Vestiges of The Natural History of Creation - Content

Content

"Vestiges is highly readable, but not always easy to understand." James A. Secord (1994) Introduction to the reprinted edition Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, page xi.

The work puts forward a cosmic theory of transmutation as the "natural history of creation" which we now call evolution. It suggests that everything currently in existence has developed from earlier forms: solar system, Earth, rocks, plants and corals, fish, land plants, reptiles and birds, mammals, and ultimately man.

The book begins by tackling the origins of the solar system, using the nebular hypothesis to explain its formations entirely in terms of natural law. It explains the origins of life by spontaneous generation, citing some questionable experiments that claimed to spontaneously generate insects through electricity. It then appeals to geology to demonstrate a progression in the fossil record from simple to more complex organisms, finally culminating in man—with the Caucasian European unabashedly identified as the pinnacle of this process, just above the other races and the rest of the animal kingdom. It even goes so far as to connect man’s mental reasoning power with the rest of the animals as an advanced evolutionary step that can be traced backwards through the rest of the lower animals. In this sense, the evolutionary ideas offered in Vestiges aim at being complete and all-encompassing.

It contains several comments worthy of repetition in light of more recent debates, such as regarding Intelligent Design. For example:

Not one species of any creature which flourished before the tertiary (Ehrenberg's infusoria excepted) now exists; and of the mammalia which arose during that series, many forms are altogether gone, while of others we have now only kindred species. Thus to find not only frequent additions to the previous existing forms, but frequent withdrawals of forms which had apparently become inappropriate — a constant shifting as well as advance — is a fact calculated very forcibly to arrest attention. A candid consideration of all these circumstances can scarcely fail to introduce into our minds a somewhat different idea of organic creation from what has hitherto been generally entertained. (p.152)

In other words, the fact of extinction — which can be observed in the fossil layers —suggests that some designs were flawed. From this, the author concludes:

Some other idea must then come to with regard to the mode in which the Divine Author proceeded in the organic creation. (p.153)

But the suggestion is not a mechanism, as Darwin would propose fifteen years later. The author merely notes that a continually active God is unnecessary:

...how can we suppose that the august Being who brought all these countless worlds into form by the simple establishment of a natural principle flowing from his mind, was to interfere personally and specially on every occasion when a new shell-fish or reptile was to be ushered into existence on one of these worlds? Surely this idea is too ridiculous to be for a moment entertained. (p.154)

He furthermore suggests that this interpretation may be based upon corrupt theology:

Thus, the scriptural objection quickly vanishes, and the prevalent ideas about the organic creation appear only as a mistaken inference from the text, formed at a time when man's ignorance prevented him from drawing therefrom a just conclusion. (p.156)

And praises God for his foresight in generating such wondrous variety from so elegant a method, while chastening those who would oversimplify His accomplishment:

To a reasonable mind the Divine attributes must appear, not diminished or reduced in some way, by supposing a creation by law, but infinitely exalted. It is the narrowest of all views of the Deity, and characteristic of a humble class of intellects, to suppose him acting constantly in particular ways for particular occasions. It, for one thing, greatly detracts from his foresight, the most undeniable of all the attributes of Omnipotence. It lowers him towards the level of our own humble intellects. Much more worthy of him it surely is, to suppose that all things have been commissioned by him from the first, though neither is he absent from a particle of the current of natural affairs in one sense, seeing that the whole system is continually supported by his providence. (pp.156–157)

Following its publication, there was increasing support for ideas of the coexistence of God and Nature, with the deity setting Natural Laws rather than continually intervening with miracles. It is perhaps for this reason that Origin of Species was accepted so readily, upon its eventual publication. On the other hand, the knowledge of the scandal and experience of the reaction of his scientist friends confirmed Darwin's reluctance to publish his own ideas until he had well researched answers to all possible objections (though, in the end, Darwin had to publish earlier than he had wanted to anyway).