Les Principes de la Philosophie. Escrits en Latin, par René Descartes.
4to (22.5 x 16.9 cm). [56], 477, [3] pp. (last p. blank), 22 full-page woodcuts (1 folding) and 70 woodcut illustrations in text. Bound in contemporary French calf. Generally very good. Association copy of the scarce edition in French of Descartes’ magnum opus, bearing the manuscript ex-libris of Raymond Vieussens (1635-1715), important anatomist and Royal Physician to Louis XIV. “Without Descartes, the seventeenth-century mechanization of physiological conceptions would have been inconceivable,” notes the DSB. Drawing directly on the dualistic theories of Descartes that he had acceded through this book, Vieussens became fascinated by the actions of the heart and of the brain in particular. “In his speculations on physiology, Vieussens drew inspiration from … the mechanistic philosophy of Descartes… He believed that he had demonstrated the existence of the nervous fluid.” (DSB). His Traité nouveau des Liqeurs de Corps Humain (1705) Vieussens describes the three Cartesian elements in detail and their functions within the body.
Price: $9,850.00