The book quickly became a best-seller, and a sensation which was eagerly read in royal circles. Every afternoon for a period early in 1845,
Prince Albert read it aloud to
Queen Victoria as a suitable popular science book explaining the latest ideas from the continent.
Abraham Lincoln's law partner and biographer
William Herndon recalled that Lincoln had read the book with great interest in its "doctrine of development or evolution" and had been "deeply impressed with the notion of the so-called 'universal law' – evolution." It was well received by middle class readers and unorthodox clergymen, particularly of
Nonconformist church groups such as
Unitarians. At first scientists ignored the book and it took time before hostile reviews were published, but the book was then publicly denounced by scientists, preachers, and statesmen. Notably, Sir
David Brewster, then the Principal of St Andrews University, wrote a very critical review of the work in the
North British Review, where he stated: Discoveries in geology, or in physics imperfectly developed, and portions of Scripture imperfectly interpreted, might be expected to place themselves in temporary collision; but who could have anticipated any general speculations on the natural history of creation, which would startle the pious student, or for a moment disturb the serenity of the Christian world? Such an event, however, has occurred, and on the author of the work before us rests its responsibility. Prophetic of infidel times, and indicating the unsoundness of our general education, "
The Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation," has started into public favour with a fair chance of poisoning the fountains of science, and sapping the foundations of religion. Popular in its subject, as well as in its expositions, this volume has obtained a wide circulation among the influential classes of society. It has been read and applauded by those who can neither weigh its facts, nor appreciate its argument, nor detect its tendencies; while those who can - the philosopher, the naturalist, and the divine - have concurred in branding it with their severest censure. Since around 1800, ideas of
evolutionism had been denounced as examples of dangerous materialism, which undermined
natural theology and the
argument from design, threatening the current moral and social order. Such ideas were propagated by lower class
Radicals seeking to overturn divine justification of the (
aristocratic) social order. Chambers supported middle class political interests, and saw laws of progress in nature as implying inevitable political progress. He sought to sanitise the radical tradition by presenting progressive evolution as an unfolding of divinely planned laws of creation as development up to and including the appearance of human species. The political climate had eased as increasing prosperity reduced fears of revolution, and the book was widely considered to be merely scandalous and titillating. It was read not only by members of high society, but also – thanks to the rise of cheap publishing – the lower and middle classes, and continued to sell in large quantities for the rest of the 19th century. The establishment might have tolerated a predesigned law of creation, but
Vestiges presented a progressive law with humanity as its goal, and thus continuity which treated the human race as the last step in the ascent of animal life. It included arguments that mental and moral faculties were not unique to humans, but resulted from expansion of brain size during this ascent. This
materialism was rejected by the religious and scientific establishment, and scientists were incensed that Chambers had bypassed their authority by appealing directly to the reading public and reaching a wide audience.
Early praise The publisher John Churchill had, as instructed, distributed free review copies to numerous daily and weekly newspapers, and many carried advertisements giving one line quotations or ran excerpts from the book, with even the Scottish evangelical
Witness giving it publicity and credence in this way. Several carried substantial reviews, one of the first appearing in mid November 1844 in the weekly reform newspaper the
Examiner: As a result of this publicity the first edition of 1,750 copies sold out in a few days. Among those fortunate enough to have ordered their copy promptly,
Tennyson commented to his bookseller that the review suggested it "seems to contain many speculations with which I have been familiar for years, and on which I have written more than one poem." Having read the book, he concluded "There was nothing degrading in the theory."
Benjamin Disraeli told his sister that the book was "convulsing the world, anonymous" and his wife told her that "Dizzy says it does and will cause the greatest sensation and confusion." The limited number of copies available at first were targeted at a select fashionable readership. The late Autumn literary season was just getting under way as the first reviews appeared, and by early January the book was the subject of conversations at elite literary gatherings. At venues such as
Buckingham Palace and
Lady Byron's parties, cosmic evolution became a topic of discussion for the first time in many years. Reforming medical journals including
The Lancet for 23 November 1844 carried favourable reviews, while criticising specific points. In January the
Unitarian quarterly
Prospective gave powerful support, but the influential prestige quarterlies which could determine the long term success of books were still looking for reviewers.
