Bill Jenkins masterfully explores a brilliant era for science in Scotland, the first decades of the 19th century, in which Edinburgh received and participated in continental debates (led by the likes of Cuvier, Von Baer, Lamarck, and Geoffroy) on the formation and history of the Earth and, correlatively, on the possible history of life on the planet.

The atmosphere of religious openness encouraged rigorous research and open discussion, and the university system gave professors considerable autonomy, promoted teaching quality through a certain amount of competitiveness, and demanded creativity and critical thinking from the students. There were numerous scientific journals, academic societies for teachers, and also scientific societies organized by students. Medical studies covered not only knowledge intended for direct professional application (anatomy, physiology, pharmacy, chemistry), but also embraced “natural history” in the old Aristotelian sense; that is, medicine fit into general and theoretical knowledge about life. This set of conditions created prestige, attracted students from diverse social backgrounds all over the Empire, including Charles Darwin from 1825 to 1827, and set Edinburgh apart from Oxford and Cambridge, which at this time were less dynamic, less up‐to‐date, more elitist, and more influenced by religious dogma. This peculiar climate of freedom deteriorated progressively in Edinburgh throughout the 1830s, as Evangelicals ended up being staunch critics of transformism.

Supported by an impressive collection of primary sources, many of them unpublished, and developing a historiographic tradition started by James Secord, Jenkins dedicates the first two chapters to describing these institutions in detail, while introducing us to the most prominent professors, usually from the medical profession, among whom Robert Jameson, a central figure in the book, stands out both for his productivity and for his influence on a large number of students.

The dependency between geology and biology is evident throughout the book, and the essential controversy is between the static or “circular” geology of the Scotsman James Hutton and his followers, according to which cycles of erosion followed by vulcanism occur repetitively, and the theory of the German Abraham Gottlob Werner, according to which change on Earth has been continuous and irreversible, starting from a hot primeval sea that progressively dried out—thus allowing the continents to emerge—and cooled. The Huttonian scenario combines best with static, non‐transformist theories of life on Earth, while the Wernerian scenario best matches theories of continuous transformation of life, induced by these geological and climatic changes. Jameson was a convinced Wernerian and developed transformist ideas that, thanks to his incessant institutional activity (as professor, editor, lecturer, and president of scientific societies), kept the controversy alive for at least two decades, and influenced outstanding students who in turn developed variations of transformism. There were so many variations that the limits of transformism became blurred.

Jenkins succeeds in establishing a clear criterion for transformism: not every sequence of change in organic forms is transformism; rather, transformism implies descent with variation, that is, a lasting sequence in which change is organically generated (even if it is elicited by a change in physical conditions). For example, a sequence of successive and distinct divine creations could leave an apparently continuous or progressive fossil record, but it would not be transformism.

Curiously, Darwin did not have fond memories of Jameson nor did he recognize any significant influences from Jameson or his disciple Robert Grant, with whom Darwin shared days of friendship as a naturalist in the field. Jenkins rightly stresses that he does not intend to write a book focused on Darwin, but a book on scientific culture and transformism in Edinburgh. Nevertheless, wasn't Edinburgh's transformism decisive for Darwin's intellectual development and, ultimately, for his theory of natural selection? Jenkins argues that Darwin avoided acknowledging the influence of those scholars because he wanted to present his theory to the world as an inductive scientific product, as far removed as possible from those old speculative theories, including those of his grandfather Erasmus. Jenkins leaves the question at this point. He briefly adds these considerations at the end of the book, though they do not seem to completely settle the question. But the answer, in part, is implicitly offered by Jenkins himself in the previous chapters, where he shows that the really decisive referents for the Edinburgh authors were Lamarck and Geoffroy, whom Darwin studied directly. Even the German Naturphilosophie seems to be an important background for understanding Darwin's thinking, according to Robert Richards (2002).11 Richards (2002). To be sure, as Jenkins emphasizes, there is continuity between Edinburgh's transformist ideas and Darwin's work, because without a general transformist principle (descent with variations that accumulate over time), a theory of evolution cannot be formulated. But Edinburgh's transformism was content with claiming physical changes (geographical or climatic, according to Wernerian theory) as the cause that determined organic changes (Jameson), or a universal tendency to progress, established by the deity (Chambers), or Lamarckist inheritance mechanisms. All of these were solutions against which Darwin had to fight to find a principle explaining the continuous accumulation of variations in offspring through generations—competition in the struggle for life, which puts variations to the test and leads to differential reproduction. The influence of Edinburgh's transformism—which was an expression of the great continental debates—was decisive, but in a negative sense, since it established a whole series of ideas concerning the causes of transformation for Darwin to avoid. In this sense, Jenkins's excellent book significantly helps us to better understand Darwin, while still being a tribute to the brilliant Scottish civic and scientific culture of the early 19th century, to the characters who forged it, and to the open‐minded institutions that made it possible.

