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Quotes from Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation — Robert Chambers

1802–1871 Scotland

← All quotes by Robert Chambers

50 quotes

The book, as far as I am aware, is the first attempt to connect the natural sciences into a history of creation.

Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)

Geology at first seems inconsistent with the authority of the Mosaic record.

Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)

This statistical regularity in moral affairs fully establishes their being under the presidency of law. Man is now seen to be an enigma only as an individual; in the mass he is a mathematical problem.

Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)

There is nothing at all singular or special in the astronomical situation of the earth.

Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)

It appears from this inquiry that color and other physiological characters are of a more superficial and accidental nature than was at one time supposed.

Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)

It is remarkable of the simple substances that they are generally in some compound form.

Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)

But in this lies, perhaps, one of its strongest claims to the faith of mankind.

Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)

Pause and reflect; take time into consideration: the past history of mankind may be, to what is to come, but as a day.

Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)

It is remarkable of physical laws, that we see them operating on every kind of scale as to magnitude, with the same regularity and perseverance.

Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)

The limbs of all the vertebrate animals are, in like manner, on one plan, however various they may appear.

Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)

The law of organic development is still daily seen at work to certain effects, only somewhat short of a transition from species to species.

Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)

Zoophyta, polyparia, crinoidea, conchifera, and crustacea are the orders of the animal kingdom thus found in the earliest of earth's sepulchres.

Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)

Now, as the inferior animals were all in being before man, there was language upon earth long ere the history of our race commenced.

Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)

I believe my doctrines to be in the main true; I believe all truth to be valuable, and its dissemination a blessing.

Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)

Such is the process which seems to form the destined means for bringing mankind from the darkness of barbarism to the day of knowledge and mechanical and social improvement.

Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)

Mr. Babbage's illustration powerfully suggests that this ordinary procedure may be subordinate to a higher law which only permits it for a time, and in proper season interrupts and changes it.

Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)

There may then be occasion for a nobler type of humanity, which shall complete the zoological circle on this planet, and realize some of the dreams of the purest spirits of the present race.

Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)

We have seen that the law which causes rotation in the single solar masses, is exactly the same which produces the familiar phenomenon of a small whirlpool or dimple in the surface of a stream.

Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)

The probability may now be assumed that the human race sprung from one stock which was at first in a state of simplicity if not barbarism.

Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)

The style of living is ascertained to have a powerful effect in modifying the human figure in the course of generations, and this even in its osseous structure.

Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Robert Chambers (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.