MAUPERTUIS Pierre Louis Moreau de Vénus physique

Garrison – Morton 215.2 ; Heirs of Hippocrates, 847; Osler, 3350; Norman, 1460.

First edition, supposedly published at either Leyden or The Hague.

Divided into two parts, the first part, Dissertation physique à l’occasion du nègre blanc (pp. 1-115) had appeared in Leiden the previous year. The second, Dissertation sur l’origine des noirs (pp. [117]-194) appears here for the first time. Maupertuis opposed the theory of the preformation of the embryo, which was then in vogue, by asserting that the father and mother had an equal influence on heredity.

“Maupertuis’s Venus physique refuted the preformationist theories of embryonic development held by most of his contemporaries in favor of the hen-discredited epigenetic hypothesis, which Maupertuis had adopted after considering the obvious facts of biparental heredity. Maupertuis rejected all vitalist or spiritual interpretations of the hereditary mechanism, arguing that biparental heredity required corporeal contributions from each parent. This argument was based on research that Maupertuis performed shortly after his arrival in Berlin in 1740, when he began collecting the pedigrees of the polydactylous Ruhe family. These pedigrees showed that the abnormal trait could be passed either by the male or female parent and that the trait tended to weaken and disappear over time as polydactylous individuals continued to marry normal spouses. According to Glass, Maupertuis’s theories of biparental heredity and epigenesis substantially anticipated those of Darwin, Mendel and de Vries nearly a century and a half later” (Norman).

“A rare first edition of Maupertuis’ remarkable work on embryology and genetics…. A scientist, philosopher, and original thinker, Maupertuis was years ahead of his time in many aspects of biology, particularly embryology and genetics. His arguments against the then-prevailing theory of preformation and for epigenesis were so close to the idea of evolution that he is a true forerunner of Darwin and Mendel” (Heirs).

Pp. 125/126 with lower corner torn without touching text.

Very good copy, entirely uncut and with deckle edges.

Provenance : Haskel F. Norman (book plate; sale II, New York 1998, lot 654).