[MAUPERTUIS (Pierre Louis MOREAU DE)]. Venus Physique. N.p., 1745. Small 12mo (79 x 137 mm), brown half-calf, ribbed spine decorated with blind-stamped fillets (late 19th-century binding). [VIII] + 194 pp. FIRST EDITION. A philosopher, mathematician, physicist, astronomer, and naturalist (1698–1759), Maupertuis defended Newton’s theories in France against Cartesianism. Excerpts from the table of contents: “AMERICA has no white inhabitants […],” “BORNEO […] inhabited by men with monkey tails,” “THE DARIANS, inhabitants of the Isthmus of Panama, are white and cannot tolerate daylight […] The difference between white and black is very slight in nature,” “BLACK PEOPLE are not born that way: they become so as they grow up,” “PATAGONIANS, inhabitants of the southernmost part of America […] whose height is almost double ours,” “VERS. One must assume that there were people of different colors among the descendants of the first man, if one wishes to explain the origin of humankind through the worm theory,” “GLACIAL ZONE […] inhabited by very white people”… The book has a worn cover; a few small spots of rust.