The Spirit of Inquiry sets out to reveal the role of the Cambridge Philosophical Society in the making of Cambridge as a core centre of science and its indelible influence on modern science. March 2019 marks the two-hundredth anniversary of the society and Gibson's work aptly engages with and brings to light the trials, tribulations, achievements and accomplishments that encapsulate the two-hundred-year life of the society.

The beginning chapters illustrate the formative early years in which the society acted as a stand-alone forum free from the constraints of the archaic university that the society's founders, Adam Sedgwick and John Stevens Henslow, felt were stagnating in their scientific developments and teaching. Cambridge University, at this point, was cautious in its intellectual pursuits and drew heavily from the Bible, Classics and the work of Isaac Newton (which on the Continent had already been digested and reworked). As Sedgwick and Henslow were enthusiastically pottering around on the Isle of Wight, in 1819, collecting geological samples, exploring the scars of the land and conjuring up elaborate theories under the new branch of science named ‘geology’, they recognized that their efforts might go in vain against the impermeable boundaries of Cambridge curricula. Thus they sought to develop a forum independent of the university in which scholars (only those holding degrees from Cambridge, nonetheless) could meet, debate and share research in an environment that encouraged creativity and freedom, going beyond that of the restrictive and single-tracked walls of the Cambridge University that chiefly prepared young gentlemen for lives in the clergy of the Church of England. In their attempts to do so, Gibson outlines how the society secured its own house and within it constructed the beginnings of a museum and began to prepare a library.

The society was not only here to shake up Cambridge science; it also desired longevity, and securing permanency through a royal charter awarded by King William IV ratified this. As the society gained members, it also developed its own journal, Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, which circulated within and beyond Cambridge. Gibson also guides us through the society's journey as it received and discussed voyage observation letters from a young Charles Darwin, and how the society became an important centre of knowledge accumulation and circulation, as it began exchanging periodicals with other organizations in the beginnings of a transnational sharing of scientific knowledge.

As the society gained popularity, it began to influence the way in which science was conducted in the university and beyond. More students began to attend Sedgwick's lectures and the university began (albeit slowly) to increase money and space for the teaching of sciences. New triposes were also developed to match the new enthusiasm percolating through the corridors of the university. Further, new scientific spaces were created and the university became embellished with emerging societies. The university and colleges were beginning to catch up. As Gibson rightly points out, the society became ‘a victim of its own success’ (p. 148) as its uniqueness had diminished and membership subscription began to dwindle. The society became imbrued with financial issues on more than one occasion. The first required the society to give up ownership of their own property, necessitating that the university subsume the society within its surrounding compound.

As time passed, the society became less explicitly influential in shaping science as the university began to secure itself as a prominent centre of science, but the society retained its core feature of presenting papers, holding lectures and publishing within the university. Consequently, the latter stages of the book tend to be implicit in detail of the society and focus on other areas in which the society played a role in the periphery, such as being a member of such but working in the Cavendish Lab. As a result, this leads to rather tenuous links between the society and ‘shaping modern science’, as the title suggests. Rather, then, the society acted as a crucial stepping stone for scientists and as an organization that mobilized the university into embracing the new sciences. These are the events that would then go on to transform modern, Western science.

Moving away from the content, the narrative was difficult to follow at times. Broadly, Gibson traces the history from conception to the contemporary, but in the finer-grained accounts, we follow a range of events that chronologically do not fit seamlessly with other events illustrated. The continual reiteration of individuals’ roles (e.g. the many people who became president) in the society may add to the richness of the account but occasionally can confuse the narrative with no clear timeline to keep hold of. In a thematic history, this may not have been such an issue, but given that the work follows a two-hundred-year time span it can become difficult for the reader to keep hold of the many events whilst also envisaging the contexts in which they emerged.

Nonetheless, The Spirit of Inquiry is a book that should be of interest to any scholars interested in the role of science in society, to students and to the general public. It offers rich detail and intriguing accounts of the society that are, overall, a joy to read. In the main, by demonstrating that Cambridge had not always been the illustrious centre of science it is today, Gibson helps us recognize the crucial role that particular visions or imaginaries can play in transforming science, both in a historical context and in futures. In this case, Sedgwick, Henslow and their peers, and their desire ‘to keep alive the spirit of inquiry’, rejuvenated the stagnant, falling-behind curricula of Cambridge University that is now at the forefront of contemporary science.