First criticism Early in 1845 critical reviews appeared in the
Athenaeum, the
Literary Gazette and ''
The Gardeners' Chronicle. The most authoritative scientific and literary weekly was the Athenaeum
, and its anonymous review of 4 January was by Edwin Lankester. Churchill had already been alarmed by The Lancet'
s report of numerous mistakes, and had been surprised to find that, unlike the medical specialists he usually dealt with, the author of Vestiges'' lacked first hand knowledge of the subject or the ability to correct
proofs. At the author's request he had quoted for a ''people's edition'', but was unwilling to proceed with this cheap reprint until errors had been corrected. Churchill engaged Lankester to make corrections to terminology to the second edition published in December 1844, and both Lankaster and
George Fownes made further revisions for the third edition. While the season's fashionable use of
Vestiges as a conversation piece in London society avoided theological implications, the book was read very differently in
Liverpool, where it was first made public that men of science condemned the book, and it became the subject of sustained debate in newspapers. The book was attractive to reformers, including
Uniformitarians and
William Ballantyne Hodgson, the principal of the
Mechanics' Institution who, like Chambers, had become a supporter of
George Combe's ideas. In defence of public morals and Evangelical
Tory dominance in the city, the Reverend
Abraham Hume, an
Anglican priest and lecturer, delivered a detailed attack on
Vestiges at the
Liverpool Literary and Philosophical Society on 13 January 1845, demonstrating that the book conflicted with standard specialist scientific texts on nebulae, fossils and embryos, and accusing it of manipulative novelistic techniques occupying "the debatable ground between science and fiction". At the next meeting two weeks later John Robberds, son of
John Gooch Robberds the minister, defended the book as well-intentioned and based on "deep reflection and extensive research", while noting that he considered it inconsistent in distinguishing miracles from natural law, against his Unitarian views. As subsequent debates appeared inconclusive, Hume wrote to leading men of science for authoritative expert opinions, and made the responses public to resolve the dispute. This backfired when a writer in the
Liverpool Journal pointed out inconsistencies and contradictions between the various expert opinions. They only agreed on the point that
Vestiges was unscientific, and the publication of their letters was considered bad manners as well as tactically unwise. Few of the experts would have allowed any direct reference to the book to be published under their names, and their gentlemanly disagreements to be made public. Anglican clergymen were usually quick to publish pamphlets on any theological controversy, but tended to excuse themselves from responding to
Vestiges as they lacked expertise: men of science were expected to lead the counterattack. The universities of
Oxford and
Cambridge were part of the Anglican establishment, intended to educate Christian gentlemen with half of the students becoming clergymen. Science subjects were optional lectures. The professors were scientific clergymen with strong reputations, and at Cambridge science had developed as
natural theology, but there was no unified scientific establishment. The quarterly review magazines turned to them for commentary on the book, but demonstrating that it was superficial was difficult when its range of topics meant experts being drawn into superficial responses outside their own area of intensive expertise.
William Whewell refused all requests for a review to avoid dignifying the "bold, speculative and false" work, but was the first to give a response, publishing
Indications of a Creator in mid February 1845 as a slim and elegant volume of "theological extracts" from his writings. His aim was to inform superficial London society used to skimming books as conversation pieces and lacking properly prepared minds to deal with real philosophy and real science, and he avoided mentioning
Vestiges by name. During the crucial early months of the debate this and Hume's lecture distributed as a pamphlet were the only responses to
Vestiges published by the established clergy, and there were just two other short works opposing it: a published lecture by the
Anabaptist preacher John Sheppard, and an unorthodox anti-science piece by
Samuel Richard Bosanquet. There was a wide range of readings of the book among the aristocracy interested in science, who assessed it independently without dismissing it out of hand.
