Here - RRB Ltd

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RUDI THOEMMES RARE BOOKS
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Catalogue Fifty-One
March 2016
5 Belvedere Road, Bristol BS6 7JG, UK
+44 (0)117 974 4373 www.rrbltd.com
Philip de Bary [email protected]
Rudi Thoemmes [email protected]
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1. BARDILI, Christoph Gottfried
Ueber die Gesetze der Ideenassoziation und insbesondere Ein, bisher unbemerktes, Grundgesetz derselben.
Tübingen: Jacob Friedrich Heerbrandt, 1796.
£ 750
8vo, [iv], 76, [2] pp., contemporary marbled boards, library stamp on title-page, some foxing but no marks or
inscriptions, a very good copy, extremely uncommon.
First and only edition of an essay on the laws of thought by the important post-Kantian philosopher Christoph
Gottfried Bardili (1761-1808). Not in Adickes; WorldCat locates only one copy, at Ballerup.
'One of the strangest and most intriguing products of the Scottish Enlightenment'
2. [BURNETT, James, Lord MONBODDO]
Antient Metaphysics: Or, the Science of Universals. With an Appendix, Containing an Examination of the
Principles of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy. Edinburgh (J. Balfour, Bell & Bradfute) and London, (T. Cadell, W.
Davies), 1779, 1782, 1784, 1795, 1797, 1799.
£ 7500
6 volumes, 4to, xxi, [i], ix,, ix, [1],555 (E1 and E4 bound out of sequence, 548 misnumbered 558); [xx], [iii]-xii,
461; [xv], iii, lxxx, 378; [xxx], v, [i], 408; [xxix], [i], 323; [xix] , 351,[1] pp., contemporary calf, rebacked, a few
scrapes on the covers and wear at corners, old Glasgow University Library bookplates, occasional spotting, no
stamps or inscriptions, a very good set.
First edition of Monboddo's epic work, published over a twenty-year period and very seldom found complete
in all six volumes.
'Why ought one read it? First, the very massiveness of Antient Metaphysics allowed Monboddo to range over countless
points of interest, from the origins of human society and culture, to accounts of wild children, to arguments against Hume’s
racism to erudite defences of Mind against Priestleyan materialism and Lockean and Humean empiricism. It also allowed
him to inter-relate many points from many different perspectives and show how they form a complex system, one of the
main goals of his holistic philosophy (Vol. VI, 329–30).
Antient Metaphysics is also a work that is indicative of a number of strains in British philosophy, despite the pleasure which
Monboddo clearly took in writing against the grain. Monboddo can be viewed as a reactionary Rousseauian in distinction
from the conservative Rousseauianism found in the works of John Gregory and Lord Kames. Although Monboddo rarely
mentioned Rousseau, his fascination with orang-utans as the original men, and his general pessimism about the decline of
man from his initial state, have a Rousseauian imprint. But, of course, there are drastic divergences from Rousseau, which
signal a second set of influences. Monboddo emphasized that man’s ideal condition was not as a happy orang-utan, but
rather a state combining Athenian wisdom (not Spartan discipline) and Egyptian politics, drawing on Neoplatonic
intellectualism and monarchy in a way entirely foreign to Rousseau. Monboddo’s variety of Neoplatonism, which he called
‘Antient Theism’, had affinities with the philosophy of Cudworth, an author whom he greatly admired Vol. I, ‘Preface’, iii)
and more broadly to Cambridge Platonism (although Monboddo probably concocted much on his own). It also had great
affinities with Shaftesbury and Shaftesbury’s nephew James Harris (who was Monboddo’s friend and mentor). Monboddo
opposed his ‘Antient Theism’ to ‘modern theism’, which he associated in the first volume of Antient Metaphysics with the
philosophies of Descartes and Newton.
Descartes gradually fell away, to be replaced by Priestley in the second volume of Antient Metaphysics, but
Newton was an obsession of Monboddo’s, from the work’s opening pages to its concluding paragraphs, through many
books, chapters, and appendices' (Aaron Garrett, Introduction to the Thoemmes Press facsimile reprint, 2003).
3. FERGUSON, Adam
Grundsätze der Moralphilosophie. Uebersetzt und mit einigen Anmerkungen versehen von Christian Garve.
Leipzig: Dyck, 1772.
