EIGHTEENTH CENTURY EVOLUTIONISTS. 243 



found in all those species which now exist? Chance, one might say, 

 turned out a vast number of individuals; a small proportion of these 

 were organized in such a manner that the animals' organs could satisfy 

 their needs. A much greater number showed neither adaptation nor 

 order; these last have all perished. . . . Thus the species which we 

 see to-day are but a small part of all those that a blind destiny has 

 produced." Maupertuis did not dogmatically maintain the anti- 

 teleological position which this criticism tended to justify; he only 

 maintained that zoology can not assist theology, because the former 

 has no need of teleological explanations and can sufficiently account 

 for the degree of adaptation which exists on the principle which we 

 should now call that of the survival of the fittest, i. e., of the best 

 adapted. 



Maupertuis had also his own theories in metaphysics; but these 

 are so closely connected with his evolutionary views that the two 

 should be considered together. I turn, then, to mention his work in 

 promoting new ideas in natural science. He was the first to introduce 

 the Newtonian physics and astronomy into France. In the face of a 

 good deal of opposition, he successfully disseminated the doctrine of 

 attraction among the learned; and it was apparently from him that 

 Voltaire acquired a sufficient smattering of physics and astronomy to 

 enable him to write his 'Elements de la Philosophie de Newton' 

 (1738). As became the president of an academy, Maupertuis under- 

 took, in his 'Lettres' and 'Lettres sur le Progres des Sciences'* 

 to sum up certain of the most important gains that had been made by 

 scientific inquiry, and to lay down a program of experimental investi- 

 gations next to be undertaken. These investigations, he urged, should 

 be supported by the state, when they are too elaborate or too expensive 

 to be undertaken by private enterprise. Some of his suggestions are 

 pretty fantastic and impracticable; but the greater number show good 

 sense and a keen appreciation of the importance of systematic experi- 

 mentation, even in sciences where experimental methods had as yet 

 been little used. He recommends, among other things, the exploration 

 of the north and south polar regions, and of the interior of Africa, 

 for the settlement of the chief unsettled questions in geography; urges 

 the employment of experimental methods in zoology, especially in the 

 study of the problems of heredity; advises specialization in medical 



* ' Oeuvres,' 1756, tome II. The proposals contained in these letters were 

 the special objects of Voltaire's ridicule. But — M. Desnoiresterres ('Voltaire 

 et Frederic,' ch. 8) to the contrary notwithstanding — Voltaire gains nearly all 

 his effects either by deliberately misrepresenting Maupertuis, or by presenting 

 as absurdities ideas which to the unprejudiced will rather seem evidences of 

 soundness of judgment. The Kantian idealist of our time, for example, will 

 find some lack of point in this attempt at the ironical: ' Le candidat (Mauper- 

 tuis) se trompe, quand il dit que l'£tendue n'est qu'une perception de notre ame. 

 S'il fait jamais de bonnes etudes, il verra que Petendue n'est pas comme le son 

 et les couleurs, qui n'existent que dans nos sensations, comme le sait tout 

 ecolier.' 