Sir John Cam Hobhouse wrote his thoughts down in his diary: "In spite of the allusions to the creative will of God the cosmogony is atheistic—at least the introduction of an author of all things seems very like a formality for the sake of saving appearances—it is not a necessary part of the scheme". While disquieted by its information on
embryology implying human origins from animals, he thought its tone was good. He concluded that "It does not meddle with revealed religion—but unless I am mistaken the leaders of revealed religion will meddle with it."
Lord Morpeth thought it had "much that is able, startling, striking" and progressive development did not conflict with Genesis more than then current geology, but did "not care much for the notion that we are engendered by monkeys" and objected strongly to the idea that the Earth was "a member of a democracy" of similar planets.
Vestiges was published in New York, and in response the April 1845 issue of the
North American Review published a long review, the start of which was scathing about its reliance on speculative scientific theories: "The writer has taken up almost every questionable fact and startling hypothesis, that have been promulgated by proficients and pretenders in science during the present century...The
nebular hypothesis...
spontaneous generation...the
Macleay system, dogs playing dominoes, negroes born of white parents,
materialism,
phrenology, - he adopts them all, and makes them play an important part in his own magnificent theory, to the exclusion, to a great degree, of the well-accredited facts and established doctrines of science."
Scientific gentlemen respond The Reverend
Adam Sedgwick, the
Woodwardian Professor of Geology at
Cambridge, was popular and well regarded, having recently strongly defended the new geology against the Reverend
Sir William Cockburn, a
Scriptural geologist. He turned down several invitations to review
Vestiges, pleading lack of time, but in March read it closely and on 6 April discussed with other leading clergymen the "rank materialism" of the book "against which work he & all other scientific men are indignant". He thought the "hasty jumping to conclusions" indicated a female author. In a letter to
Charles Lyell about "the foul book", he expressed his disgust: "If the book be true, the labours of sober induction are in vain; religion is a lie; human law is a mass of folly, and a base injustice; morality is moonshine; our labours for the black people of Africa were works of madmen; and man and woman are only better beasts! .... I cannot but think the work is from a woman's pen, it is so well dressed and so graceful in its externals. I do not think the 'beast man' could have done this part so well." On 10 April he contacted
Macvey Napier, editor of the
Edinburgh Review, who quickly accepted the offer. Sedgwick was rather disorganised and had not written a review before. To save time batches of his writing were typeset on arrival, so one part was being printed "while the other part was still uncoiling from my brain in Cambridge." Napier did not insist on the usual concise review, but as it was still arriving in mid May stopped it at what became 85 pages, one of the longest reviews the quarterly ever published. The
British Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting was held at Cambridge in June 1845, giving its president
John Herschel a platform to counter
Vestiges. His presidential address contrasted the "sound and thoughtful and sobering discipline" of the scientific brotherhood with the "over-hasty generalisation" and "pure speculation" of the unnamed book. He had a cold and his words were badly delivered, but they appeared in newspapers across the country as its most prestigious man of science dismissing the book. For the rest of the week attacks on
Vestiges continued. In the geology section,
Roderick Murchison used his lecture to clear up the confusion between competing views, and say that "every piece of geological evidence sustained the belief that each species was perfect in its kind when first called into being by the Creator". Sedgwick set aside his differences with Murchison to summarise his forthcoming
Edinburgh review and agree in opposing the evolutionary ideas and the "desolating pantheism" of the book. Sedgwick's long, rambling and scathing article was published in the July 1845 edition of the
Edinburgh Review. Articles were anonymous, but he ensured that his authorship was well known. He had disregarded
William Whewell's caution about attempting a point by point refutation, and the body of his review followed the structure of
Vestiges, packed with current evidence to undermine the supposition of continuous transitions underlying the progressive development hypothesis which he scorned as mere speculation, and pointing out errors showing the inadequate expertise of the author.
