CHAPTER XXV 



Robert Chambers and the " Vestiges of Creation " Natural Selection 

 The Views of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. 



FOR half a century after the appearance of the " Philosophie 

 Zoologique " the theory of organic evolution made but little 

 progress. The gap, however, was to some extent filled by the 

 publication, at first anonymously, of Robert Chambers' celebrated 

 book, "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation." This work 

 first appeared in the year 1844 and rapidly passed through a large 

 number of editions. Though the views of its author can hardly 

 be said to mark any advance, but on the whole perhaps rather a 

 retrogression, the work, which gave rise to much controversy, 

 undoubtedly played a very important part in preparing the way 

 for the reception of Charles Darwin's " Origin of Species." 

 Chambers presented the evidence of organic evolution in a very 

 convincing manner, laying great stress upon that afforded by 

 the geological record and the facts of comparative anatomy and 

 embryology, and he included mankind in his general scheme of 

 evolution. 



His views as to the modus opcrandi of organic evolution are 

 probably expressed as clearly as such views could be in the 

 following paragraphs : 



" The proposition determined on after much consideration is, 

 that the several series of animated beings, from the simplest and 

 oldest up to the highest and most recent, are, under the providence 

 of God, the results, first, of an impulse which has been imparted 

 to the forms of life, advancing them, in definite times, by genera- 

 tion, through grades of organization terminating in the highest 

 dicotyledons and vertebrata, these grades being few in number, 

 and generally marked by intervals of organic character which 

 we find to be a practical difficulty in ascertaining affinities ; 

 second, of another impulse connected with the vital forces, 

 tending, in the course of generations, to modify organic structures 

 in accordance with external circumstances, as food, the nature 

 of the habitat and the meteoric agencies, these being the 