£ 400
8vo, [x], 420 pp., contemporary half calf over speckled boards, rubbed, slight loss to foot of spine, marbled
endpapers, art nouveau bookplate on half-title verso, uniform light browning and isolated spots, a very good
copy.
First German edition of Ferguson's Institutes of Moral Philosophy (1769). Not in Chuo. Carlyle called this ‘the
book that did the most honour to any of the Scotch Philosophers’. It went through several English editions, and
during Ferguson’s lifetime was also translated into French, Italian and Russian (the Russian version being partly
based on this German translation by Garve).
One of 750 copies printed
4. HEGEL, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
System der Wissenschaft. Erster Theil, die Phänomenologie des Geistes [all published].
Bamberg und Würzburg: Joseph Anton Goebhardt, 1807.
£ 8500
8vo, [viii], xci, [iii], [i], 765, [3] pp., contemporary half sheep, spine gilt with contrasting label, front joint
starting to crack, edges red, small bookplate 'HB' on pastedown, contemporary single-word annotations in two
margins, two other pages with a few words underlined, uniform light age toning, a very well-preserved copy.
First edition of the book known in English as 'The Phenomenology of Spirit', Hegel's first major work and widely
considered his most important. He later developed the system presented here in Wissenschaft der Logik
(1812-16) and Encyclopädie (1817). Provenance: this copy belonged to the German philosopher and book
collector Heribert Boeder (1928-2013), who studied under Heidegger at Freiburg and went on to have a
distinguished career at the universities of Brunswick and Osnabrück.
5. HEGEL, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Wissenschaft der Logik. Erster Band. [Erstes Buch]. Die objective Logik. Zweytes Buch. Die Lehre vom Wesen.
Zweiter Band. Wissenschaft der subjectiven Logik oder die Lehre vom Begriff. Nürnberg: Johann Leonhard
Schrag, 1812, 1813, 1816.
£ 4800
3 volumes in two, 8vo, xxviii, 334, vi, 282; [i], x, 403 pp., the first volume rebound in contemporary style,
exceptionally fresh inside with almost no foxing and only a couple of spots, the second volume
mid-19th-century half cloth, rubbed, again remarkably clean internally, occasional very light foxing, one small
marginal pencil annotation on p. 269, no other inscriptions anywhere, all title-pages free of stamps, despite the
unmatched bindings (not unusual with this work) a very nice set.
First edition of all three parts of Hegel's second major philosophical work, after the Phänomenologie of 1807.
Written while he was a schoolmaster in Nuremberg, Wissenschaft der Logik was the earliest statement of his
fully developed system, and it won him international fame. In it Hegel examines the ‘thought-types’ or
‘fundamental categories’ that structure cognition and reality. He begins with the most basic categories – being,
nothing and becoming – and goes on to examine others such as quality, quantity, substance and causality. Like
the Phänomenologie, the Logik procedes dialectically, demonstrating how categories can only be understood
in relation to the categories that oppose them, and showing how a given category and its opposite can only be
grasped in terms of some higher category that unites them.
6. HEGEL, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Encyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse. Zum Gebrauch seiner Vorlesungen.
Heidelberg: August Oswald, 1817.
£ 3000
8vo, xvi, 288 pp., contemporary cloth-backed marbled boards, spine with a slight watermark, rubbed at edges,
title-page slightly creased and with the letter 'g' in faint old pencil at outer top corner, neat early pencilled
annotations in two margins only (pp. 34, 37), browning and spotting as always with this book but considerably
lighter than usual, no stamps or ownership inscriptions, a very good copy, rarely found in this condition.
First edition of Hegel's most complete exposition of his system as a whole, written to accompany his lectures
at Heidelberg before his move to Berlin in 1818. Revised editions followed in 1827 and 1830.
The Owl of Minerva
7. HEGEL, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts. Berlin: Nicolai, 1821.
£ 2800
8vo, xxvi, 355, [1] pp., contemporary marbled boards, rubbed, worn at edges, later paper spine label to which
some loss, lightly foxed throughout though less so than usual, otherwise a very good clean copy without library
stamps and inscribed only on the front free endpaper.
First edition of the last of Hegel's major works to be published in his lifetime, with the usual additional
title-page: Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im Grundrisse. Zum Gebrauch für seine Vorlesungen. In the
preface comes Hegel's famous metaphor for philosophy's ability to understand reality only retrospectively: 'die
Eule der Minerva beginnt erst mit der einbrechenden Dämmerung ihren Flug' (xxiv). PMM 283.