Vestiges crucially undermined the separation between man and beast, and endangered hopes for the afterlife. Sedgwick expressed concern for "our glorious maidens and matrons .... listening to the seductions of this author; who comes before them with a bright, polished, and many-coloured surface, and the serpent coils of a false philosophy, and asks them again to stretch out their hands and pluck forbidden fruit", who tells them "that their Bible is a fable when it teaches them that they were made in the image of God—that they are the children of apes and breeders of monsters—that he has
annulled all distinction between physical and moral", which in Sedgwick's view would lead to "a rank, unbending and degrading materialism" lacking the proper reading of nature as analogy to draw moral lessons from physical truths. That needed the use of reason by great men who believed that "moral truth is the ennobled form of material truth" and that "all nature, both material and moral, has been framed and supported by one creative mind" so that one truth could never be in conflict with another. In presenting natural law as explaining the soul,
Vestiges threatened the fine balance between faith and science. Journals that had already opposed the book welcomed Sedgwick's article, with the
Literary Gazette calling it a "scourging and irrefragable review", as did sections of the church which were suspicious of science and geology. However, its crude vehemence was ill-suited to fashionable society, and Whewell wrote "To me the material appears excellent, but the workmanship bad, and I doubt if it will do its work." Aristocrats found its "lengthy inefficiency" heavy going, and
John Gibson Lockhart of the Tory
Quarterly Review suspected that "The
savants are all sore at the vestige man because they are likely to be in the same boat as him." The extreme liberal press also thought "a mere anonymous bookmaker might well be sacrificed to evidence the orthodoxy of a Cambridge divine", in the hope of "immunity to their own speculations, by a cheap display of eloquent zeal against all who dare to go beyond their measure."
Explanations: A Sequel There was renewed debate in correspondence in newspapers. The publisher Churchill advised the anonymous author against meeting attacks by going to the people with a cheap edition, and was told that the author was "writing a defence of the book, with particular reference to the coarse attack of Mr. Sedgfield", with the intention of publishing it as letters to
The Times followed by a pamphlet. On Churchill's advice the response was broadened into a 206-page book bound to match the original work, which was published at the end of 1845 at a price of five shillings under the title of
Explanations: A Sequel to the Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, a "forcible and argumentative work" aimed at "convincing open-minded men", published anonymously "By the author of that work". The revised fifth edition of
Vestiges was ready in January 1846, and the two were commonly sold together, catching the publicity from reviews of
Explanations. The
North British Review reflected evangelical Presbyterian willingness to consider science in relation to "Reason and not to Faith" and to view natural law as directly guided by God, but warned that "If it has been revealed to man that the Almighty made him out of the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, it is in vain to tell a Christian that man was originally a speck of albumen, and passed through the stages of monads and monkeys, before he attained his present intellectual pre-eminence." Many women admired the book, and "It would augur ill for the rising generation if the mothers of England were infected with the errors of Phrenology: it would augur worse were they tainted with materialism." Chambers planned one more "edition for the higher classes and for libraries", extensively revised to deal with errors and incorporate the latest science, such as the detail of the
Orion Nebula revealed by
Lord Rosse's giant telescope. Use of generous spacing and the additional text extended the book by 20%, and the price had to be increased from 7
s.6
d. to nine shillings. The identical text was used for the long-awaited ''people's edition'', which was smaller with cheap bindings, smaller lettering and more closely spaced text. The cheap edition was printed first, but set aside until after the gentlemen's edition was published so that it would appear as a reprint of the expensive 6th edition, and not the other way around. The price was only 2s.6d. and five thousand copies were issued, almost as many as the first four editions combined. It sold well, though sales of the expensive edition were slow. Sedgwick added a 400+ page preface to the 5th edition of his
Discourse on the Studies of the University of Cambridge (1850), including a lengthy attack on
Vestiges and theories of development in general. Among religious criticisms, some maintained that Chambers' use of "natural law" to explain the creation of the planets and the successive creation of new species, including man, excluded the possibility of
miracles and providential control. In other words, under this scheme, God did not personally interact with His creation after bringing forth these initial Laws. For these critics, this was akin to denying the central miracle of
Christianity and, therefore, Christianity itself. ==Influence and effects==