Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation is an 1844 work of speculative natural history and philosophy by Robert Chambers. Published anonymously in England, it brought together various ideas of stellar evolution with the progressive transmutation of species in an accessible narrative which tied together numerous scientific theories of the age.
Vestiges was initially well received by polite Victorian society and became an international bestseller, but its unorthodox themes contradicted the natural theology fashionable at the time and were reviled by clergymen – and subsequently by scientists who readily found fault with its amateurish deficiencies. The ideas in the book were favoured by Radicals, but its presentation remained popular with a much wider public. Prince Albert read it aloud to Queen Victoria in 1845. Vestiges caused a shift in popular opinion which – Charles Darwin believed – prepared the public mind for the scientific theories of evolution by natural selection which followed from the publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859.
For decades there was speculation about its authorship. The 12th edition, published in 1884, revealed officially that the author was Robert Chambers, a Scottish journalist, who had written the book in St Andrews between 1841 and 1844 while recovering from a psychiatric disturbance. Initially, Chambers had proposed the title The Natural History of Creation, but he was persuaded to revise the title in deference to the Scottish geologist James Hutton, who had remarked of the timeless aspect of geology: "no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end". Some of the inspiration for the work derived from the Edinburgh Phrenological Society whose materialist influence reached a climax between 1825 and 1840. George Combe, the leading proponent of phrenological thinking, had published his influential The Constitution of Man in 1828. Chambers was closely involved with Combe's associates William A. F. Browne and Hewett Cottrell Watson who did much to spell out the materialist theory of the mind.
Publication The book was published in October 1844 by John Churchill in London. Great pains were undertaken to secure the secret of its authorship from Churchill and the public. After Chambers completed each section, his wife copied the manuscript, because Chambers was well known in the trade. Alexander Ireland of Manchester delivered the manuscript to the publisher. Proofs were delivered by the printer, a Mr. Savill, back to Ireland, who forwarded them to Chambers. Chambers shared the secret with only four people: his wife, his brother William, Ireland, and Robert Cox. All correspondence to and from Chambers went through Ireland as intermediary.Ireland, "Introduction to the Twelfth Edition," in . Two years after the initial publication, in 1846, a Dr. Neil Arnott was also added to this tight inner circle.
Content
The work puts forward a cosmic theory of transmutation, which we now call evolution, as the "natural history of creation". It suggests that everything currently in existence has developed from earlier forms: the Solar System, Earth, rocks, plants and corals, fish, land plants, reptiles and birds, mammals, and ultimately man.
The book begins by tackling the origins of the Solar System, using the nebular hypothesis to explain its formation entirely in terms of natural law. It explains the origins of life by spontaneous generation, citing some questionable experiments that claimed to spontaneously generate insects through electricity. It then appeals to geology to demonstrate a progression in the fossil record from simple to more complex organisms, finally culminating in man, with the Caucasian European the pinnacle of this process, just above the other races and the rest of the animal kingdom. It connected man’s mental reasoning power with the rest of the animals as an advanced evolutionary step that can be traced back through 'lower' animals. In this sense, the evolutionary ideas offered in Vestiges aimed to be all-encompassing.