Provenance: front free endpaper with ownership inscription of one Wilhelm Thorke, and beneath it in another
hand 'Von meinem lieben Thorke [?] erhalten am 9. Februar 1833'.
rd
Influential on Kant’s 3 Critique
8. HOME, Henry, Lord Kames
Grundsätze der Kritik, von Heinrich Home. Übersetzt von Johann Nicolaus Meinhard. Letzte verbesserte
Auflage. Wien: Schrämbl, 1790-91.
£ 500
6 volumes, small 8vo, 328, [4]; 217, [2]; [iv], 283; [iv], 262; [iv], 337; [iv], 258 pp., contemporary half cloth over
marbled boards, spines lettered in gilt and a little stained, foxing on title-pages and occasionally elsewhere,
otherwise clean with no stamps or inscriptions, a very good set.
Third German edition of Kames's Elements of Criticism. Meinhard's translation first appeared in 1763, only a
year after the original publication. This revised version takes account of the fourth English edition, and carries
comments and examples in German by G. Schatz.
'Kant could not read English ... important for [him] in the early 1760s was the Elements of Criticism, by Henry
Home, Lord Kames. It appeared in English in 1762, and a year later became available in German. The reviewers
praised it, and it became influential in German aesthetic thought from that point forward. The early essays of
Herder ... consider Kames equal in stature to Baumgarten in the question of aesthetics. That parallel, there is
reason to suppose, he learned from his teacher, Immanuel Kant. Kames served as the crucial expositor of the
principle of the British method in aesthetics: criticism. For the Kant of the 1760s, "science" and "criticism"
stood juxtaposed as alternative methods for aesthetics. Kant used the two names, Baumgarten and Home
(Kames), as personifications of the two methods' (John H. Zammito, The Genesis of Kant's Critique of
Judgment, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1992, pp. 29-31).
Very rare complete first translation of A Treatise of Human Nature
9. HUME, David
David Hume über die menschliche Natur, aus dem Englischen, nebst kritischen Versuchen zur Beurteilung
dieses Werks von Ludwig Heinrich Jakob. Erster Band: Ueber den menschlichen Verstand. Zweiter Band: Ueber
die Leidenschaften. Dritter Band: Ueber die Moral.
Halle: Hemmerde und Schwetschke, 1790, 1791, 1792.
£ 8000
3 volumes in two, 8vo, [viii], 843, [1]; [iv], 314, [xvi], 302 pp., contemporary boards with original labels, rubbed
and worn particularly at spines (to which some loss), edges red, ownership inscription 'Jos[ef] Kunze, Münster
1863' on front free endpapers, first title-page re-attached with old tape, repaired at top corner and with an
earlier inscription mostly erased, third title-page with 19th-century stamp 'L. Jaffe', neat early annotations in
ink on four pages, light pencilling on a further three, vol. 2 p. 311 misnumbered 113, vol. 3 p. 113 misnumbered
131, uniform light browning, heavier foxing on two leaves (vol. 1 S8, T), otherwise internally clean and sound,
very seldom found in any condition.
Complete first German edition of one of the most important books in the history of philosophy (PMM 194).
Hume famously said the Treatise 'fell dead-born from the press' when it was published in 1739-40, and indeed
a second English edition didn't appear until 1817. Ludwig Heinrich Jakob's was the first translation of the
Treatise into any language, and no other edition of any kind appeared in the eighteenth century (a French
translation was not published until 1878). After the true first, this must count as the most important edition of
the Hume’s greatest work.
Adickes 364; not in Chuo. Not held at the British Library.
10. HUME, David
An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals. London: A. Millar, 1751.
£ 2250
8vo, with the half title, 12mo, [viii], 253, [3] pp., L3 a cancel, contemporary gilt-panelled calf, well rebacked and
with corners restored, B3 with a paper flaw, a tiny stain in the outer margin of the last few leaves, no stamps or
inscriptions, a very good clean copy.
First edition, second issue, of the famous book usually known as 'the Second Enquiry'. Essentially a reworking
of Book III of the Treatise, 'Of Morals', Hume composed it during the two years that he spent mostly at his
brother’s home at Ninewells, beginning in 1749. Both issues came out in late November 1751. Hume is often
quoted as saying that 'of all my writings, historical, philosophical, or literary, [it is] incomparably the best' ('My
Own Life').
