BURGERSDIJK, Franck Pieterszoon
First edition in English of Burgersdijk's highly influential Latin textbook on logic, first published by Elzevier in 1626. It appeared in at least 27 editions and sought a compromise between Aristotelian and Ramist logic. This first English edition is extremely rare: ESTC locates 7 copies in the British Isles and 5 in North America. PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Small 8vo, [xxiv], 128, 113-117, [i], 138 pp., contemporary gilt-ruled calf with gilt devices to corners, loss to spine ends, joints cracked but firm, some light browning and sporadic stains, Bangor Independent College bookplate, marbled endpapers, later plain front endpaper with 'Bala Library' on recto and faint presentation inscription to Bala from 'Lou Francis of Frankton Salop on verso, title-page with early price and ownership inscriptions, a very good copy.
LOCKE, John
First (?) German edition. Locke's book on education appeared for the first time in German in 1708 in two different translations: one after the 3rd or 4th English edition by S.G.Starck published in Greifswald, and the present edition, translated after the 5th English edition by Gottfried Olearius. Some Thoughts concerning Education (1693) was Locke's single most-translated work, apart from the Essay concerning Human Understanding. He began to write it at the request of his friends Edward and Mary Clarke of Somerset, who had asked him for advice on educating their own children. By 1782 it had been translated into 14 languages. In this edition, Locke's work is followed by a translation of Fenelon's Traite de l'education des filles (pp. 477-612). PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 8vo, portrait frontispiece, 68, [iv], 612, [12] pp., contemporary calf, spine gilt in compartments with morocco label, rubbed with loss of some gilt, marbled pastedowns, small stamp on first free endpaper, uniform light browning, a little heavier in margins of first and last leaves, no inscriptions, a very good copy. Yolton 212.
NYE, Stephen
Rare first edition by Stephen Nye (1648-1719), with one of two variant title-pages from the same year. ESTC 14 copies in the British Isles, 2 in Europe and 7 in N. America. The book was reprinted in Glasgow by Foulis in 1752. 'In this book, in which Nye claimed to be pursuing the design of the Boyle Lectures, he distinguished two traditions of atheism. Against the first, which he traced to the ancient atomists and associated with Hobbes, he offered two of the a posteriori arguments for the existence of a powerful and wise Creator from the beauty, immensity and stability of the cosmical system and from the aims, designs, or ends, so manifestly appearing in parts of the world. Some of Nyes arguments are relevant to both kinds of atheist. But he thought the second kind, whom he regarded as the most dangerous, needed a special refutation. Against them he sought to establish that the world was contingent and had to have a cause outside itself. Nye had shown his manuscript to others before having it published and his correspondence about it with a radical Socinian, Henry Hedworth (H.H.), was included as an Appendix. Hedworth disputed whether his answer to Spinoza was an adequate one. Nyes reply indicates his failure to take the measure of Spinozas position. He assumed, wrongly, that Spinoza was committed to the view that the Suns motions depended on its eternal nature and thought it sufficient to establish that, on the contrary, the Sun is a contingent thing. Another issue raised by Hedworth was in relation to his argument for an afterlife based on the universal belief among all nations and therefore on the supposedly innate principle that every virtuous action must have its reward and every evil one an appropriate punishment. Hedworth drew attention to Lockes objections to innate principles in his Essay, and Nyes reply is of some interest in this context as a defence of innatism' (Dictionary of Seventeenth-Century British Philosophers, Thoemmes Press, 2000). PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 8vo, [x], 235 pp., contemporary calf panelled in blind, rubbed, worn at corners, some careful restoration to spine, outer endpapers partly gone to reveal printer's waste on the pastedowns, K2 with a paper flaw, isolated spots, a tiny worm trace in bottom margin late on, no stamps or inscriptions, a very good clean copy.
