Electronic edition published by Cultural Heritage Langauge Technologies (with permission from Charles Scribners and Sons) and funded by the National Science Foundation International Digital Libraries Program. This text has been proofread to a low degree of accuracy. It was converted to electronic form using data entry.
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.