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[DESCARTES, René (1596-1650)]
Discours de la méthode pour bien conduire sa raison et chercher la vérité dans les sciences, plus la dioptrique, Les météores. Et la géométrie. Leiden: Jan Maire, 1637.
First edition of the author's first published work, the foundation of all modern scientific and philosophic thought. In the first part Descartes sets out his method of inquiry, and then illustrates it in three essays on optics, meteorology and geometry. “It is no exaggeration to say that Descartes was the first of modern philosophers and one of the first of modern scientists; in both branches of learning his influence has been vast” (PMM). A fine copy. 'Descartes's purpose is to find the simple indestructible proposition which gives to the universe and thought their order and system. Three points are made: the truth of thought, when thought is true to itself (thus, cogito, ergo sum), the inevitable elevation of its partial state in our finite consciousness to its full state in the infinite existence of God, and the ultimate reduction of the material universe to extension and local movement' (PMM). His discussion of Harvey's discovery of the circulation of blood was the first by a prominent foreign scholar. Descartes was called to Stockholm in 1649 as philosopher to Queen Christina, but did not survive his first winter and died there in 1650. A crisp, large copy. Dibner, Heralds of Science, 81; Grolier/Horblit 24; Guibert, Bib. Descartes, 1; NLM/Krivatsky 3114; Norman 621; PMM 129,
Quarto (193 x 143mm). Woodcut printer's device on title, numerous text illustrations and diagrams. Modern antique-style crushed red morocco gilt, spine in compartments with raised bands gilt, marbled endpapers, gilt edges, preserved in modern crushed red morocco folding box.
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