CHAMBERS, ROBERT (b. Peebles, Scotland, 10 July 1802; d. St. Andrews, Scotland, 17 March 1871), biology, geology.

    given credit for helping to gain acceptance for the glacial theory.

The scientific work for which Chambers is now best known, Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844), was published anonymously. By 1860 it had sold over 20,000 copies in eleven British editions plus editions in the United States, Germany, and the Netherlands. Chambers had planned to write no more on the subject; but late in 1845, largely in response to Adam Sedgwick's review of the Vestiges in the Edinburgh Review, he wrote Explanations: A Sequel to “Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation.” The Explanations was appended to later editions of the Vestiges, several of which underwent substantial revisions.

The main thesis of the Vestiges is that the organic world is controlled by the law of development, just as the inorganic is controlled by gravitation. Within each realm the respective law is the factor unifying all the phenomena. Chambers suggests, although not explicitly, that a higher generalization will someday be found that will unify the phenomena of both the organic and the inorganic realms. He begins with a discussion of the nebular hypothesis, which by the mid-1840's had lost many of its more scientific supporters but still had many believers among the general public. Chambers emphasized the developmental aspects of that hypothesis, arguing that the solar system had developed from “a universal Fire Mist” to its present configuration.

Chambers then devoted about a quarter of the volume to geology and paleontology, considering each era or formation in turn, beginning with the oldest. This is probably the strongest section of the book, geology being the one area of science in which he had had any firsthand experience. While discussing the formation of the strata, he also discussed the fossil fauna and flora contained therein. Chambers demonstrated that the fossils show a general progression from lower to higher types, with extinctions and new appearances taking place until the “superficial formations” and the appearance of the present species. The appearance of man is a very recent event; and within the human species there has been a development that finally produced the highest race, the Caucasian. To support his doctrine of development Chambers pointed to analogies between three sets of organic phenomena: the order of geological succession of forms, the general taxonomic arrangement of these forms, and the stages through which each embryo passes during development.

Much of the remainder of the volume is devoted to a wide range of biological phenomena, about which Chambers often demonstrates his lack of firsthand knowledge and his naïveté. It must be remembered that essentially all of Chambers' research for the Vestiges was done in a library and that he had little or no experience with which to evaluate his sources. The topics that he considers range from phrenology and the spontaneous generation of life by means of an electric charge to geographical distribution and taxonomy. For example, he accepts as demonstrated that oats can and do transform into rye, and he argues that birds gave rise to the duck-billed platypus, from which the other mammals arose. On a sounder basis, he relies on Augustin de Candolle's work on the geographical distribution of vegetation and recognizes the peculiarity of the fauna of Australia. In the first edition Chambers tended strongly toward William Macleay's circular system of taxonomy. However, he shifted in later editions to a linear branching scheme for representing the relationships of different groups and thus was able to indicate cases of parallel development.

The system that Chambers created was contrary to the contemporary theology. He thought the idea of having God create each species individually at the time at which it appeared in the geological record was belittling to God and unduly anthropomorphized Him. To Chambers it was far more noble to envisage the Creator as working through natural laws and having the organic world develop from humble beginnings. Such a system also provided the basis for an original unity of the entire organic world. Chambers argued that the operation of the natural laws is inherently good because they are God's laws. However, exceptions to the usual operation of the laws of nature arise as a result of localized conditions; and these exceptions are interpreted as apparent evils. Established religion did not take long to react to Chambers' views of the Deity and the cause of evil.

Often naïve, often gullible, Chambers still managed in the Vestiges to bring together a large variety of data from geology and the life sciences that bore on the problem of the origin of species. He was writing the Vestiges at the same time that Darwin was writing his “Sketch of 1842” and his “Essay of 1844.” Darwin would not publish until he had accumulated a great deal more supporting evidence. Chambers, with far less experience in science, did not feel such a concern. The Vestiges played a significant role in mid-nineteenth-century biology. By presenting an evolutionary view of nature, it received the first wave of reaction and thus eased the way for Darwin's On the Origin of Species fifteen years later.