Robert Chambers
(1802-1871)
Robert Chambers was a Scottish
publisher and popular writer trained especially in geology.
His fascinating and revolutionary book
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
(published anonymously in
1844)
was simply an
international sensation of its time
Chambers' metaphysics, being not typically British
(i.e., deistic) was condemned not only by Agassiz and Sedgwick, but also by
evolutionists (including Huxley and Darwin). Chambers' theory had revived partly
the Lamarck's teleology. The central idea concerned development and gradualism,
especially the analogy with ontogenetic development. In the 'Vestiges',
there are also pictures of parallel, unbranched evolutionary lineages.
Excerpts:
"The idea, then, which I form of the progress of organic life upon the
globe - and the hypothesis is applicable to all similar theatres of vital being
- is, that the simplest and most primitive type, under a law to which that of
like-production is subordinate, gave birth to the type next above it, that this
again produced the next higher, and so on to the very highest, the stages of
advance being in all cases very small - namely, from one species only to
another; so that the phenomenon has always been of a simple and modest
character."
(Robert Chambers: "Vestiges of the Natural History of
Creation")
"It is most interesting to observe into how small a field the whole of
the mysteries of nature thus ultimately resolve themselves. The inorganic has
one final comprehensive law, GRAVITATION. The organic, the other great
department of mundane things, rests in like manner on one law, and that is -
DEVELOPMENT. Nor may even these be after all twain, but only branches of one
still more comprehensive law, the expression of that unity which man's wit can
scarcely separate from Deity itself."
(Robert Chambers: "Vestiges of the Natural History of
Creation")
"It being admitted that the system of the Universe is one under the
dominion of natural law (natural law being guardedly defined as a mere term for
that order which the Deity observes in his operations), it follows that the
introduction of species into the world must have been brought about in the
manner of law also."
(Robert Chambers: "Vestiges of the Natural History of
Creation")
"The Eternal One has arranged for everything beforehand, and trusted
all to the operation of the laws of his appointment, himself being ever present
in all things."
(Robert Chambers: "Vestiges of the Natural History of
Creation")
