"Fiction or philosophy, profound knowledge or shocking heresy? When Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation was published anonymously in 1844, it sparked one of the greatest sensations of the Victorian era. As gripping as a popular novel, Vestiges combined all the current scientific theories in fields ranging from astronomy and geology to psychology and economics. The book was banned, it was damned, it was hailed as the gospel for a new age. This is where our own public controversies about evolution began.". "In a pioneering cultural history, James A. Secord uses the story of Vestiges to create a panoramic portrait of life in the early industrial era from the perspective of its readers. We join apprentices in a factory town as they debate the consequences of an evolutionary ancestry.…
"If you’re trying to understand Lovelace’s writings and scientific interests in their context you have to shift your mindset back to the mid-19th century and the intellectual currents of the time. Vestiges of Creation was published anonymously in 1844, written by a Scottish journalist called Robert Chambers, though he wasn’t revealed as the author for some 40 years. It was very controversial and very popular—and so there was much speculation as to who had written it, with both Prince Albert and Ada Lovelace among the suggested names. Vestiges was controversial because it was discussing ideas of evolution, natural history and theology in a way that prefigured Darwin’s later writings. Secord’s book unpacks the whole intellectual climate around it. What were the ideas? Why were they controversial? Who was reading it? What did they think of it? Why did people want to ban it? It’s a rich and complicated book, and perhaps one example will show how it sets Lovelace’s 1843 paper in context. Lovelace wrote, “The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform.” Modern writers, notably Alan Turing, have interpreted this in the context of artificial intelligence . But for Lovelace, and Babbage, it concerned an intense theological debate: does the calculating machine challenge God or is it a creation of God, which will help us better understand His works? Since Babbage wanted to persuade the government to fund his machines, the latter, more conservative point of view was certainly more politic. In placing 19th century intellectual life in its context, Secord’s book is a reminder of the intensity of theological debate at the time, and how it affected scientific thought. Lady Byron was intensely religious: her daughter less so. As the connection to Lord Melbourne might suggest, mother and daughter were involved in social reform. They campaigned against slavery, and, before there was universal state education, founded schools for local children, run on the principles of the Swiss educational reformer, Johann Pestalozzi."
