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LIST 217 - PHILOSOPHY.
14EHRENBERG, Friedrich. DIE VEREDLUNG DES MENSCHEN nach ihren Hauptmomenten, Bedingungen und Hülfsmitteln. Für alle, denen ihre moralische Bildung wichtig ist, und besonders für diejenigen, die dazu gesetzt sind, dieselbe bey andren zu befördern. Erster [-Zweiter] Band. Leipzig, bey E.F. Steinacker, 1803.£ 750
FIRST EDITION. Two volumes, 8vo, pp. xvi, [2] blank, 405, [1] errata; [ii], vi, 569, [1] errata; with stiple-engraved portraits of Plato and Socrates on titles; title lightly spotted and with contemporary collector’s stamps; contemporary blue marbled wrappers.
Good copy of this rare work on the philosophical and epistemological conditions for the improvement of morals and ethics in everyday life, written by the Berlin theologian Friedrich Ehrenberg (1776-1852), who preached at the court and the main church, the Dom. His celebrated sermons were much loved among the female audience and churchgoers. This popular philosophic work aims at the Improvement of the Human and was written for people in charge of the moral education of children and the youth, i.e. mothers, nurse maids and teachers.
Divided into four books, the first defines the concept of improvement or ‘ennoblement’ (Veredlung) and its relation to civilisation and education. The second book is on the ‘natural state of the human heart’ and diverging philosophical theories thereof. The third book explains that the ‘natural state of the human heart’ deserves external influence, such as education, school, church, the arts and the state to achieve higher development. Book four, which takes up all of volume II, examines the role of the free will in the moral development of the human, self-awareness, and practical maximes derived from Ehrenberg’s systematic analysis of this complex of moral philososphical questions.
OCLC records two copies outside Germany, at Princeton and the Lancaster Theological Seminary.
15FERGUSON, Adam. PRINCIPLES OF MORAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCE. being chiefly a retrospect of lectures delivered in the College of Edinburgh ... Edinburgh: printed for A. Strahan and T. Cadell, London; and W. Creech, Edinburgh. 1792.£ 1,750
FIRST AND ONLY EDITION IN ENGLISH. Two volumes, 4to, pp. xii, 339, [1] blank; viii, 512; new quarter calf, marbled boards, some light browning, mostly marginal, neat contemporary ownership inscription on both titles; a very good copy.
First edition of Ferguson’s Principles, his mature reworking of his earlier lectures, especially important for an understanding of his philosophical and economic thought.
The work is divided into two parts; while the first relates to the fact of man’s progressive nature, the second discusses the principles of right, or the foundations of judgement and choice. His work is highly recommended by the French philosopher, Cousin: ‘We find in his method the wisdom and circumspection of the Scottish school, with something more masculine and decisive in its results. The principle of perfection is a new one, at once more rational and comprehensive than benevolence and sympathy, and which, in our view places Ferguson as a moralist above all his predecessors’ (McCosh, The Scottish Philosophy, 1875, p. 260).
Despite his prominent position among the philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment, Ferguson’s published output was fairly small. While his fame rests chiefly on his Civil Society, this work is better understood in the broader setting of entire social and moral philosophy, clearly represented in his Principles.
Amex 165;Chuo 93; ESTC t114601; Goldsmiths 15046; Jessop, p. 122; not in Kress or Einaudi.
16FLORENZI-WADDINGTON, Marianna. DELLA IMMORTALITÀ DELL’ ANIMA UMANA. Discorso ... Firenze, Successori le Monnier, 1868.£ 300
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. [iv], 58, [2] blanks; some spotting and foxing throughout; partly unopened, in the original printed wrappers. Only edition of this rare treatise on the immortality of the soul by the prolific Italian philosopher and writer Marianna Florenzi-Waddington (née Bacinetti, 1802-1870).
Opening her work with a quotation from Hegel, Florenzi-Waddington examines the views of a number of German philosophers, including Feuerbach, Büchner, and others, discussing not only the immortality of the soul but also questions including the nature of moral consciousness and personal identity, and noting the views not just of the Christian religion but also of sources such as the Bhagavad Gita. The work finishes with a brief appendix discussing Terenzio Mamiani’s thoughts on the progress of the universe.
