The Note Books Of Samuel Butler

Vibrations 69

the extension of the world when it has become over-peopled
or when, through its gradual cooling down, it becomes less
suitable for a habitation. By and by we shall make new
worlds.

Mental and Physical

A strong hope of £20,000 in the heart of a poor but capable
man may effect a considerable redistribution of the forces
of nature—may even remove mountains. .The little, unseen
impalpable hope sets up a vibrating movement in a messy
substance shut in a dark warm place inside the man's skull.
The vibrating substance undergoes a change that none can
note, whereupon rings of rhythm circle outwards from it
as from a stone thrown into a pond, so that the Alps are
pierced in consequence.

Vibrations, Memory and Chemical Properties

The quality of every substance depends upon its vibrations,
but so does the quality of all thought and action. Quality
is only one mode of action; the action of developing, the
desire to make this or that, and do this or that, and the
stuff we make are alike due to the nature and characteristics
of vibrations.

I want to connect the actual manufacture of the things
a chicken makes inside an egg with the desire and memory of
the chickens, so as to show that one and the same set of
vibrations at once change the universal substratum, into the
particular phase of it required and awaken a consciousness of,
and a memory of and a desire towards, this particular phase
on the part of the molecules which are being vibrated into it.
So, for example, that a set of vibrations shall at once turn
plain white and yolk of egg into the feathers, blood and bones
of a chicken and, at the same time, make the mind of the
embryo to be such or such as it is.

Protoplasm and Reproduction

The reason why the offspring of protoplasm progressed,
and the offspring of nothing else does so, is that the viscid
nature of protoplasm allows vibrations to last a very long