X42. THE HISTORY OF BIOLOGY 



finally he expounds a quite extraordinarily childish theory regarding the 

 "natural" origin of man and the living creatures here on earth. 



The ' ' natural ' ' origin of man 

 Starting from Buffon's above-mentioned idea of the living particles scattered 

 about in space, out of which all living creatures have arisen, he assumes that 

 similar particles, intended to form human beings, have accumulated in the 

 earth and given rise to a number of human individuals, some defective, others 

 perfect. To the question why the earth no longer produces human beings 

 in this wise he would answer that the earth is now old and weary; in answer 

 to the question how the human babies thus produced eventually developed, 

 it may be supposed that they were brought up by kindly beasts of prey, 

 just as a small child had, it was said, recently been brought up by a she-bear 

 in Poland. 



On reading such absurdities one recalls the days of old Empedocles, but 

 there is nothing to indicate that La Mettrie was not serious, as far as he 

 could be serious over anything. There is, it is true, no sign of scientific criti- 

 cism apparent in speculations such as these — in comparison with them 

 even Buffon's most daring assumptions are temperate and founded on facts — 

 but at least they have their interest as a sign of the times, and the endeavour 

 which finds expression therein points ahead to the "natural-creation sto- 

 ries" of our own day. No one before had ever dared so openly and so rashly 

 to break with the old, officially accepted, traditions, then upheld by the 

 whole authority of the State, and even among La Mettrie's contemporaries 

 there was no one who would have dared to abandon the belief in a God as 

 the Creator of the world and in the immortality of the soul; both were re- 

 garded as indispensable bases for even the most liberal-minded morality. 

 But La Mettrie would even reform morals and social life; he desired to create 

 a natural and philosophical system of ethics in place of the official theo- 

 logical and juridical system. Like others of his contemporaries, he believed 

 in man's natural inclination to virtue and happiness and he propounds 

 certain quite justifiable suggestions for reform. He would forbid wearisome 

 memorizing in the schools, maintaining that child education should be based 

 upon the exercise of the natural powers of observation, and he urges the 

 courts of law to differentiate between deeds committed by the mentally de- 

 ficient and ordinary crimes. The highest aim should be to make the world 

 happy, but the main point of the art of living that he preaches is first and 

 foremost "la volupte " — that is to say, in fact, sexual desire, the satisfaction 

 of which with the greatest possible enjoyment and the least possible risk 

 he discusses in a lengthy treatise, claiming thereby to lead humanity to the 

 height of rational worldly wisdom. This philosophy of licence became, as 

 is well known, widely popular during the latter half of the eighteenth cen- 

 tury; in itself it would of course have no concern with this present work 