11. HUME, David
David Humes Untersuchung über den menschlichen Verstand, neu übersezt von M.[agister] W.G. Tennemann,
nebst einer Abhandlung über den philosophischen Skeptismus von Herrn Professor Reinhold in Jena. Jena:
Verlag der Akademischen Buchhandlung, 1793.
£ 1650
8vo, xii, lii, 380 pp., contemporary half calf over speckled
boards, lightly rubbed with corners still sharp, spine ruled gilt
with red label, chipped, front joint beginning to crack at foot,
uniform browning with occasional heavier spots, pencil marks
on 4 pages, no library stamps, a good copy.
The first German translation of Hume's Enquiry concerning
Human Understanding (by J.G. Sulzer) appeared in 1755 as
Part Two of his Vermischte Schriften. This second translation is
by Wilhelm Gottlieb Tenneman (1761-1819), author of the
well known 10-volume history of philosophy. Tennemann
notes two reasons for the new translation: first, the centrality
of Hume's philosophy in the Kantian revolution, and second,
the many deficiencies of Sulzer's version.
The book has a fifty-page Foreword on scepticism by
Kant's influential follower Karl Leonhard Reinhold: 'In fact it
became customary during this time to speak of the
Kant-Reinholdian philosophy' (Manfred Kuehn, Kant: A
Biography, CUP 2001, p. 351).
12. [ISELIN, Isaak]
Filosophische und patriotische Träume eines Menschenfreundes. Freiburg [i.e. Basel], 1755.
£ 850
8vo, [vi], 192 pp., contemporary panelled calf, rubbed, spine gilt in compartments with morocco label, corners
restored, edges red, marbled endpapers, internally fresh, no stamps or inscriptions, a very good copy.
First edition of the earliest book by the Swiss philosopher of history and politics Isaak Iselin (1728-82), founder
of the influential Helvetische Gesellschaft and close friend and supporter of Pestalozzi.
'Iselin can be seen as one of the initiators of ‘popular philosophy’ in the German-speaking world,
a movement which abandoned the Leibniz-Wolffian model of deductive philosophy. He placed
greater emphasis on the form of philosophical writing, and thought that the essay, rather than
the treatise, was the proper medium for spreading the ideas of the Enlightenment.
This can already be seen in his early work, Filosofische und Patriotische Träume eines
Menschenfreundes, which sketched the image of an ideal state and postulated love as the
principle of the state. Here Iselin distinguished himself from the radical deistic and materialist
movements of the French and British Enlightenment' (Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century German
Philosophers).
13. KANT, Immanuel
Critik der reinen Vernunft. Zweyte hin und wieder verbesserte Auflage. Riga: Johann Friedrich Hartknoch,
1787.
£ 3500
8vo, xliv, 884 pp. (454-489 unpaginated, 865 misnumbered 658), contemporary tree calf over marbled boards,
small worm traces on upper cover and at joint ends, spine with raised bands ruled gilt in compartments with
red morocco label, all edges red, title-page spotted and with an old inscription rather emphatically crossed
through, some faint pencil underlining on 5 pages early on, mild dampstain affecting outer margin of a few
leaves in the middle, otherwise only occasional light browning and isolated spots, a very good copy.
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.
14. KANT, Immanuel
Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft. Königsberg: Friedrich Nicolovius, 1793.
£ 500
8vo, xx, [ii], 296, [2] pp. (49-50 misnumbered 47-8), contemporary boards,
rubbed, corners worn, later spine label, 3 leaves creased (F5-F7), 2 pages
browned (22-3, presumably from insertion of old piece of paper), otherwise just
mild age-toning and isolated spots, no stamps or inscriptions, a very good clean
copy.
