It was long believed that evolutionary theories received an almost universally cold reception in British natural history circles in the first half of the nineteenth century. This book shows that Edinburgh in the late 1820s and early 1830s was witness to a ferment of radical new ideas on the natural world, including speculation on the origin and evolution of life, at just the time when Charles Darwin was a student in the city. It sheds new light on the genesis and development of one of the most important scientific theories in the history of western thought.