl.W'zy·t), confused with the name of her city Buto (seeBusiris). She was a cobra-goddess of the marshes, worshipped especially in the city of Buto in the north-west of the Delta, and at another Buto (Hdt. ii. 75) in the north-east of the Delta, now Tell Nebesheh. The former city is placed by Petrie at Tell Ferain, a large and important site, but as yet yielding no inscriptions. This western Buto was the capital of the kingdom of Northern Egypt in prehistoric times before the two kingdoms were united; hence the goddess Buto was goddess of Lower Egypt and the North. To correspond to the vulture goddess (Nekhbi) of the south she sometimes is given the form of a vulture; she is also figured in human form. As a serpent she is commonly twined round a papyrus stem, which latter spells her name; and generally she wears the crown of Lower Egypt. The Greeks identified her with Leto; this may be accounted for partly by the resemblance of name, partly by the myth of her having brought up Horus in a floating island, resembling the story of Leto and Apollo on Delos. Perhaps the two myths influenced each other. Herodotus describes the temple and other sacredplaces of (the western) Buto, and refers to its festival, and to its oracle, which must have been important though nothing definite is known about it. It is strange that a city whose leading in the most ancient times was fully recognized throughout Egyptian history does not appear in the early lists of nome-capitals. Like Thebes, however (which lay in the 4th nome of Upper Egypt, its early capital being Hermonthis), it eventually became, at a very late date, the capital of a nome, in this case called Phtheneto, "the land of (the goddess) Buto." The second Buto (hierogl.'Im·t) was capital from early times of the 19th nome of Lower Egypt.
See Herodotus ii. 155;Zeitschr. f. ägyptische Sprache(1871), I; K. Sethe in Pauly-Wissowa,Realencyclopädie,s.v."Buto"; D.G. Hogarth,Journal of Hellenic Studies, xxiv. I; W.M.F. Petrie,Ehnasya, p. 36;Nebesheh and Defenneh.
(F. Ll. G.)
BUTRINTO,a seaport and fortified town of southern Albania, Turkey, in the vilayet of Iannina; directly opposite the island of Corfu (Corcyra), and on a small stream which issues from Lake Vatzindro or Vivari, into the Bay of Butrinto, an inlet of the Adriatic Sea. Pop.(1900) about 2000. The town, which is situated about 2 m. inland, has a small harbour, and was formerly the seat of an Orthodox bishop. In the neighbourhood are the ruins of the ancientButhrotum, from which the modern town derives its name. The ruins consist of a Roman wall, about a mile in circumference, and some remains of both later and Hellenic work. The legendary founder of the city was Helenus, son of Priam, and Virgil (Aen.iii. 291 sq.) tells how Helenus here established a new Trojan kingdom. Hence the namesNew TroyandNew Pergamum, applied to Buthrotum, and those ofXanthusandSimoïs, given to two small streams in the neighbourhood. In the 1st centuryB.C.Buthrotum became a Roman colony, and derived some importance from its position near Corcyra, and on the main highway between Dyrrachium and Ambracia. Under the Empire, however, it was overshadowed by the development of Dyrrachium and Apollonia. The modern city belonged to the Venetians from the 14th century until 1797. It was then seized by the French, who in 1799 had to yield to the Russians and Turks.
BUTT, ISAAC(1813-1879), Irish lawyer and Nationalist leader, was born at Glenfin, Donegal, in 1813, his father being the Episcopalian rector of Stranorlar. Having won high honours at Trinity, Dublin, he was appointed professor of political economy in 1836. In 1838 he was called to the bar, and not only soon obtained a good practice, but became known as a politician on the Protestant Conservative side, and an opponent of O'Connell. In 1844 he was made a Q.C. He figured in nearly all the important Irish law cases for many years, and was engaged in the defence of Smith O'Brien in 1848, and of the Fenians between 1865 and 1869. In 1852 he was returned to parliament by Youghal as a Liberal-Conservative, and retained this seat till 1865; but his views gradually became more liberal, and he drifted away from his earlier opinions. His career in parliament was marred by his irregular habits, which resulted in pecuniary embarrassment, and between 1865 and 1870 he returned again to his work at the law courts. The result, however, of the disestablishment of the Irish Church was to drive Butt and other Irish Protestants into union with the Nationalists, who had always repudiated the English connexion; and on 19th May 1870, at a large meeting in Dublin, Butt inaugurated the Home Rule movement in a speech demanding an Irish parliament for local affairs. On this platform he was elected in 1871 for Limerick, and found himself at the head of an Irish Home Rule party of fifty-seven members. But it was an ill-assorted union, and Butt soon found that he had little or no control over his more aggressive followers. He had no liking for violent methods or for "obstruction" in parliament; and his leadership gradually became a nullity. His false position undoubtedly assisted in breaking down his health, and he died in Dublin on the 5th of May 1879.
