Description
Book SynopsisThis book is the first major study of what was probably the most important centre or pre-Darwinian evolutionary thought in the British Isles. It sheds new light on the genesis and development of one of the most important scientific theories in the history of western thought.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Edinburgh's university and medical schools in the early nineteenth century The legacy of the Scottish Enlightenment The University of Edinburgh at the beginning of the nineteenth century The University of Edinburgh's medical school Edinburgh's extra-mural anatomy schools Chapter 3: Natural History in Edinburgh, 1779-1832 Natural history in Edinburgh in the late eighteenth century Robert Jameson and the chair of natural history Comparative anatomy at the extra-mural medical schools Natural history, scientific and medical societies Natural history and science journals Chapter 4: Geology and evolution The Wernerian model of earth history Wernerians and Huttonians in Edinburgh The story of life as a tale of progressive development Wernerian geology and transformism Werner, Lamarck and Geoffroy in Edinburgh Chapter 5: Edinburgh and Paris Contemporary transformism in France: Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire Lamarck in Scotland The impact of Geoffroy's theories in Edinburgh Chapter 6: The legacy of the 'Edinburgh Lamarckians' The eclipse of transformism in Edinburgh Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation Transmutation without progress: Robert Knox and Hewett Cottrell Watson The legacy of Darwin's Edinburgh years Chapter 7: Conclusion Bibliography; Unpublished primary sources; Published primary sources; Secondary sources
