Book: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4

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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, the _cross_,
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
the _Analogy_ are very numerous; that by Bishop William Fitzgerald (1849)
contains a valuable Life and Notes. W. Whewell published an edition of the
_Three Sermons_, with Introduction. Modern editions of the _Works_ are
those by W.E. Gladstone (2 vols. with a 3rd vol. of _Studies Subsidiary_,
1896), and J.H. Bernard, (2 vols. in the English Theological Library,
1900). For the history of the religious works contemporary with the
_Analogy_, see Lechler, _Gesch. d. Engl. Deismus_; M. Pattison, in _Essays
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 the _Educational
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 published _The
Meaning of Education_ (1898), a collection of essays; and two series of
addresses, _True and False Democracy_ (1907), and _The American as he is_
(1908).

BUTLER (or BOTELER), SAMUEL (1612-1680), English poet, author of
_Hudibras_, 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 1661
[v.04 p.0886] to 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 1663 _Hudibras: 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 of _Hudibras_ he 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 L300 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 his _Characters_
(_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 of
_Hudibras_ he 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."

_Hudibras_ itself, 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 of _Hudibras_ though 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 from _Don Quixote_. His obligations to the
_Satyre Menippee_ have 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 of _Hudibras_
to earlier writers, especially in Cleveland's satires and in the _Musarum
Deliciae_ of Sir John Mennis (Pepys's Minnes) and Dr James Smith
(1605-1667). But if it had few [v.04 p.0887] ancestors it had an abundant
offspring. A list of twenty-seven direct imitations of _Hudibras_ in 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, besides
_Hudibras_: _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, entitled _Posthumous 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 of
_Genuine Remains in Verse and Prose of Mr Samuel Butler_. This collection
contained _The 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 to _Hudibras_, which
are among his earliest but not, perhaps, happiest productions. In 1744 Dr
Zachary Grey published an edition of _Hudibras_, with copious and learned
annotations; and an additional volume of _Critical and Historical and
Explanatory Notes_ in 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's _Tracts_, vol. vii.; he contributed to
_Ovid's Epistles translated by several hands_ (1680); and works by him are
included in _Miscellaneous works, written by ... George Duke of Buckingham
... also State Poems ... (by various hands)_ (1704); and in _The 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 a
Wood in _Athenae Oxonienses_. Dr Threadneedle Russel Nash, a Worcestershire
antiquarian, supplied some additional facts in an edition of 1793. See the
Aldine edition of the _Poetical Works of Samuel Butler_ (1893), edited by
Reginald Brimley Johnson, with complete bibliographical information. There
is a good reprint of _Hudibras_ (edited by Mr A.R. Waller, 1905) in the
_Cambridge Classics_.

[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 the _Edinburgh Review_, but Butler was
prevented by his elevation to the episcopate from, revising it. He also
wrote a _Sketch 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 of
_Erewhon_ (_Life and Letters of Dr Samuel Butler_, 1896); see also Baker's
_History of St John's College, Cambridge_ (ed. J.E.B. Mayor, 1869); Sandys,
_Hist. Class. Schol._ (ed. 1908), vol. iii. p. 398.

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