(…) Maupertuis drew out the implications of current natural historical facts in a frankly speculative manner. Though he was himself a careful observer of zoological phenomena, he went beyond the meticulous recounting of observational and experimental results to write broadly synthetic and provocative books, incorporating eroticism into his scientific arguments. (…) Vénus physique was designed to provoke pleasure in the act of reading at the same time that it activated nature by giving matter the capacity for desire and memory. The forces of desire and aversion are not reducible to mechanics; passion is opposed to reason, but that does not mean that passion is beyond the reach of science. In fact, if desire and aversion are built into matter at the most basic level, then a science of life and organization that fails to incorporate passion must be a failed science.
—
Mary Terrall.
Salon, academy and boudoir: Generation and desire in Maupertuis’s science of life.
Isis, 1996, 87: 217-229.