BUTT.(1) (From the Fr.botte,boute; Med. Lat.butta, a wine vessel), a cask for ale or wine, with a capacity of about two hogsheads. (2) (A word common in Teutonic languages, meaning short, or a stump), the thick end of anything, as of a fishing-rod, a gun, a whip, also the stump of a tree. (3) (From the Fr.but, a goal or mark, andbutte, a target, a rising piece of ground, &c.), a mark for shooting, as in archery, or, in its modern use, a mound or bank in front of which are placed the targets in artillery or musketry practice. This is sometimes called a "stop-butt," its purpose being to secure the ground behind the targets from stray shots. The word is used figuratively of a person or object at which derision or abuse are levelled.
BUTTE,the largest city of Montana, U.S.A., and the county-seat of Silver Bow county. It is situated in the valley of Deer Lodge river, near its head, at an altitude of about 5700 ft. Pop. (1880) 3363; (1890) 10,723; (1900) 30,470, of whom 10,210 were foreign-born, including 2474 Irish, 1518 English-Canadians, and 1505 English; (1910 census) 39,165. It is served by the Great Northern, the Northern Pacific, the Chicago, Milwaukee & Puget Sound, the Butte, Anaconda & Pacific, and the Oregon Short Line railways. Popularly the name "Butte" is applied to an area which embraces the city, Centerville, Walkerville, East Butte, South Butte and Williamsburg. These together form one large and more or less compact city. Butte lies in the centre of the greatest copper-mining district in the world; the surrounding hills are honey-combed with mines, and some mines are in the very heart of the city itself. The best known of the copper mines is the Anaconda. The annual output of copper from the Butte district almost equals that from all the rest of the country together; the annual value of copper, gold and silver aggregates more than $60,000,000. Although mining and its allied industries of quartz crushing and smelting dominate all other industries in the place, there are also foundries and machine shops, iron-works, tile factories, breweries and extensive planing mills. Electricity, used in the mines particularly, is brought to Butte from Cañon Ferry, 75 m. to the N.; from the plant, also on the Missouri river, of the Helena Power Transmission Company, which has a great steel dam 85 ft. high and 630 ft. long across the river, and a 6000-h.p. substation in Butte; and from the plant of the Madison River Power Company, on Madison river 7½ m. S.E. of Norris, whence power is also transmitted to Bozeman and Belgrade, Gallatin county, to Ruby, Madison county, and to the Greene-Campbell mine near Whitehall, Jefferson county. In 1910 Butte had only one large smelter, and the smoke nuisance was thus abated. The city is the seat of the Montana School of Mines (1900), and has a state industrial school, a high school and a public library (rebuilt in 1906 after a fire) with more than 32,000 volumes. The city hall, Federal building and Silver Bow county court house are among the principal buildings. Butte was first settled as a placer mining camp in 1864. It was platted in 1866; its population in 1870 was only 241, and for many years its growth was slow. Prosperity came, however, with the introduction of quartz mining in 1875, and in 1879 a city charter was granted. In the decade from 1890 to 1900 Butte's increase in population was 184.2%.
BUTTE(O. Fr.butte, a hillock or rising ground), a word used in the western states of North America for a flat-topped hill surrounded by a steep escarpment from which a slope descends to the plain. It is sometimes used for "an elevation higher than a hill but not high enough for a mountain." The butte capped by a horizontal platform of hard rock is characteristic of the arid plateau region of the west of North America.