1845 SEDGWICK ON 'VESTIGES' 255 



Adam Sedgwick to R. Owen 



May 1845. 



' I have thoughts of writing a review of that 

 beastly book, the "Vestiges of Creation." You 

 are my brazen head, like the one old Friar Bacon 

 used to consult in his difficulties.' Sedgwick goes 

 on to criticise various points in what he calls the 

 ' circular-logic ' of the author, and he remarks : 

 1 The marsupials may resemble in their gestation 

 the lower class of birds. But is not this mere 

 resemblance without anything like identity, or 

 like a passage from one towards another ? True 

 philosophy has to do with differences rather than 

 with resemblances, or at least has to do with both. 

 I want you to clear my fog over one or two points.' 



Sedgwick apparently wrote also to Sir Philip 

 Egerton for information, for the latter writes to 

 Owen in June to say that he has no time to give 

 Sedgwick's letter a careful answer. ' Give,' he says, 

 ' old Sedg. an argument or two to level against 

 the "Vestiges" founded on correct anatomy' 



It is interesting to find, after reading Owen's 

 own letter to the then unknown author of the 

 ' Vestiges,' that others eagerly sought after his 

 opinions, for the express purpose of confuting 

 the views therein expressed. We may, perhaps, 

 assume that Owen had a certain leaning towards 

 the theories enunciated by Robert Chambers, but 



