2 - Before Darwin

Summary

Evolutionary ideas were in circulation before Charles Darwin began his work and were widely disseminated, arousing much controversy. In addition to the writings of Erasmus Darwin (Charles’ grandfather), French ideas gained some currency in the English-speaking world, especially the views of J. B. Lamarck. These ideas were taken up by radical thinkers who rejected divine creation, to the horror of conservatives. Early discoveries of fossils played a significant role in arousing public interest in the history of life and were often seen as evidence that life had ascended a scale of development (the chain of being) toward humanity. The first-known dinosaurs were fitted into the chain as gigantic lizards, not as evidence of creatures totally unlike anything now alive. This model was adapted to middle-class values in Robert Chambers’ Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation in 1844, again arousing controversy but gradually gaining some credibility beyond the scientific community.