KANT, Immanuel
Rare first edition. 'Kant's early writings such as "The One Possible Basis for a Demonstration of the Existence of God" engage the concept of God in terms of principles and arguments that had been framed by the metaphysical systems of Leibniz and Wolff as well as by the theoretical structure of Newtonian physics. Kant had not yet articulated a definitive break with the approach of the rationalist metaphysics of his predecessors, so his discussions presuppose the validity of the enterprise of constructing an adequate theoretical argument for the existence of God. Even so, he makes a number of points in these works that prefigure key arguments that his mature critical philosophy will later raise against the way rationalist metaphysics had traditionally treated the status and function of the concept of God. In particular, he has already formulated a central feature of the main objection that he will raise against the ontological argument in the Critique of Pure Reason, namely, that existence is not a predicate" (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Warda 23; Adickes 33. PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 8vo, 14, 205, [1] pp., contemporary marbled boards, worn with loss at top of spine, title-page with an old name in ink, uniform browning and a waterstain running through, a reasonable copy of one of the early pre-critical works.
KANT, Immanuel
The important second edition of Kant's greatest work, the CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON, widely considered the most influential book in philosophy since Aristotle. Warda 59; Adickes 46. Kant made many changes in this, the so-called 'B' text, entirely recasting the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories and The Paralogisms of Pure Reason, and adding new material - most notably the Refutation of Idealism - in order to clear up misunderstandings of the 'A' text of 1781. The 'B' text is the basis for all subsequent editions. PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 8vo, xliv, 884 pp. (454-489 unpaginated, 865 misnumbered 658), contemporary yellow boards, rubbed and lightly marked, wear at corners, spine with paper label hand-lettered, early ownership inscription 'Körmendy Chrysolog' on title-page, pages clean and fresh, an exceptionally nice copy with wide margins, uncut.
KANT, Immanuel
(1) First edition of this collection of Kant's smaller writings. Warda 237, Adickes 14. (2) The only edition of this anonymous work, extremely rare. Not found in WorldCat or KVK. The anonymous author tries to uncover the hidden fallacies that lie within the principles of 'moral purism'. PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Two works in one volume, 8vo, 135 pp., contemporary marbled boards, rubbed, hand-lettered paper spine label, edges red, the second text with some light marginal foxing, no stamps or inscriptions, very good copies of both texts, rare and very rare.
KANT, Immanuel
Two of Kant's works bound in one volume, 8vo, xx, [ii], 296, [iv], 220 pp., contemporary half vellum a little marked, front free endpaper cut to remove a signature, some light foxing and occasional spots, very good copies in a nice binding. (1) The first of three reprints of the Religion in the year of its first publication. Warda 142, Adickes 79. (2) First edition of this collection of ten essays. Eight of them had previously appeared in the Berlinische Monatsschrift, including Kant's famous answer to the question 'What is Enlightenment?' (pp. 25-37). Warda 229, Adickes 6.
KANT, Immanuel
First edition of The Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, intended by Kant as a first step towards a projected but never completed metaphysics of nature. Warda 103; Adickes 64. 8vo, xxiv, 158 pp., contemporary speckled boards, rubbed and somewhat dusty, spine darkened and with some flaking, extensive early annotations on pastedowns and rear endpapers (total 4 pp.), the text clean with mild age-toning, a good copy, decidedly scarce.
KANT, Immanuel
First edition of this collection of Kant's works, complete in all four volumes. The first three volumes were edited by J.H. Tieftrunk, and the subsequent fourth volume by F.T. Rink. Warda 236 and 238, Adickes 13 and 13a ('authentic and complete edition'). 4 volumes uniform, large 8vo, cxxviii, 676; [vi], 700; v, 594; viii, 424 pp., near-contemporary marbled boards, rubbed, spines ruled and lettered in black, library stamps of the Akademischer Lezerverein Graz, pages uniformly age-toned with scattered light foxing and occasional spots, a nice well-preserved set.
