ABSTRACT
Maupertuis first stated a minimum principle in mechanics [362] in 1746. Maupertuis’s principle was intended to apply not only to inanimate objects but universally, including biological phenomena. However, it was somewhat vaguely expressed, with supernatural aspects:
The laws of movement thus deduced [from this principle], being found to be precisely the same as those observed in na ture, we can admire the application of it to all phenomena, in the movement of animals, in the vegetation of plants, in the rev olution of the heavenly bodies: and the spectacle of the universe becomes so much the grander, so much the more beautiful, so much worthier of its Author . . . .