First edition. Kant created this book by putting together four essays on religion,
the first of which – ‘Ueber das radikale Böse in der menschlichen Natur’ – had
appeared the previous year in the Berlinische Monatsschrift. The third – ‘Der Sieg
des guten Princips über das Böse, und die Gründung eines Reichs Gottes auf
Erden’ – had already been banned by the Berlin censors. Adickes 79. 'Kant's
Religion was not just a theoretical treatise, meant as a contribution to the
philosophy of religion; it was also a political act ... [and] Kant's declaration of
loyalty to Lessing and Mendelssohn. Kant's Religion, Lessing's Education of the
Human Race, and Mendelssohn's Jerusalem were all valiant attempts to
introduce into Prussia the kind of religious freedom that had by then already
been achieved in the United States. Lessing and Mendelssohn were dead. Kant
carried on the fight. That he was concerned not only with religious freedom but
ultimately with full-fledged civil freedom, is clear' (Manfred Kuehn, Kant: A
Biography, pp. 371-2).
15. (KANT) JENISCH, Daniel
Ueber Grund und Werth der Entdeckungen des Herrn Professor ant in der Metaphysik, Moral und Aesthe k.
Nebst einem Sendschreiben des Verfassers an Herrn Professor ant ber die bisherigen g ns gen und
ung ns gen Ein
e der kri schen Philosophie. Berlin: Friederich Vieweg, 1796.
£ 850
Large 8vo, xlii, [ii], 468 pp., contemporary marbled boards, rubbed, smooth spine ruled gilt with red label, worn
at ends, edges red, ownership stamp (Haevernick, Kiel) on pastedown and blindstamp (Dr.jur.M.Sitzler) on front
free endpaper, rear endpaper no longer present, light spotting to final leaf, one old annotation in pencil to the
foreword (xxx), otherwise internally fresh and clean, a good copy.
First edition of this extensive and detailed contemporary introduction to Kant.
Adickes 1625.
'Although Jenisch has nowadays nearly fallen into oblivion, his stupendous literary
productivity and inventive way of thinking turned him into a notorious figure of
eighteenth-century philosophy. Beginning in 1780, he studied theology and philosophy
at the University of Königsberg. Soon he consorted with the inner circle of Immanuel
ant’s pupils. Moreover he cultivated a cordial friendship with Johann Georg
Hamann’s son Hans Michael Hamann ... On the recommendation of ant he travelled
to Berlin, where he met Johann Erich Biester who played a prominent role in the Berlin
Enlightenment of which Jenisch soon became a part.
In 1796, his introduction to ant’s philosophy was published, Ueber Grund
und Werth der Entdeckungen des Herrn Professor Kant in der Metaphysik, Moral und
Aesthetik. ... Although Jenisch boasted about being one of ant’s early scholars, he
was never a fully convinced antian. He remained sceptical about ant’s attempts at
the secularization of moral philosophy. But Jenisch’s main objections concerned
formal aspects of ant’s philosophy, especially his ‘technical, metaphysical, scholastic’
style. Jenisch remained a protagonist of popular philosophy who modelled himself on
the new Anglo-Saxon way of reasoning, as typified in Jenisch’s translations of James
Harris’s Philological Inquiries (Handbuch der philosophischen Kritik der Literatur, 1789)
and George Campbell’s Philosophy of Rhetoric (Philosophie der Rhetorik, 1791).
Jenisch’s intellectual legacy must therefore be seen in his specific eclecticism and the
methodological intertwining of different strands of Enlightenment thought:
anthropological studies, historical writing and cognitive interest in moral philosophy
and religious questions' (Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century German Philosophers).
16. LEIBNIZ, Gottfried Wilhelm, CLARKE, Samuel, NEWTON, Isaac et al. (ed. Pierre Des Maizeaux)
Recueil de diverses pièces, sur la philosophie, la religion naturelle, l'histoire, les mathematiques, &c. Par Mrs.
Leibniz, Clarke, Newton, & autres auteurs célèbres. Amsterdam: Duvillard et Changuion, 1720.
£ 1500
2 volumes, 12mo, engraved frontispiece with portraits of the main authors, also an engraved portrait after
Kneller of the dedicatee, Princess Caroline of Ansbach, [vi], xcviii, [ii], 409, [6]; [vi], 424, [14] pp., (vol. 1
pagination 161-5 repeated and 409-410 misnumbered 408-409), somewhat later vellum with red morocco
labels, small hole in one spine, bookplates of Julius Gertig on pastedowns, title-pages printed in red and black,
in the first volume worming from p. 200 onwards with loss of a few letters not affecting legibility, in the second
volume some sections browned and some miniscule marginal worming, scattered light spotting throughout,
still a very good copy, rare.