HEGEL, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
First edition of Hegel's first book, the so-called Differenzschrift, an important milestone in the development of German idealism post-Kant. For an account of how Hegel's own annotated copy found its way from a Berlin bookshop to a school library in Tokyo where it was discovered in 2014, see Hegel-Studien Vol. 49, pp. 157-70. 'In The Difference between Fichte's and Schelling's System of Philosophy, Hegel set out that difference in terms of a contrast between reflective and speculative philosophy. Dichotomy, rupture [Entzweiung], he argued, gives rise to the need for philosophy, a rupturing which reflective philosophy both seeks to resolve and exasperates. The understanding strives to enlarge itself to the absolute, but, in its finitude, it only reproduces itself endlessly, positing oppositions within itself and its products, and so mocks itself. The being of nature, in particular, is either disolved into abstractions or remains but a deadly darkness within the intellect. Although Fichte was Hegel's prime target here, much of contemporary philosophy was included in his critique. Hegel argued that the identity philosophy of Schelling, however, in which reason raises itself to speculation and provides a positive account of being, overcomes such finitudes and ruptures. The Kritische Journal der Philosophie that Schelling and Hegel launched from Jena in 1802, critical of the limitations of proliferating philosophical systems, sought to establish an objective philosophical criticism based upon such a speculative use of reason' (Joan Steigerwald, Studies in Romanticism, Vol. 41, No. 4., 2002, p. 545). PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 8vo, xii, [13]-184 pp., 20th-century marbled boards with red spine label lettered in gilt, ownership inscription on front free endpaper, no stamps and no other inscriptions, uniform light age toning and a very few isolated spots, an excellent copy with wide margins, uncut.
KANT, Immanuel
First edition of Kant's third and final Critique - The Critique of Judgement - the scarcest of his major works. It lays the foundation for modern aesthetics and is divided into two parts, the Critique of Aesthetic Judgement and the Critique of Teleological Judgement . Kant's long introduction provides an extensive overview of his entire critical system. Goethe said the Critique of Judgement was the first philosophical book ever to move him, and Fichte called it 'the crown of the critical philosophy'. Warda 125; Adickes 71. 'Scholars have long asked a basic question about the two halves of the Critique of Judgment. What do the beautiful and sublime have to do with any alleged necessity of taking a teleological approach to the study of organisms? One avenue for finding unity across these topics is to connect both to the idea of a purpose. Kant provides a definition of purpose (and the related notion of 'purposiveness') in the Introduction. A purpose is "the concept of an object, insofar as it at the same time contains the ground of reality of this object . . . The correspondence of a thing with that constitution of things that is possible only in accordance with ends [purposes] is called the purposiveness of its form." He maintains that beautiful art is purposive without a purpose. It does not aim at some good, yet it can only be understood as possible in accord with purposes. In a similar way, the arrangement of parts in an organism is contingent with respect of the basic laws of matter; yet it is purposive because the possibility of this arrangement can be understood only as the product of a purpose' (Patricia Kitcher, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, Oct. 2015). PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 8vo, lviii, 476, [1] pp., contemporary boards with green spine label lettered gilt, rubbed and worn at extremities, title-page with hint of an old pencilled name at the top, pages exceptionally fresh and unspotted, internally the cleanest copy we have seen.
LEIBNIZ, Gottfried Wilhelm
First edition. Ravier 472. 'Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement humain' takes up almost all (520 pages) of this volume. Written in 1703-05 in reaction to John Locke's 'Essay concerning Humane Understanding', Leibniz delayed publication when he heard of Locke's death because he thought it unfair publicly to attack someone who could no longer defend himself. Kant read the text closely four years after publication: 'the year '69 gave me great light' (Reflexionen 5037, 18:68). The title is something of a misnomer: the essais are couched in the form of a dialogue between Locke's spokesman Philalethes, who quotes from Coste's translation of the Essay, and Theophiles who replies for Leibniz. Modern commentators consider this text a high-water mark: Catherine Wilson calls it 'undoubtedly Leibniz's best composition: the richest, the most tightly argued, the most fertile ' ; and Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett say in the introduction to their Cambridge edition 'any attentive reader of the New Essays must receive a dominant impression of being in the presence of a powerful, restless, superbly sharp intelligence'. PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 4to, half-title, [ii], xvi, [i], 540, [17] pp., contemporary calf, rubbed, spine richly gilt in compartments, morocco label a little worn, armorial bookplate on pastedown and ownership inscription of Joseph (Ferdinand), Count of Rheinstein-Tattenbach on title-page, light foxing in places, a very good copy.
