The reception of Phreno-Geology

Last week I wrote about an obscure little book called Phreno-Geology by J. Stanley Grimes which, surprisingly, proposed a mechanism of evolution that combined Lamarckism with natural selection. Since I wrote it, I have been informed that this particular work is significant to the history of science, so I tried to do a little more digging to try and find reviews or reactions to the book.

As I speculated in my previous post, the good theoretical concepts Grimes came up with may have been marred with his associated with phrenology, mesmerism, and other "fads," as well as the fact that a number of his statements were ludicrously false. These factors, along with the sometimes contradictory statements in Phreno-Geology, made it easy to dismiss Grimes without much consideration. That is precisely what a reviewer writing in an 1851 issue of The Literary World did;

As the author has written this work it is our duty to notice it ; but as there is little in it, we shall say little about it. To say all that can he said, it is a collection of opinions, long since promulgated, long since refuted, of new views, by the writer, whose novelties do not make amends for their silliness.

That was the entire review. A review from an 1851 issue of Hunt's Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review was a little kinder;

This book will take a portion of the public by surprise, in consequence of the positions which it assumes, and many may be disposed to turn from it as absurd ; yet it has much thought and force of argument, and is the result of laborious investigation. The author asserts that the creation of man took place at a long period ago, and that the conformation of his brain was in harmony with the geological condition of the earth at that period ; and that this conformation has subsequently changed in a corresponding degree with the geological structure of the earth ; that his countenance is the result of the circumstances in which be was placed -- in a word, animals are merely modified vegetables, that through circumstances acquired consciousness, and by the exercise of consciousness, the faculties of the mind originated, and the phrenological organs have been developed.

It's not much, but it seems to support the idea that Grimes was hurt by his more fantastic ideas (i.e. that rodents are the descendants of birds). Some, like the reviewer just cited, were able to grasp what Grimes was driving at, while others found Grimes' more absurd views grounds for dismissal.

I am certain that the way in which Grimes developed his ideas and the reactions to his work is much more complex and interesting than I am presently aware. What I have been able to dig up, though, has indicated that Grimes was an American evolutionist who proposed a kind of mechanism for change I had never seen previously. Particularly since he published Phreno-Geology in 1851, just eight years prior to On the Origin of Species, I am very interested in finding out why Grimes and his work were apparently forgotten.