Florenzi-Waddington studied science and philosophy at Perugia and played a large part in spreading the reputations of Kant, Spinoza, Schelling and especially Leibniz, whose Monadology she translated, in Italy. She was the only woman to have been admitted to the Reale Accademia di Scienze morali et politiche di Napoli.
OCLC: 27764603 records two copies, at Harvard and Berkeley.
With plates by Bode
17FONTENELLE, Bernard le Bovier de. DIALOGEN ÜBER DIE MEHRHEIT DER WELTEN. Mit Anmerkungen und Kupfertafeln von Johann Elert Bode ... Berlin, Bey Christian Friedrich Himburg, 1780.£ 685
SECOND GERMAN TRANSLATION. 8vo, pp. [vi], 355, [1] errata, with eleven leaves of plates (one folding), and engraved frontispiece; with some spotting in places, but generally clean and fresh throughout; in recent boards to style, with paper label lettered in gilt on spine; a very good copy.
The second German translation, and the first with the notes and plates by the distinguished German astronomer Johann Elert Bode, of Fontenelle’s Entretiens Sur La Pluralité Des Mondes, which first appeared in 1686.
Arranged as a course of dialogues which take place over six consecutive evenings, Fontenelle’s work is one of the best known popularisations of Cartesian and Copernican astronomy, made more digestible by its after- dinner conversational style and its speculations on the existence of life on other planets. “It represents the first major attempt to present scientific knowledge to the layman in an attractive literary form, and was highly successful” (Penguin Companion to European Literature). A German translation by Gottsched had appeared in 1751, but the present translation is considerably more substantial, and benefits from extensive footnotes by Bode, who had earlier published his own, much-reprinted, guide to astronomy, Anleitung zur Kenntnis des gestirnten Himmels, and who, the year after the present translation was published, proposed the name “Uranus” for the new planet discovered by Herchel.
OCLC records North American copies at Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, Michigan, Duke, North Carolina, and Case Western.
18FORMEY, Jean Henri Samuel. LE PHILOSOPHE PAYEN. Ou Pensées de Pline; Avec un Commentaire litteraire & Moral ... Tome Premier [-Troisième]. A Leide, de L’Imp. d’Elie Luzac, Fils. 1759.£ 350
FIRST EDITION. Three volumes, 12mo, pp. [ii], lii, 302; [ii], 432; [ii], 447, [1] contents; with engraved frontispiece in each volume; a little foxed and browned in places due to paper quality, but still generally clean and crisp throughout; with leaf of notes written in a neat contemporary hand inserted between pp. 236/237 of Vol. II; in contemporary sheep, spines attractively tooled in gilt with red morocco labels lettered in gilt, head of Vol. I chipped and upper joints tender on Vol.’s II & III, with some light surface wear, but still an attractive set.
First edition of Formey’s philosophical commentary on the letters of Pliny the Younger, the “pagan philosopher” of the title.
Jean Henri Samuel Formey (1711-1797) was a Berliner of French protestant extraction, and became pastor at the Huguenot church in Berlin in 1736. In 1748 he was appointed perpetual secretary of the Berliner Akademie, and many of his numerous writings appeared in the proceedings of that body. The present work is a companion to his earlier Le Philosophe chrétien (1750), where he had sought to reconcile the claims of faith and Christian dogma with those of philosophy and science. In Le Philosophe payen, Formey takes a sentence or two from each of Pliny’s many letters, and expands on it; while he is interested in exegesis, and discusses some purely literary matters, his principal interests are philosophical and moral. This is made especially clear in the inclusion of a revised edition of his commentary on Sallust’s treatise On the Gods and the World, and of the Traité des sources de la Morale. Of the former work, first published some ten years before the present work, Formey says that the praise of competent judges persuaded him to find a place for it in Le Philosophe payen, whose title and subject matter were appropriate. However, the Sallust commentary is entirely revised for inclusion in the present work.
OCLC: 24606113.
On miracles
19FÖRSTER, Johann Christian. PHILOSOPHISCHE ABHANDLUNG über die Wunderwerke, Halle im Magdeburgischen, Druck und Verlag Johann Jacob Curts. 1761.£ 450
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. [xx], 284; with attractive woodcut vignette on title; aside from very occasional spotting, clean and fresh throughout; in contemporary blue patterned boards; spine and extremities worn, but still a good copy.
