Robert Chambers, who was well known to his contemporaries as a writer and publisher, was the anonymous author of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844), a controversial book about biological evolution. Despite widespread debate and speculation about the authorship of the book, Chambers managed to keep his secret throughout his lifetime.
The publishing firm of W. and R. Chambers, Ltd. grew from a modest bookstall in Edinburgh established by Robert Chambers in 1818. In 1832 Robert and his brother William began publishing Chambers's Edinburgh Journal. The Chambers brothers also published a very successful series of textbooks for young children. Chambers's Educational Course, which included Robert's Introduction to the Sciences(1836), was widely used in schools. In 1859, Robert and William began publication of Chambers's Encyclopedia. The first edition, consisting of 10 volumes, was completed in 1868. Chambers's Encyclopedia earned a solid reputation for its international scope and its scholarly treatment of historical subjects, science, and biography. A modern edition of Chambers's Encyclopedia was issued as a 15-volume set in 1950.
Although Chambers saw himself as "the essayist of the middle class," he was apparently fascinated with the idea of anonymity and the theory of evolution. Robert and William shared a very direct interest in the question of variety in nature, because both brothers were complete hexadactyls, that is, their hands and feet had six digits. Both were operated on to correct this anomaly, but Robert experienced a long and painful recovery. Publicly, Chambers did not support evolutionary theory because becoming associated with radical ideas might have damaged his family business. Anonymity was commonplace in nineteenth century fiction, journalism, religious and political writing, but unusual in science. Chambers was very interested in science and conducted geological research, but little is known about how he decided to publish Vestiges. Robert destroyed many relevant documents and special precautions were taken to keep his secret until 1884, when the twelfth edition of Vestiges was published. Chambers wrote the book during a period of enforced rest and isolation in the 1840s after he suffered a breakdown, which was attributed to excessive work.
In writing Vestiges, Chambers was apparently stimulated by John Pringle Nichol's speculations about the nebular hypothesis in View of the Architecture of the Heavens (1837). Starting with the nebular hypothesis as an explanation for the formation of the universe, Chambers applied the "law of progress" to the geology, botany, zoology, physiology, archeology, and anthropology.
When Vestiges appeared in 1844 it was attacked by clergymen as a threat to the very foundations of morality and religion. Scientists generally dismissed it as "bad science," but it had an enormous impact on middle and working class readers in Europe and America. Readers of Vestiges included Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace, Thomas Henry Huxley, as well as Abraham Lincoln, Queen Victoria, and Benjamin Disraeli (who satirized it in his Tancred (1846) where it appears as The Revelations of Chaos). The book was so popular with the reading public that it went through ten editions within ten years and was translated into several languages.
The English geologist Adam Sedgwick (1785-1873) denounced the book and said that Vestiges was so stupid the anonymous author must be a woman. Others suspected that Prince Albert was "Mr. Vestiges." Huxley said that the author of Vestiges obviously knew no more about science than what could be picked up in Chambers' Journals. However, Charles Darwin praised the book for bringing the theory of evolution to public attention and preparing the way for the reception of similar views.
Chambers believed he had discovered a fundamental unity in the development of the universe, the earth, and living beings. Although he accepted the conventional idea that God was the First Cause and the laws of nature were His mandates, he suggested that the universe was always developing according to laws that would eventually be understood by scientists. Although he did not dispute the idea that God had created living beings, Chambers argued that this did not mean that God was constantly involved in the creation of the myriad forms of life. This could be accomplished more economically through the operation of natural laws. Indeed, the imperfect working of natural laws could explain the existence of rudimentary and vestigial organs, which were incompatible with the idea of direct creation.
Recent studies of the cell made it possible to imagine the first cells as the meeting point between the inorganic and the organic world. The puzzle of the creation of life might then be reduced to the question of the creation of the first cell. Chambers thought that he had assembled sufficient proof of the occurrence of biological evolution, but he could not provide a new and convincing argument about its mechanism. Like Jean Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829), Chambers assumed that environmental factors were responsible for the improvement or degeneration of individuals and species. Citing the well-known fact that bees could produce a worker or a queen by changes in nurture, he argued that similar influences could explain other cases. One of Chambers's most radical arguments was that even human beings and civilizations were the products of evolution.
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