It is quite otherwise with _Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation_. It was widely circulated, and copies of even the older editions are not impossible to obtain. It can be purchased, new, at very small cost.[45] But most of the editions that the reader will be likely to find, if he seeks for them, are later than the one which influenced Lincoln, and contain more or less of supplementary matter. Before passing to another subject, it will be well to say a further word about this book, for a fuller discussion of which one may go to Andrew D. White's _Conflict of Science with Theology_ and other learned works. The author of this book was Robert Chambers,[46] one of the famous firm of publishers, and himself an author of note. He was born in Peebles, Scotland, July 10, 1802, and died at St. Andrews, March 17, 1871. He was an author as well as publisher of books. He published this book anonymously, and its authorship was not known for forty years. In 1884, thirteen years after his death, his name appeared for the first time upon the title page of a new edition. It was, in the author's own phrase, "the first attempt to connect the natural sciences with the history of creation." From it Lincoln learned geology and comparative biology. In it he found not only studies of the rocks, but also of the prenatal life of man, as related in its successive stages to corresponding types in the geological world. It was, in a word, an introduction to Darwin, which appeared many years later. That many ministers denounced it as contradictory to the Bible we know, and the author anticipated this, nor is this a matter which gives us present concern. Some ministers believed it, and others, still unconvinced, read it with an open mind and waited for more light. The important thing for us to know and clearly recognize is that in this book Abraham Lincoln not only learned what Herndon considers, and we are justified in considering, the essential theory of evolution, but he learned that such a view of creation is consistent with faith in God and the Bible. We shall not find it possible to overestimate the importance of this discovery. Abraham Lincoln wrought out his philosophy of creation, his scheme of cause and effect, his theory of the processes of nature and life, under influences not atheistic nor hostile to religion, but distinctly favorable to it. He learned of evolution, and was convinced of its truth, from a book whose spirit and purpose was to present the view in harmony with the Christian faith.