比尔·詹金斯（Bill Jenkins）精巧地探索了苏格兰科学的辉煌时代，即19世纪的前几十年，其中爱丁堡接受并参加了关于大陆的形成和历史的大陆辩论（由居维叶，冯·贝尔，拉马克和杰夫罗伊等人领导）以及与此相关的地球生命史。

宗教开放的气氛鼓励严格的研究和公开讨论，大学制度赋予教授相当大的自主权，通过一定程度的竞争力提高了教学质量，并要求学生发挥创造力和批判性思维。有许多科学期刊，教师学术社团，以及由学生组织的科学社团。医学研究不仅涵盖旨在直接专业应用的知识（解剖学，生理学，药学，化学），而且涵盖了亚里士多德时代的“自然历史”。也就是说，医学适合关于生命的一般和理论知识。这一系列条件创造了威望，吸引了来自帝国各地不同社会背景的学生，包括1825年至1827年的查尔斯·达尔文，并把爱丁堡与牛津和剑桥区分开来，牛津和剑桥区在这时活力不足，更新程度较低，精英人士较多，并且受宗教教条的影响更大。在整个爱丁堡，整个1830年代，这种特殊的自由气氛逐渐恶化，因为福音派人士最终成为对变革主义的坚定批评者。

詹金斯得到了大量令人印象深刻的原始资料的支持，其中许多未出版，并且发展了由詹姆斯·塞科德（James Secord）发起的史学传统，詹金斯（Jenkins）专门将前两章详细介绍这些机构，同时向我们介绍最杰出的教授，通常是医学博士专业，其中书中的核心人物罗伯特·詹姆森（Robert Jameson）以他的生产力和对大量学生的影响而著称。

在本书中，地质学与生物学之间的依存关系显而易见，而根本的争论是在苏格兰人詹姆斯·赫顿和他的追随者的静态或“圆形”地质学之间。根据这种地质学，反复发生侵蚀和硫化作用的侵蚀循环以及德国的亚伯拉罕·哥特洛布·沃纳（Abraham Gottlob Werner）认为，地球的变化是连续不断且不可逆转的，始于逐渐变干的原始热海，从而使各大洲得以出现并变冷。Huttonian情景与地球上静态的，非变换的生命理论相结合，而Wernerian情景最适合由这些地质和气候变化引起的生命连续转变的理论。詹姆森（Jackson）是一位坚定的韦纳人（Wernerian），他发展了变革主义思想，得益于他不断的机构活动（担任教授，编辑，讲师和科学学会主席），这场争论至少持续了二十年，并影响了杰出的学生，这些学生进而发展了变革主义。千变万化，以至于变革主义的界限变得模糊。

詹金斯（Jenkins）成功地建立了明确的变革主义标准：并非有机形式变化的每一个顺序都是变革主义。相反，变革主义意味着有变异的后裔，也就是说，持久的变化是有机地产生变化的序列（即使它是由物理条件的变化引起的）。例如，一系列连续而独特的神圣创造可能留下看似连续或渐进的化石记录，但这不是转化主义。

奇怪的是，达尔文没有对詹姆森有美好的回忆，也没有意识到詹姆森或他的门徒罗伯特·格兰特（Robert Grant）的任何重大影响，达尔文与他在该领域与博物学家分享了友谊。詹金斯正确地强调，他不打算写一本关于达尔文的书，而是写一本关于爱丁堡的科学文化和变革主义的书。然而，爱丁堡的变革主义对达尔文的智力发展和最终对他的自然选择理论不是决定性的吗？詹金斯认为，达尔文避免承认那些学者的影响，因为他想将他的理论作为一种归纳性的科学产品介绍给世界，并尽可能地与那些古老的投机理论（包括他的祖父伊拉斯mus斯）分离开来。詹金斯在这一点上提出了问题。他在书的末尾简要地添加了这些注意事项，尽管它们似乎并未完全解决问题。但是答案在某种程度上是詹金斯本人在前几章中隐含地提供的，他在书中表明，爱丁堡作家的真正决定性的指涉对象是拉马克和杰夫罗伊，达尔文直接研究了这些东西。甚至德国人罗伯特·理查兹（Robert Richards，2002）认为自然哲学是理解达尔文思想的重要背景.11理查兹（2002）。可以肯定的是，正如詹金斯所强调的那样，爱丁堡的变革主义思想与达尔文的著作之间存在着连续性，因为如果没有通用的变革主义原理（随着时间的推移，积累的变异不断下降），就无法形成进化论。但是爱丁堡的变革主义满足于宣称自然变化（根据维尔纳理论，地理或气候）是决定自然变化（詹姆森）或由神灵（钱伯斯）或拉马克主义继承机制确立的普遍进步趋势的原因。所有这些都是达尔文必须与之抗争的解决方案，以找到一个原理来解释子孙后代不断积累的变异，这是生命斗争中的竞争，这使变异经受住考验并导致差异繁殖。爱丁堡变革主义的影响是决定性的，但在消极意义上是决定性的，但它具有消极意义，因为爱丁堡变革主义的影响力是决定性的，因为它建立了一系列有关达尔文应避免的变革原因的观念。从这个意义上讲，詹金斯的优秀著作极大地帮助我们更好地理解了达尔文，同时仍对19世纪初期的苏格兰灿烂的公民文化和科学文化，对其进行伪造的人物以及为之创造思想的开放机构表示敬意。有可能。