First edition of this early work by the Halle philosopher Johann Christian Förster (1735-1798), in which he attacks the criticisms of the possibility of miracles made by Spinoza, the Jansenists, and the British Sensualists.
The work is divided into six sections. In the first, Förster explains the nature and theory of miracles, discussing the opinions of Clarke, Spinoza, Locke, Bayle, and Leibniz, before turning to examine the intention with which God is held to perform miracles. A third section describes the consequences of miracles, while the fourth discusses the criteria which define miracles. After a further part in which Förster examines the role of mercy in miracles, the final section discusses the question of certainty in miracles, and includes an examination of Hume’s thoughts on the subject.
Förster studied at Halle, where he became professor of philosophy in 1769. Among his works are a comparison of the ontological arguments of Anselm and Descartes, and a history of the University of Halle.
OCLC records five copies, all in Germany.
20GALLO, Pietro. IL POTERE, E IL DOVERE DELL’ UOMO. Dedicato al genio nobile di sua eccellenza la signora Teresa Palfy nata Contessa Daun. In Vienna, appresso Giorgio Lodovico Schulz, stampatore dell’universita. [c. 1765].£ 550
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. 315, [5] blank, engraved coat-of-arms of the dedicatee on p. [3], woodcut vignettes and initials in the text; stain to outer margin throughout, and in gutter to last two gatherings, otherwise, apart from some foxing in places, text clean; contemporary mottled wrappers, rather rubbed and worn, cracks to spine (but binding holding firm), still a good copy of a very rare work.
First edition of this unusual work on the human faculties and duties, by the Italian philosopher Pietro Gallo.
Among the subjects covered are truth, God as an innate component of the human soul, the body and the awareness of it in the conscious mind, the intellectual capacities, and the possibility and nature of free will. In the second half of the volume Gallo includes a long section on human error, prejudice and the causes thereof.
OCLC records just one copy only, at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (with a different heraldic illustration); not in ICCU, COPAC, KVK locates copies in the Austrian National Libary, the Municipal Library of Bamberg,
21GROTIUS, Hugo. DE VERITATE RELIGIONIS CHRISTIANAE: Editio Novissima Erroribus innumeris passim expurgata. Cum Notulis Joannis Clerici. Accesserunt Ejusdem de eligenda inter Christianos diffentientes Sententia, et Contra Indifferentiam Religionum, Libro Duo. Glasguae: Ex Officina Roberti Urie et Sociorum, Sumtibus Joan. Barry, apud quem veneunt. 1745.£ 275
FIRST GLASGOW EDITION. 12mo, pp. [ii], xiv [i.e xii], 368; a clean crisp copy throughout; in contemporary calf, spine with red morocco label lettered in gilt, upper joint cracked but cords and hinge holding firm, light wear to extremities, library label on front paste down; a handsome copy.
First Glasgow edition of this important attempt by the great jurist to compose a code of common Christianity, irrespective of sect, and thereby provide a basis for Catholic and Protestant reconciliation.
As Grotius first published his De Veritate in 1627 as a code of common Christianity, this Glasgow reprint by Urie of the Amsterdam printing of 1724 shows the continuing popularity especially in Protestant colleges of this classical manual of apologetics. Indeed, the work maintained its popularity into the nineteenth century, especially in England, and his teaching on the Atonement anticipates some liberal twentieth century views.
Meulin & Diermanse 984. OCLC: 13238876.
Herschel in Italy
22HERSCHEL, Sir John. DISCORSO PRELIMINARE sullo Studio della Filosofia Naturale. [Series title]: Opere Utili ad ogni persona educata raccolte col consiglio d’uomini periti in ciascuna scienza. Torino, G. Pomba e Comp. 1840.£ 285
FIRST ITALIAN TRANSLATION. 8vo, pp. xv, [i] blank, 416; some spotting and foxing throughout; uncut in the original printed boards; hinges and corners worn, but still a good copy.
First Italian edition of Herschel’s pioneering work on the philosophy of science, Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy.