It contains several comments relevant to recent debates, such as regarding Intelligent Design. For example:
Not one species of any creature which flourished before the tertiary (Ehrenberg's infusoria excepted) now exists; and of the mammalia which arose during that series, many forms are altogether gone, while of others we have now only kindred species. Thus to find not only frequent additions to the previous existing forms, but frequent withdrawals of forms which had apparently become inappropriate – a constant shifting as well as advance – is a fact calculated very forcibly to arrest attention. A candid consideration of all these circumstances can scarcely fail to introduce into our minds a somewhat different idea of organic creation from what has hitherto been generally entertained. (p. 152)
In other words, the fact of extinction, which can be observed in the fossil layers, suggests that some designs were flawed. From this, the author concludes:
Some other idea must then come to with regard to the mode in which the Divine Author proceeded in the organic creation. (p. 153)
But this suggestion is not a mechanism, as Darwin would argue fifteen years later. The author merely notes that a continually active God is unnecessary:
...how can we suppose that the august Being who brought all these countless worlds into form by the simple establishment of a natural principle flowing from his mind, was to interfere personally and specially on every occasion when a new shell-fish or reptile was to be ushered into existence on one of these worlds? Surely this idea is too ridiculous to be for a moment entertained. (p. 154)
He furthermore suggests that this interpretation may be based upon corrupt theology:
Thus, the scriptural objection quickly vanishes, and the prevalent ideas about the organic creation appear only as a mistaken inference from the text, formed at a time when man's ignorance prevented him from drawing therefrom a just conclusion. (p. 156)
And praises God for his foresight in generating such wondrous variety from so elegant a method, while chastening those who would oversimplify His accomplishment:
To a reasonable mind the Divine attributes must appear, not diminished or reduced in some way, by supposing a creation by law, but infinitely exalted. It is the narrowest of all views of the Deity, and characteristic of a humble class of intellects, to suppose him acting constantly in particular ways for particular occasions. It, for one thing, greatly detracts from his foresight, the most undeniable of all the attributes of Omnipotence. It lowers him towards the level of our own humble intellects. Much more worthy of him it surely is, to suppose that all things have been commissioned by him from the first, though neither is he absent from a particle of the current of natural affairs in one sense, seeing that the whole system is continually supported by his providence. (pp. 156–157)
Following its publication, there was increasing support for ideas of the coexistence of God and Nature, with the deity setting Natural Laws rather than continually intervening with miracles. It is perhaps for this reason that On the Origin of Species was accepted so readily upon its eventual publication. On the other hand, the knowledge of the scandal and experience of the reaction of his scientist friends confirmed Darwin's reluctance to publish his own ideas until he had well researched answers to all possible objections (though, in the end, Darwin had to publish earlier than he had wanted to anyway).
Vestiges and Lamarck
The book argued for an evolutionary view of life in the same spirit as the late Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. Lamarck had long been discredited among intellectuals by the 1840s and evolutionary (or development) theories were exceedingly unpopular, except among the political radicals, materialists, and atheists. Charles Lyell had thoroughly criticized Lamarck's ideas in the second edition of his monumental work Principles of Geology. Thus, it was naturally tempting for some critics to simply dismiss Vestiges as Lamarckian. Chambers, however, tried to explicitly distance his own theory from that of Lamarck's by denying Lamarck's evolutionary mechanism any plausibility. Now it is possible that wants and the exercise of faculties have entered in some manner into the production of the phenomena which we have been considering; but certainly not in the way suggested by Lamarck, whose whole notion is obviously so inadequate to account for the rise of the organic kingdoms, that we only can place it with pity among the follies of the wise. (p. 231)
In an (anonymous) autobiographical preface written in the third person that only appeared in the 10th edition, Chambers remarked that "He had heard of the hypothesis of Lamarck; but it seemed to him to proceed upon a vicious circle, and he dismissed it as wholly inadequate to account for the existence of animated species."
Reception
The book quickly became a best-seller, and a sensation which was eagerly read in royal circles. Every afternoon for a period early in 1845, Prince Albert read it aloud to Queen Victoria as a suitable popular science book explaining the latest ideas from the continent. Abraham Lincoln's law partner and biographer William Herndon recalled that Lincoln had read the book with great interest in its "doctrine of development or evolution" and had been "deeply impressed with the notion of the so-called 'universal law' – evolution." It was well received by middle class readers and unorthodox clergymen, particularly of Nonconformist church groups such as Unitarians. At first scientists ignored the book and it took time before hostile reviews were published, but the book was then publicly denounced by scientists, preachers, and statesmen. Notably, Sir David Brewster, then the Principal of St Andrews University, wrote a very critical review of the work in the North British Review, where he stated:
Discoveries in geology, or in physics imperfectly developed, and portions of Scripture imperfectly interpreted, might be expected to place themselves in temporary collision; but who could have anticipated any general speculations on the natural history of creation, which would startle the pious student, or for a moment disturb the serenity of the Christian world? Such an event, however, has occurred, and on the author of the work before us rests its responsibility. Prophetic of infidel times, and indicating the unsoundness of our general education, "The Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation," has started into public favour with a fair chance of poisoning the fountains of science, and sapping the foundations of religion. Popular in its subject, as well as in its expositions, this volume has obtained a wide circulation among the influential classes of society. It has been read and applauded by those who can neither weigh its facts, nor appreciate its argument, nor detect its tendencies; while those who can - the philosopher, the naturalist, and the divine - have concurred in branding it with their severest censure.