(KANT) SNELL, Christian Wilhelm
First edition. Adickes 846. 8vo, xx, [viii], 382, [2] pp., contemporary half leather over marbled boards, rubbed, spine smooth with gilt-lettered label, early ownership inscription on front pastedown (Genberg), frontispiece depicting Aristotle, most leaves lightly spotted, a well-preserved copy.
(KANT) WASIANSKI, Ehregott Andreas
First edition. 'Wasianski was Kant's caretaker and daily companion in the last years of his life, and gives a simple and accurate account of these years' (Adickes 2798). 'After Wasianski left the University of Königsberg in 1780, he had no contact with Kant for a decade, meeting him again only in 1790 at a wedding reception. Kant seems to have invited him immediately to his regular dinner parties, and gradually came to rely on him. Over the years he entrusted him with more and more of his personal business. Indeed, Wasianski ultimately earned Kant's complete trust. Having been chosen by Kant as his personal secretary and helper, as well as executor of his will, he knew the aged Kant's circumstances very well' (Kühn, Kant: A Biography, p. 7). PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Small 8vo, 224 pp., slightly later marbled boards with red spine label, title-page age-toned and with shelfmark at top, some unobtrusive marginal reading marks in pencil, still a very good copy overall.
NOUET, Jacques and others
First edition of a book listed in ESTC under 'Nouet' (Wing, 'Nouat') as a translation of 'Responses Aux Lettres Provinciales Publieés par le Secretaire du Port-Royal, Contre Les PP. de la Compagnie de Jesus'. This book had been a collection of serial responses to the first 16 of Pascal's 18 Letters (PMM 140) by François Annat, Jean de Brisacier, Claude de Lingendes and Jacques Nouet, published in Liège in 1657. The present English edition includes replies to the final two letters. The translator was the Jesuit priest Martin Grene (1616-77). 'Grene was assigned the unenviable task of preparing a reply to the English translation of Pascal's Les provinciales, or, The Mysterie of Jesuitisme, four editions of which were published in England before 1659. His Answer to the Provinciall Letters (Paris, 1659) was more than a mere translation: he improved the original and added a preface on the history of Jansenism' (ODNB). PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 12mo, [xviii], xxxiv, 520, [1] pp., contemporary blindstamped calf, worn with top panel missing from backstrip, trace of shelfmark in lower panel, title-page somewhat browned, otherwise internally clean and sound.
WITTGENSTEIN, Ludwig
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, xiv, [i], 185 pp., dustwrapper unclipped but browned and with nicks at top of spine panel, publisher's blue cloth lettered in gilt, some wear at foot of spine, owner's name on front free endpaper, small ink marks in 5 margins (pp. 41, 49, 58-9, 70 - please see images), elsewhere some unobtrusive erased pencilling.
