NA TURK 



73 



THURSDAY, MAY 22, 18S4 



VESTIGES OF CREATIOX 

 j Vestiges of Creation. By Robert Chambers, LL.D. 

 Twelfth Edition, with an Introduction relating to the 

 Authorship of the Work, by Alexander Ireland. 

 (London : W. and R. Chambers, 1SS4.) 



A LTHOUGH the authorship of this interesting book 

 ! **■ has been for some time a somewhat open secret, 

 J the public avowal of it is to be welcomed for more reasons 

 I than one. The mystery which for so long a time has 

 been allowed to hang over the subject was itself a mystery 

 to explain. For any one reading the " Vestiges " could 

 I scarcely suppose that the free-minded, open-hearted, and 

 fearless, truth-seeking spirit which looks out upon us in 

 , every page could be deterred by any motives of a petty 

 j or puerile kind from fixing the stamp of his name upon 

 ' his work — at any rate in some of the later of the numerous 

 editions through which the book passed. This mystery 

 is now explained. In his brief introduction to this, the 

 twelfth, edition, Mr. Ireland gives us the whole history of 

 the matter. It seems that Mr. Chambers desired to 

 conceal the authorship in the first instance for a variety 

 of reasons, all of which were laudable. The chief 

 among these was that " he was his brother's partner in a 

 publishing business in which the rule had been laid down 

 from the beginning of their co-partnery to avoid as far as 

 possible, in their publications, mixing themselves up with 

 debatable questions in politics and theology." After the 

 author's death this brother continued to put his veto upon 

 any declaration of the authorship, and so the secret was 

 held close. About this time last year, however, Dr. William 

 Chambers died, and left Mr. Ireland, as he says, " the 

 sole surviving possessor of the secret." Previous to his 

 death William Chambers expressed a wish that the secret 

 should never be divulged ; but as Robert Chambers had 

 left the matter to the discretion of Mr. Ireland, this 

 gentleman very' properly undertook to keep the secret 

 during the lifetime of the surviving relative, but refused to 

 promise that he would do so in the event of his being 

 left its sole repository. It is, therefore, to his sagacity 

 and good feeling that the public are now indebted for the 

 final clearing away of all the cobwebs which have been 

 allowed to grow around this matter. 



Of course the interest of the book itself is now purely 

 historical. But if we were asked to indicate what is the 

 Ifeature which most strikes us on reading it from end to 

 end, we should say, its power of clear and logical reason- 

 ling. The author is obviously a literary man, as distin- 

 guished from a man of science. But he is a literary man 

 who is diligent in getting up his facts after the manner of 

 a barrister preparing a case. He does not wait to 

 examine his facts, provided that they make a decent 

 show of probability, and produce a striking effect in his 

 argument. As a consequence, even in this expurgated 

 edition, we meet with a number of gravely erroneous 

 statements. But the point to which we desire to draw 

 attention is this. Although the writer every now and 

 then admits erroneous statements of fact on insufficient 

 evidence, and although as a consequence he every now 

 Vol. xxx.— No. 760 



and then runs after some will-o'-the-wisp hypothesis, he 

 never loses his logical balance ; but, after his chase is 

 over, he returns to his main argument as little out of 

 breath as when he started. This, we think, is no small 

 praise. If Chambers constructs his argument barrister- 

 wise, he does so merely for the sake of presenting to judg- 

 ment everything that has any appearance of being a fact ; 

 and on the whole he exercises a wise discretion in his 

 estimate of the comparative value of the facts as proved 

 or unproved. 



The interest attaching to this remarkable work being 

 now purely historical, it is impossible to avoid contrasting 

 it with the still more remarkable work by which it was so 

 soon to be eclipsed. When we do so, we have brought 

 home to us more forcibly than ever by how enormous an 

 interval the mind of Mr. Darwin was separated from all 

 contemporary thought on the origin of species. It is not 

 merely that he happened to have shed upon the whole 

 subject the new light which arose with the great concep- 

 tion of survival of the fittest. Indeed, while reading some 

 of Chambers' broadly-stated and yet closely-reasoned 

 views upon " the fecundity of nature ordaining that her 

 creatures shall ever be pressing upon the verge of the local 

 means of subsistence " ; the consequent tendency of indi- 

 viduals to overflow into other areas, " thus exposing them- 

 selves to new influences " ; the opportunity that is thus 

 afforded to any variety happening to arise on the newly 

 colonised area, and happening also to be adapted to these 

 new conditions, to perpetuate itself by heredity (pp. 226- 

 -7) ; — when we read such passages, we are led to won- 

 der that, having gone all round the hypothesis of natural 

 selection, Chambers should not have gone through it. 

 But where we find the immense contrast between him 

 and Darwin is in the different manner wherewith they 

 have treated even the same lines of evidence concerning 

 the/act, as distinguished from the method, of evolution. If 

 we compare the chapters on geological and geographical 

 distribution, on the mental constitution of animals, &c, 

 with the corresponding chapters in the " Origin of 

 Species " and " Descent of Man," we are led to marvel, 

 perhaps more than we have ever marvelled, at the gigantic 

 grip of Mr. Darwin's mind. It is not merely that he had 

 incomparably larger stores of facts to draw upon, that he 

 was a man of science as distinguished from a man of 

 letters, and so forth. It is rather that he was head and 

 shoulders above everybody else in sheer mass and force 

 of thought. We have now become so accustomed to 

 walk easily through the jungles where he, like an 

 elephant, has opened the way, that it is difficult for the 

 younger generation to realise the state of matters before 

 the elephant appeared. But in the "Vestiges of Creation " 

 we have the vestiges of these former things. We here see 

 a man of very unusual strength as a writer, with no small 

 diligence in accumulating evidence, and well equipped 

 with the implements of logical method ; we see him 

 fighting manfully with all his might to cut his way in the 

 direction w^here he is profoundly convinced that the truth 

 must lie ; and yet we see that he is overwhelmed with 

 the immensity of his task. His work is now well worth 

 surveying, if only to make us realise the nature of the 

 difficulties with which at that same time his great suc- 

 cessor" was contending. 



But, leaving now this unavoidable comparison aside. 



