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====EVOLUTIONARY IDEAS HIT THE MAINSTREAM====
[[File:darwinevo1844small.jpg|left|300px|thumbnail|Darwin's journal entry from 1844]]
While Darwin was hard at work on his theory of natural selection, in 1844, a book entitled ''Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation'' was published in London.<ref> For an excellent study of this work, see: Secord, Victorian Sensation.</ref> Giving credit to Darwin’s reluctance to make his own findings known, ''Vestiges '' was written by an anonymous author who feared for his own social standing if the “blasphemous” concepts in this book were linked back to him. This work put forth the theory that everything in existence had evolved from some earlier form – this included plants, animals, the solar system, and even mankind. It blended recent theories in astronomy, medical science, geology, and the brand-new science of psychology, and it did so in a way that could be understood by those without a background in science. The work gave credence to Jean Baptiste Lamarck’s previous work on evolutionary theory, but held that Lamarck’s mechanism of evolution (the inheritance of acquired characteristics) was flawed and incorrect. The book was elegantly written – its narrative tied together various scientific theories that had been floating around during the time in an easily readable way.
''Vestiges '' soon became an international best seller, but despite its popularity among the general public, the book was met with resounding criticism from clergymen and scientists alike. The Reverend Adam Sedgwick, who was perhaps the most well known scriptural geologist of the time, said the following of ''Vestiges'': “…our author’s work is not merely shallow and superficial, but utterly false throughout to all the principles of sound philosophy…”.<ref>Bosanquet, “Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation”: Its Argument Examined and Exposed.</ref> Sedgwick initially surmised, given the book’s disregard of “accepted” scientific knowledge and poor logic, that it had almost certainly been written by a woman – a most scathing criticism at the time. Forty years after its initial publication, a Scottish author and journal editor named Robert Chambers was discovered as the author of Vestiges.
In his early editions of ''On the Origin of Species'', first published in 1859, Charles Darwin remarked that ''Vestiges'' was vital in preparing the public for his own theory of evolution by natural selection. In the third edition of ''Origin'', Darwin commented that ''Vestiges'' had “done an excellent service in calling this country’s attention to the subject, in removing prejudice, and in thus preparing the ground for the reception of analogous views”.<ref>Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, xvi.</ref> Darwin had actually written down his theory of natural selection in his personal journals the same year that Vestiges was published, 1844, but stalled in publishing his findings, especially after he saw the harsh criticism that ''Vestiges'' received from the learned men of science.
Darwin gathered up the courage to publish ''On the Origin of Species'' primarily because a naturalist named Alfred Russel Wallace sent him a copy of a manuscript that expounded a mechanism of evolution that was oddly similar to Darwin’s own. It seemed that the two men had independently come to a very similar conclusion – that the primary evolutionary mechanism was the “survival of the fittest”, as it would later come to be known. Darwin and Wallace decided to present their work to the Linnean Society (a sort of gentlemen’s club of natural history) together in July of 1858, but their joint lecture drew little attention. Darwin would finally publish ''Origin'' the next year, in 1859. The book was immensely popular – drawing both high praise and brutal censure – but the scientific world would never be the same.
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[[Category:History of Science]][[Category:19th Century History]][[Category:British History]][[Category:European History]]
