[39]. Quoted from R. Knox, Anth. Rev., i., 1863, p. 263.
Cuvier’s position was supported by the evidence brought to France by Napoleon’s scientific expedition to Egypt (1801). Here were seen numbers of mummified animals, probably dating back some three to four thousand years, but showing no appreciable difference from existing types. This was held to demolish the theory of evolution by proving the immutability of species.
Étienne Saint-Hilaire.
Étienne Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire (1772-1844), the zoologist on the Egyptian expedition, interpreted the results differently, and was one of the most brilliant supporters of Lamarck. In 1828 he published his convictions that the same forms have not been perpetuated since the origin of all things, though he did not believe that existing species were undergoing modification. Cuvier returned to the charge, and in 1856 propounded his doctrine of the periodical revolutions of the earth, of the renewal each time of the flora and fauna, and of the incessant and miraculous intervention of a creative Will. And for a time, owing to his position and authority, he held the field.
Robert Chambers.
In 1844 appeared a book which had an enormous influence on the pre-Darwinian history of Evolution. This was an anonymous work entitled Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, the authorship of which was not revealed until the publication of the twelfth edition in 1884. It was the production of Robert Chambers (1802-1871), co-editor with his brother William of Chambers’s Journal, and author of many books on Scotland and a few on science. He traced the action of general laws throughout the universe as a system of growth and development, and held that the various species of animals and plants had been produced in orderly succession from each other by the action of unknown laws and the influence of external conditions. The Vestiges became at once the centre of scientific discussion, denounced by the orthodox, and held “not proven” by most of the men of science of the time. Its supporters were called “Vestigiarian,” a term which implied also “unscientific,” “sentimental,” and “absurd.”
The curious point is that in the Vestiges we find much of what was subsequently called the Darwinian theory already enunciated. According to Wallace, it clearly formulated the conception of evolution through natural laws, and yet it was denounced by those who soon after were to become the champions of Darwinism. This was partly due to the way in which the doctrine was treated and expressed, partly also to the “needless savagery” of Professor Huxley.
Huxley wrote in 1887: “I must have read the Vestiges ... before 1846; but, if I did, the book made very little impression on me.... I confess the book simply irritated me by the prodigious ignorance and thoroughly unscientific habit of mind manifested by the writer.” Professor Lovejoy[[40]] explains the reasons for Huxley’s attitude:—
[40]. Loc. cit.
The truth is that Huxley’s strongly emotional and highly pugnacious nature was held back by certain wholly non-logical influences from accepting an hypothesis for which the evidence was practically as potent for over a decade before he accepted it as it was at the time of his conversion. The book was written in a somewhat exuberant and rhetorical style. With all its religious heterodoxy, it was characterised by a certain pious and edifying tone, and was given to abrupt transitions from scientific reasoning to mystical sentiment. It contained numerous blunders in matters of biological and geological detail; and its author inclined to believe, on the basis of some rather absurd experimental evidence, in the possibility of spontaneous generation. All these things were offensive to the professional standards of an enthusiastic young naturalist, scrupulous about the rigour of the game, intolerant of vagueness and of any mixture of the romantic imagination with scientific inquiry.... He therefore, in 1854, almost outdid the Edinburgh Review in the ferocity of his onslaught upon the layman who had ventured to put forward sweeping generalisations upon biological questions while capable of errors upon particular points which were palpable to every competent specialist.