Abstract
Aram Vartanian : Maupertuis' brother and the «homme machine ». Maupertuis' younger brother, Moreau de Saint-Elier, who is now all but forgotten, was the author of a Traité de la communication des maladies et des passions (1738). This work, which consists mainly of a discussion of the breast-feeding of infants, is one of the earliest crypto-materialist texts to be published in the Enlightenment. Saint-Elier 's exposed an «histoire naturelle de l'homme » (the phrase, which forms the book's sub-title, was his own) as the theoretical basis of his position against breast-feeding. Of more special interest are the close textual and thematic parallels between Saint-Elier's psychophysiological anthropology and La Mettrie's L'Homme machine (1747). These parallels assume greater significance when it is realized that La Mettrie and Maupertuis' brother must have known each other in Saint-Malo, and exchanged views on scientific and philosophical topics, in the period from 1734 to 1742.
Published Version
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