WARBURTON, William
First edition of a scarce early work by the leading religious polemicist and sometime Bishop of Gloucester, William Warburton (1698-1779). 'Warburton s first publication of any note was an anonymously published anti-Catholic and anti-deist tract entitled A Critical and Philosophical Enquiry into the Causes of Prodigies and Miracles (1727). In this work which he later disowned to the extent of buying up copies and destroying them he laid down a theory of why the ancients had been more credulous than the moderns as to the meaning and reality of prodigies and portents. He defended the miracles of the early Christian centuries as necessary truths, serving as impressive witnesses to the veracity of the faith, while he distinguished them from purely Roman Catholic MIRACLES, which he dismissed as credulous impostures' (Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century British Philosophers, Thoemmes Press, 1999). PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 12mo, xxii, 137, [6] pp., contemporary gilt-panelled calf, spine with floral motif in compartments, rubbed and scraped, joints starting at foot but firm, armorial bookplate of Henry Howard, 4th Earl of Berkshire dated 1720, internally clean, a very good copy.
PELLING, Edward
First and only edition, uncommon. ESTC locates 18 copies in the British Isles and 8 copies in North America. 'Pelling (1640-1718) entered the fray of political and religious debate in the late 1670s. In 1680 he published his magnum opus, The Good Old Way, which argued that the Church of England's polity, doctrine, and rites (including high-church practices such as signing the cross and kneeling at communion) were apostolic and approved by God, and that dissenters were simply Seditious and Brain-sick People. In 1682 he defended divine-right monarchy, indefeasible hereditary right, and passive obedience. He wrote strongly in favour of Sir Robert Filmer by the early 1690s he was chaplain to William and Mary. It is interesting to note that his sermons before the king and queen were markedly different in tone from most of his other printed works' (ODNB). PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 8vo, [viii], 198, [10] pp., contemporary speckled calf panelled in blind, red morocco label, slightly rubbed, uniform light age toning and occasional spots, small light dampstain at lower outer corner on the last few leaves, a very good copy.
FIDDES, Richard
First edition of a work by Richard Fiddes (1671-1725), rector of Hailsham in Holderness, Yorkshire. 'Written against Shaftesbury's Inquiry Concerning Virtue and Mandeville's Fable of the Bees, and displaying marked sympathy with the works of Malebranche and Norris of Bemerton, this book was a notable defence of revelation against the claims of natural religion' (ODNB). PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 8vo, [x], cxxviii, cxxxix-cxliv, [ii], 462 pp., contemporary calf with double gilt fillet, spine rubbed and with nicks at head and foot, a few scrapes to covers, internally fresh and unbrowned, a very good copy.
BURKE, Edmund
8vo, ix, [vii], 342 pp., contemporary speckled calf with red morocco label, slight wear at top of spine, early ownership inscription on front free endpaper, light underlining in red crayon on twenty pages, otherwise in nice condition. Originally published in 1757. Burke's central argument is that our enjoyment of beauty comes from obscurity and suggestiveness rather than from intellectual clarity, and that the sublime sparks in us a pleasurable form of terror. Todd, A Bibliography of Edmund Burke, No 5h.
JENNINGS, Henry Constantine
A curious and complex collection of tracts on a variety of matters, preceded by a 10-page introduction; some had appeared in an earlier collection published in Chelmsford in 1783. The tracts are: An endeavour to prove that reason is alone sufficient to the firm establishment of religion, "first printed in 1771;" Appendix to the tenth tract, "first printed in 1783;" A Physical Enquiry into the Powers and Properties of Spirit, "first printed in 1787;" Postscript to the Physical Enquiry into the Powers and Properties of Spirit, &c.; Revision of the Postscript to the Physical Enquiry, &c. &c., "first printed in 1789;" My final fare-well to this interesting subject, with the imprint "Thomas Norris, printed, White-Lion-Court, Taunton;" Cursory Remarks on Infancy and Education, first printed in 1782;" Thoughts on the Rise and Decline of the Polite Arts, "first printed in 1771;" A Translation [in verse] of the Fifth Canto of Dante's Inferno, dated Sept. 13, 1794; Observations on the Advantages attending an Elevated and Dry Situation; A Free Enquiry into the Enormous Increase of Attornies., in six parts, dated 1783 and 1784. Very uncommon. Henry Constantine Jennings (1731-1819), collector, writer and eccentric. Jennings went through various inheritances buying art, and was twice imprisoned for debt. "The Annual Biography offers an entertaining, firsthand account of Jennings during his later years. A visitor, after encountering a stuffed polar bear in the entrance hall, might find his host reclining on his Roman triclinium, amid heaps of ancient and modern rubbish, apparently lost in the contemplation of his riches. He forbade any cleaning of his rooms, living by preference in complete squalor. At one time his regular dinner companion was his most prized treasure, a bronze bust of a goddess, set at the head of his table. One of his more bizarre collections was that of shoes, which he obtained from every woman of his acquaintance. Jennings's omnivorous tastes and collecting mania were legendaryhis various residences overflowed with thousands of items of art objects, as well as natural history specimens and scientific instrumentsbut the low prices these objects fetched at the sales (apart from his valuable and rare shell collection) reveal that his discernment was generally poor' (ODNB). PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Twelve parts bound in one volume, separately paginated, contemporary speckled calf with triple gilt fillet, spine gilt-ruled, covers rubbed, spine label nicked, lower joint partly cracked, a very short crack at top of upper joint, generally very good.
