Pierre Louis Maupertuis - Evolution

Evolution

Some historians of science point to his work in biology as a significant precursor to the development of evolutionary theory, specifically the theory of natural selection. Other writers contend that his remarks are cursory, vague, or incidental to that particular argument. Mayr's verdict was "He was neither an evolutionist, nor one of the founders of the theory of natural selection he was one of the pioneers of genetics". Maupertuis espoused a theory of pangenesis, postulating particles from both mother and father as responsible for the characters of the child. Bowler credits him with studies on heredity, with the natural origin of human races, and with the idea that forms of life may have changed with time.

Maupertuis was a strong critic of the natural theologians, pointing to phenomena incompatible with a concept of a good and wise Creator. He was also one of the first to consider animals in terms of variable populations, in opposition to the natural history tradition that emphasized description of individual specimens.

The difficulty of interpreting Maupertius can be gauged by reading the original works. Below is a translation from Vénus Physique, followed by the original French passage:

Could one not say that, in the fortuitous combinations of the productions of nature, as there must be some characterized by a certain relation of fitness which are able to subsist, it is not to be wondered at that this fitness is present in all the species that are currently in existence? Chance, one would say, produced an innumerable multitude of individuals; a small number found themselves constructed in such a manner that the parts of the animal were able to satisfy its needs; in another infinitely greater number, there was neither fitness nor order: all of these latter have perished. Animals lacking a mouth could not live; others lacking reproductive organs could not perpetuate themselves... The species we see today are but the smallest part of what blind destiny has produced... —

Ne pourrait-on pas dire que, dans la combinaison fortuite des productions de la nature, comme il n'y avait que celles où se trouvaient certain rapport de convenance qui puissent subsister, il n'est pas marveilleux que cette convenance se trouve dans toutes les espèces qui existent actuellement? Le hasard, dirait-on, avait produit une multitude innombrable d'individus; un petit nombre se trouvait construit de manière que les parties de l'animal pouvaient satisfaire à ses besoins; dans un autre infiniment plus grand, il n'y avait ni convenance, ni ordre: tous ces derniers ont péri; des animaux sans bouche ne pouvaient pas vivre, d'autres qui manquaient d'organes pour la génération ne pouvaient se perpétuer... les espèces que nous voyons aujourd'hui ne sont que la plus petite partie de ce qu'un destin aveugle avait produit...

A nearly identical argument may be found in Maupertuis' 1746 work Les loix du mouvement et du repos déduites d'un principe metaphysique (translation: s:Derivation of the laws of motion and equilibrium from a metaphysical principle). King-Hele (1963) points to similar, though not identical, ideas of thirty years later by David Hume in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1777).

The chief debate that Maupertuis was engaged in was one that treated the competing theories of generation (i.e. preformationism and epigenesis). His account of life involved spontaneous generation of new kinds of animals and plants, together with massive elimination of deficient forms. These ideas avoid the need for a Creator, but are not part of modern thinking on evolution. The date of these speculations, 1745, is concurrent with Carolus Linnaeus's own work, and so predates any firm notion of species. Also, the work on genealogy, coupled with the tracing of phenotypic characters through lineages, foreshadows later work done in genetics.