164 THE SCIENCE OF BIOLOGY 



ists, because they maintained the transmutability of species. 

 We have already commented upon this first century of the 

 modern scientific period as a time when innovations were in 

 the air. The theory of transmutation, and also certain 

 evolutionary concepts in geology, were advanced by Buffon, 

 on the basis of the first-hand knowledge set forth in his 

 monumental work upon natural history. Buffon was not 

 widely supported by his scientific colleagues, but another 

 Frenchman, Pierre de Maupertuis (1698-1759), a philos- 

 opher rather than a scientist, exhibits "a wider intellectual 

 horizon than was common among the men of science of his 

 time." For example, Maupertuis examined critically the 

 theory of preformation, which then dominated embryological 

 science, and found it wanting. He set forth a remarkable 

 theory of epigenesis. 9 He apprehended certain important 

 features in the problem of individual development at a 

 time when this matter had received scant consideration. 

 Examination of the problems of embryology led him to 

 consider those of heredity and variation. As a result he 

 came to regard the transmutability of species as a far more 

 reasonable belief than their fixity. He conceived the gradual 

 accumulation and the transmission of variations, carried on 

 for countless generations to be sufficient to produce all 

 existing species from a single original pair. 10 Unlike Buffon, 

 Maupertuis was not primarily a contributor to scientific 

 knowledge. But he possessed an insight into the meaning of 

 current facts which was in advance of the understanding 

 shown by the vast majority of his scientific contemporaries. 

 A similar appreciation of meanings appears in the writings 

 of Denis Diderot (1713-1784). Although he was even less 



9 The modern concept of development as a combination of preformation and 

 epigenesis is explained on p. 193 of the present volume. It is worth noting that 

 Maupertuis published his theory of epigenesis more than a decade before the 

 modern scientific formulation of this doctrine which appeared in the " Theoria 

 Generations, " by Kaspar Wolff hi 1759. 



10 Lovejoy, A. O., "Some Eighteenth Century Evolutionists," Popular 

 Science Monthly, July, 1904. 



