168 FROM THE GREEKS TO DARWIN 



a paper which he advanced upon the conserva- 

 tion of energy doctrine. In an obscurely printed 

 article, Systeme de la Nature: Essai sur la For- 

 mation des Corps Organises (1751), which has 

 been unearthed in the course of the present dili- 

 gent search for all the prophecies of Evolution, 

 we find that Maupertuis had an original theory 

 as to the nature of living matter; that he ad- 

 vanced an hypothesis of generation by heredity 

 very similar to the pangenesis of Darwin, and 

 also a theory of the origin of new species. He did 

 not anticipate the 'evolution' or emboitement of 

 Bonnet, but advanced an hypothesis of trans- 

 formism, based upon the idea that all material 

 particles are in some degree invested with the 

 psychical properties of the higher organisms — 

 in other words, the monistic idea. By this as- 

 sumption of the investment of non-living matter 

 with the properties of living matter, he was in a 

 position to readily derive the latter from the for- 

 mer and to directly unite the animate and inani- 

 mate worlds. He does not enter into detail as to 

 the origin of life, but somewhat on the lines of 

 Democritus and of Buff on, who had published his 

 similar 'theory of generation' five years earlier 

 (1746), he carries us a step farther in his ideas 

 of 'pangenetic' heredity (sections xxxiii-xli) : 



The elementary particles which form the embryo 

 are each drawn from the corresponding structure 