ANON.
First and only edition. The Preface states that the papers were found 'among the Manuscripts of the late Famous M---- of H----'. Presumably this will have been either George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax (16331695) or William Savile, 2nd Marquess of Halifax (16651700). Contents: 1: Sir Henry Sheere's Discourse of the Mediterranean Sea, and the Streights of Gibraltar. 2: Divers remarkable Orders of the Ladies at Spring-Garden in Parliament assembled. 3: The Apology of the Duke of Lauderdale. 4: The Patent Creation of Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey. 5: An Act concerning the Title, Name, and Dignity of the Earl of Arundell. 6: A Copy of a Commission for General. granted by Charles the Second. 7: Secret Transaction in relation to King Charles the First.: Written by Sir John Bowring. 8: An Advertisement.concerning Seminary Priests. 9: A Grant of the Arms for the Family of Gresham in Surrey. 10:The humble Petition of the inferiour Clergy of this Nation to the Parliament. 11: A Copy of the Charter to the East-India Company. PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 8vo, [x], 211 pp., contemporary blind-panelled calf, joints starting at very top, slight wear to corners, armorial bookplate of Henry Howard, 4th Earl of Berkshire dated 1720, a very clean and well-preserved volume.
Very rare German edition of Locke's famous Letter on Toleration, a line-by-line reprint of the first translation by Olearius published four years earlier in 1710. Olearius worked from the original Latin edition Epistola de tolerantia, either in its first edition of 1689 or its second of 1705. Yolton 22. The accompanying work is the rare first German translation of De religione mohammedica libri duo (1705) by Adrianus Reland (1676-1718); 'a landmark in the history of the Enlightenment and as a turning-point in Western attitudes towards Islam. It is a compendium of Muslim beliefs, presented rather objectively, in an edition of original Arab manuscripts, with an annotated Latin translation. In the second part Reland offered a systematic confutation of the numerous legends and misapprehensions concerning Islam. It was the first time that a study of Islam had been written without the clear intention to convert Muslims' (Dictionary of 17th and 18th-Century Dutch Philosophers, Thoemmes Press, 2003). PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Two works in one volume, 8vo, engraved frontispiece depicting the prophet Muhammad, first title-page printed in red and black, [xl], 237, [7], [blank], [xii], 124 pp., contemporary half calf, rubbed, worn with loss at spine ends and front joint, the Reland text with one or two pencilled letters in the margin, uniform browning throughout, some dampstains and spots, reasonable copies of both works.
![Oeuvres philosophiques latines et françoises de feu Mr. de Leibnitz. Tirées de ses manuscrits et publiées par Mr. Rud[olf] Eric[h] Raspe. Avec une préface de Mr. Kaestner Amsterdam et Leipzig: Jean Schreuder](https://rarebookinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/31374328075-scaled.jpg)
