Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation and Other Evolutionary Writings

This is one of the most enjoyable books I have read this year. It's a true time travel through pre "Darwin-Wallace" natural history, and even more, since it deals with theories as the Nebular Hypothesis. This was, at his time, an all best-seller, specially if you consider it was a science book and not a novel. Robert Chambers style is exquisite, it certainly was a pleasure reading this book, and as in all books from certain epoch, this one is no exception, you can clearly read between the lines and learn a lot about what victorian society believed and what prejudices did they had. Delightful, but if you don't enjoy classics, please dont' even try this one, this is only for classic lovers.

Vestiges is perhaps the first "big history"--an attempt to scientifically tell the story of "Creation", from the beginning of the solar system through the geological history of earth and the beginning and diversification of life, to the past and present of humans.Chambers' big idea is that the Intelligent Designer set up a natural order with natural laws such that these laws will eventually lead to humans and a human favoring world. There is one over-arching law: Development. Life and mind are inherent in Creation. Given time and the right circumstances, they will happen. He seems to say that when conditions change in a certain way, some members of a species will have offspring that jump to a new species that is more perfectly adapted. (In fact, since there are many, many stars, there must be many, many planets and many, many intelligent creatures like us.) Though the book might appear materialistic and atheistic, Chambers says he hopes such criticisms will be dismissed by thoughtful readers. The story is implicitly--and some times explicitly--moral; it is an advancement: from undeveloped to developed, from more limited to less limited, from immature to mature, from less perfect to more perfect, from inferior to superior, from lower to higher.Several times, he brings up human growth. A fertilized egg, a three month fetus, a newborn, a 16 year old, and an 80 year old may seem different entities, but the last is just the culmination of the first, produced by going through the intermediate stages. So, we are to believe, is the history of Creation. Chambers is writing at a time of social, economic, and political upheaval. It is as if he is saying to his Victorian audience, "Do not fear change. It is all part of the Divine Plan and is for the best."Chambers had hoped that the scientists of his day would welcome Vestiges as a popularization and extension of their work. Instead, they attacked it as amateurish and presumptuous. In fact, it is all four. Chambers makes lots of leaps of logic, while assuring his readers that only the unphilosophical or the closed minded would disagree. The reader of today will also notice that much of the established "science" was wrong. Which makes the book very difficult to read if you're looking for scientific truth. (Modern readers will also have difficulty with the long, involved sentences.) Anyway, the next year he wrote Explanations: A Sequel to Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, to try to answer some of the criticism. Parts of it were incorporated in later editions of Vestiges, which underwent many revisions. Though it was first published 15 years before The Origin of Species, it continued to sell after 1859.This edition is a facsimile of the first editions of both. Very well-printed. The introduction by Secord provides a useful summary and context. He has also included a few other "evolutionary" writings of Chambers.

This is the best facsimile on the market, from 1994. Now, it's easy to get online free versions of vestiges, but this facsimile has important intro by the world-class expert on the book. That is what you're paying for here.