‘Published in 1830 as the opening volume of Lardner’s Cabinet Cyclopaedia, and styled by Whewell an “admirable comment on the Novum Organum” (Quarterly Review, July 1831), [it] captivated readers of all classes by the quiet charm of its style, and the justice and breadth of its views. It was translated into French, German and Italian, and reprinted in English in 1851’ (DNB).
Not in OCLC.
23[HOLBACH, Paul Henri, Baron d’]. SYSTEME DE LA NATURE. Ou des loix du monde
physique & du monde moral. Par M. Mirabaud ... Londres [Amsterdam], 1770.£ 650
FIRST EDITION, SECOND ISSUE WITHOUT THE ERRATA AND WITH ALL CORRECTIONS. Two volumes, 8vo, pp. [xii], 366; [vi], 408; with the half-titles in both volumes; very light occasional browning in places, minor worming in the margin of the last gathering of vol. II (not affecting the text); bound in contemporary mottled sheep, spines decoratively tooled in gilt with labels lettered in gilt, worming to covers and upper joint of volume I cracked (but holding firm); nevertheless, still a very attractive and desirable copy.
The first edition of Holbach’s classic refutation of the existence of a deity, in which he explains the universe purely in terms of matter in spontaneous movement. It is a philosophy in which the prime end of existence is the achievement of happiness: ‘It would be useless and almost unjust to insist upon a man’s being virtuous if he cannot be so without being unhappy. So long as vice renders him happy, he should love vice’. The Système de la Nature is Holbach’s ‘philosophical masterpiece ... a methodical and intransigent affirmation of materialism and atheism’ (Aram Vartanian in DSB).
The reaction to its audacious philosophy was extreme and this first edition was condemned and burnt by the ‘congregation of the index’ in France as a blasphemous work. Such was the contentious nature of Holbach’s writings that he was obliged to have them published by Rey in Amsterdam under names of various recently deceased French authors.
Holbach was an intimate of the French ‘philosophes’ and contributed a large number of articles to the Encyclopédie. His house, the côterie holbachique, was a meeting place for Diderot, D’Alembert, Turgot, Condillac and Rousseau and he also entertained Hume, Garrick, Wilkes and Sterne.
Tchemerzine describes a copy with four fewer pages in each volume than in the present copy and with no errata at the end of volume I, which may well be a concealed second edition.
Kress 6737; Goldsmiths 10607; Einaudi 2910; Printing and the Mind of Man 215; INED 2289; Higgs 5120.
24[HUME, David]. A TREATISE OF HUMAN NATURE: being an attempt to introduce the experimental method of reasoning into moral subjects ... Vol.I. Of the understanding. [Vol.II. Of the Passions] London: printed for John Noon, at the White-Hart ... 1739.
[with:] A TREATISE OF HUMAN NATURE: being an attempt to introduce the experimental method of reasoning into moral subjects ... With an appendix. Wherein some passages of the foregoing volumes are illustrated and explain’d. Vol. III. Of morals. London, printed for Thomas Longman, at the Ship in Pater-noster-Row, 1740. .£ 60,000
FIRST EDITION. Three volumes, 8vo, pp. [ii] title, [ii] author’s advertisement, [iv] contents and errata for volumes I and II, 475, [1] publisher’s advertisements, with P1 cancelled and without the additional advertisements, as usual; [ii] title, [ii] contents, 318, M4 with the six line note and without the 4 publisher’s advertisements, as usual; [ii] title, [ii] author’s advertisement, [iv] contents and errata, 310, A4 with the 14 line errata, F6 with four lines added at the end of the first paragraph and P8 with the substituted line of text; apart from occasional very light dust-soiling and foxing, a remarkably clean and fresh copy throughout; uniformly bound in contemporary sprinkled calf, boards ruled with double fillets in gilt, rebacked with raised bands and gilt fleurons in the compartments, preserving the earlier (19th-century) contrasting morocco labels; light wear to corners and edges; 18th-century notes in ink on the second initial blank of the third volume, one line of which pointing out ‘Adam Smith anticipated.’
First edition, complete with the rare third volume, of Hume’s first major work which ‘sums up a century of speculation on knowledge and of theological discussion’ (PMM).
