This is in beginning of Martin Chuzzlewit. Dickens seems to be satirizing some of the scientific writing of his time by dragging in names of obscure scientists whose views nobody can be expected to know. From the Internet:

In fact, Darwin?s principles were an application of social science concepts to biology. Early thinkers such as Monboddo, Millar, Turgot, Condorcet, Ferguson inspired the discussion of biological evolution by St.-Hilaire, Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck