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Abstract
This paper sheds new light on the prevalence of evolutionary ideas in Scotland in the early nineteenth century and establish what connections existed between the espousal of evolutionary theories and adherence to the directional history of the earth proposed by Abraham Gottlob Werner and his Scottish disciples. A possible connection between Wernerian geology and theories of the transmutation of species in Edinburgh in the period when Charles Darwin was a medical student in the city was suggested in an important 1991 paper by James Secord. This study aims to deepen our knowledge of this important episode in the history of evolutionary ideas and explore the relationship between these geological and evolutionary discourses. To do this it focuses on the circle of natural historians around Robert Jameson, Wernerian geologist and professor of natural history at the University of Edinburgh from 1804 to 1854. From the evidence gathered here there emerges a clear confirmation that the Wernerian model of geohistory facilitated the acceptance of evolutionary explanations of the history of life in early nineteenth-century Scotland. As Edinburgh was at this time the most important center of medical education in the English-speaking world, this almost certainly influenced the reception and development of evolutionary ideas in the decades that followed.
Highlights
It has long been suggested that the transcendental anatomy taught in the Edinburgh extra-mural schools in the 1820s and early 1830s played an important role in paving the way for the acceptance of evolutionary ideas by many Edinburgh-educated thinkers in the decades that followed
In this paper I will argue that the Wernerian geology taught by Robert Jameson (1774–1854), the University of Edinburgh’s professor of natural history from 1804 to 1854, may have played a significant role in suggesting evolutionary explanations for the history and diversity of life on earth to his students
As Robert Christison (1797–1882), who was a student of Jameson in 1816, later testified, his: lectures were numerously attended in spite of a dry manner, and attendance on Natural History was not enforced for any University honour or for any profession
Summary
It has long been suggested that the transcendental anatomy taught in the Edinburgh extra-mural schools in the 1820s and early 1830s played an important role in paving the way for the acceptance of evolutionary ideas by many Edinburgh-educated thinkers in the decades that followed (see, for example, Desmond, 1989; Rehbock, 1983). As Robert Christison (1797–1882), who was a student of Jameson in 1816, later testified, his: lectures were numerously attended in spite of a dry manner, and attendance on Natural History was not enforced for any University honour or for any profession. The popularity of his subject, his earnestness as a lecturer, his enthusiasm as an investigator, and the great museum he had collected for illustrating his teaching, were together the causes of his success. The popularity of his subject, his earnestness as a lecturer, his enthusiasm as an investigator, and the great museum he had collected for illustrating his teaching, were together the causes of his success. (Quoted in Ashworth, 1935, p. 100)
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