The Treatise not only represents the greatest achievement of British philosophy in the eighteenth century, but in its clarity is among the finest examples of eighteenth century English prose style. It is the ‘first attempt to apply Locke’s empirical psychology to build a theory of knowledge, and from it to provide a critique of metaphysical ideas’ (PMM). This work contains the basic principles of all Hume’s subsequent philosophical writings and its influence was widespread, both across the channel in Helvetius’ controversial work, and back to the utilitarianism of Bentham and the logic of J. S. Mill. The first two volumes contain the vast metaphysical structure of Hume’s work, whereas the third volume, on morals, contains more detailed observations of human behaviour.
Volumes I and II appeared at the end of January 1739, but the immediate reception was one of indifference. Discontented with Noon’s conditions of sale for the first two volumes, Hume went to a different publisher for the third volume which was published probably in June of the following year.
Jessop p. 13; Chuo 30; Rothschild 1171; Printing & the Mind of Man 194; Todd Hume and the Enlightenment (1974) pp. 190-191;
Hume in Spain
25[HUME, David]. TRATADO DE LA NATURALEZA HUMANA ensayo para introducir el método del razonamiento experimental en los asuntos morales. Tomo I [-III]. Madrid, [Calpe], 1923.£ 550
FIRST EDITION IN SPANISH. Three volumes, 8vo, pp. 424, [8] advertisements; 266, [6] advertisements; 256; lightly browned throughout due to paper stock; entirely unopened in the original printed wraps, lightly rubbed and worn to extremities, minor surface wear, contemporary booksellers price labels stuck to upper cover of each volume, but still a very good copy; housed in a custom made cloth box.
Rare first Spanish translation (by Vincente Viqueira) of A Treatise of Human Nature, Hume’s greatest (and rarest) work.
The Treatise not only represents the greatest achievement of British philosophy in the eighteenth century, but in its clarity is among the finest examples of eighteenth century English prose style. It is the ‘first attempt to apply Locke’s empirical psychology to build a theory of knowledge, and from it to provide a critique of metaphysical ideas’ (PMM). This work contains the basic principles of all Hume’s subsequent philosophical writings and its influence was widespread, both across the channel in Helvetius’ controversial work, and back to the utilitarianism of Bentham and the logic of J. S. Mill. The first two volumes contain the vast metaphysical structure of Hume’s work, whereas the third volume, on morals, contains more detailed observations of human behaviour.
The publishing history of the Treatise and subsequent translations is an interesting one. The first German translation (1790-2) is, in fact, the only other edition of the Treatise to appear in the eighteenth century. A ‘new edition’ in English was not published until 1817, and French readers had to wait until 1878 for a translation; and it was not until the twentieth century that an Italian version appeared, along with the present Spanish edition.
In his lengthy introduction, Vincente Viqueira first gives a brief history of Hume and his works and then discusses the merits of his Treatise and the influence it had on Kant and Thomas Reid.
Jessop, p. 15 (unseen); not in Chuo; see PMM 194. OCLC: 35903498 records just two copies in the US, at the University of California (San Diego) and Oklahoma State, with four further copies in Mexican (2) and Chilean libraries (2).
26[HUME].KÜHNE,Rudolf.UEBER DAS VERHÄLTNISS DER HUME’SCHEN UND KANTISCHEN ERKENNTNISSTHEORIE. Mit einer einleitenden Untersuchung über den Begriff der Causalität. Berlin. Druck von Eduard Krause, [1878].£ 150
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. 32; a clean copy throughout; a fine copy; stitched as issued in the original printed wraps, some minor dust-soiling.
First edition of this brief and rare study by Rudolf Kühne, comparing the epistemologies of Kant and Hume and their relationship to one another.
The work is divided into two sections. In the first, Kühne examines the concept of causality, central to any understanding of Hume’s and Kant’s theories of knowledge. Kühne traces the development of the concept through Descartes, Malebranche and Locke, to Leibniz, Hume and Kant, presenting a critical analysis of the many questions associated with the concept. The second section turns to the relationship between Hume’s theory of knowledge with Kant’s epistemology, both in his precritical writings such as Der einzig mögliche Beweisgrund zu einer Demonstration des Daseins Gottes and in the first critique, where Kant openly acknowledges his debt to Hume.
Jessop, p. 62; OCLC records two copies only, at Texas (Austin) and the Union Theology Seminary.