Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation

From Freepedia

Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation was a book published anonymously in England in 1844. It proposed a theory of evolution, modeled somewhat after that of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, and created considerable political controversy in Victorian society for its radicalism and unorthodoxy. For many decades there was speculation as to its authorship, and it was only in 1884 revealed that it had been written by Robert Chambers, a publisher-author in Edinburgh who had himself died in 1871.

The work put forward a theory of evolution which encompassed everything from animals, human psychology, economics, and the solar system. It was considered scandalous and titillating, and was read by members of high society and also consumed by lower and middle classes thanks to the rise of cheap book-printing.

The book was a best-seller for many decades after it was published, despite being publicly denounced by scientists, preachers, and statesmen. The harsh reception that Vestiges received, and the mockery which was made of its evolutionary ideas, has been cited by historians as one of the factors leading to Charles Darwin's own delay in publishing his own theory of evolution. In a letter to Thomas Henry Huxley in 1854 (five years before his own book on evolution was published), Darwin expressed sympathy for the (still anonymous) author of Vestiges in the face of a savage review by Huxley:

"I must think that such a book, if it does no other good, spreads the taste for Natural Science. But I am perhaps no fair judge, for I am almost as unorthodox about species as the Vestiges itself, though I hope not quite so unphilosophical."[1]

However a year later, in a letter to Joseph Dalton Hooker, Darwin mentioned Vestiges in a more sober tone:

"I should have less scruple in troubling you if I had any confidence what my work would turn out. Sometimes I think it will be good, at other times I really feel as much ashamed of myself as the author of the Vestiges ought to be of himself."[2]

According to the historian James A. Secord, Vestiges out-sold The Origin of Species up until the early 20th century. Darwin himself later remarked that it was Vestiges which had prepared the world for his own theory.

In 1845, a sequel was published until the title of Explanations: A Sequel to the Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, along with the fourth edition of Vestiges, to address criticisms of the original volume.

References

James A. Secord, Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001). [3]