First edition of this important collection of a substantial number of Leibniz’s letters and other unpublished
writings. The first volume contains the Leibniz-Clarke correspondence and the second the
Leibniz-Conti-Newton controversy about the invention of the calculus. This edition is identical with the Du
Sauzet edition of the same place and year, the names Duvillard et Changuion being printed on small slips
pasted on the title-pages (and 'Chez H. Du Sauzet' still visible beneath them when held up to the light). Later
editions were published in Hamburg in 1734, Amsterdam in 1740 and Lausanne in 1759.
Kant had a copy of this translation in his library
17. PALEY, William
Grundsätze der Moral und Politik. Aus dem Englischen übersezt. Mit einigen Anmerkungen und Zusätzen von
Christian Garve. Frankfurt und Leipzig, 1788.
£ 600
2 volumes in one, 8vo, xxxii, 390, 520 pp., contemporary marbled boards, red spine label lettered gilt, rubbed at
edges, small early ownership inscription on first title-page, uniform light browning and the occasional spot, a
very good copy.
Second edition (published in the year following the first) of Garve's translation of Paley's Principles of Moral
and Political Philosophy (1785), his most important work in which he lays out an early form of utilitarian ethics.
Paley compiled the Principles from his ethics lectures at Cambridge. The late priest and scholar the Revd Dr
David Nicholls (1936-96) kept a pet Venezuelan macaw which he named after William Paley. The macaw was
responsible for many penetrating letters to the Times and other national newspapers on political and
ecclesiastical matters of the day, under the nom-de-plume 'The Ven. William Paley, Archdeacon emeritus'.
Christian Garve's translations of influential British authors (usually, as here, with his own remarks and
commentaries) helped to make his reputation as one of the leading philosophical teachers in Germany. His
other translations included Adam Ferguson's Institutes of Moral Philosophy, Burke's On the Sublime and
Beautiful, and Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.
Warda, Immanuel Kants Bücher, no 89 (first edition).
Hume misunderstood
18. PRIESTLEY, Joseph
Briefe an einem philosophischen Zweifler in Beziehung auf Hume's Gespr che, das System der Natur, und
hnliche Schri en. Aus dem Englischen. Leipzig: Weygand, 1782.
£ 1200
8vo, 270, [2] pp., contemporary tree calf, rubbed, upper cover worn with loss, lower cover wormed, spine gilt in
compartments with morocco label, edges red, decorative endpapers with armorial bookplate of the Austrian
politician Egbert Belcredi (1816-94), small library stamp of the same family at foot of title-page, isolated spots,
a good copy of a very rare book.
First German edition of Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever (Bath, 1780;
Chuo 179). There are fourteen letters, ostensibly written to a person who has
approached Priestley for guidance. Letter 1 in the original begins 'Dear Sir, I am
sorry to find that, in consequence of the books you have lately read, and of the
company you have been obliged to keep, especially on your travels, you have found
your mind unhinged with respect to the first principles of religion, natural as well as
revealed. You wish me to attempt the solution of the difficulties …', which gives
Priestley a pretext for attacking Hume in particular.
The anonymous translator writes in the foreword that Priestley has misunderstood
Hume, a view echoed the following year by Kant in the Prolegomena where he
famously denounced Priestley along with Reid, Oswald and Beattie for having
entirely missed Hume's point on causation. Kant did not read English, so this must
have been the edition in which he read Priestley, there being no other German
translation of his writings at the time.
orldCat locates only one copy, at niversit tsbibliothek M nchen.
19. SMITH, Adam
Theorie der moralischen Empfindungen. Nach der dritten englischen Ausgabe übersetzt.
Braunschweig: Meyer, 1770.
£ 12,000
8vo, 576 pp., (492-3 misnumbered 502-3), contemporary brocade paper over boards, a little rubbed,
hand-lettered paper spine label, occasional light foxing in upper margins, closed tears to upper margin of H3
and H4, light toning from p. 401 onwards, no stamps or inscriptions, a beautiful copy.
First edition in German of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, the work that Adam Smith always considered his
finest. Originally published in April 1759, Smith's book was an immediate success and quickly established his
international reputation, particularly in Germany where his influence was enormous.
'Walther Eckstein has brought together evidence of the reception of The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS) in Germany.
Lessing mentions the book in his celebrated work on aesthetics, Laokoon (1766), quoting a passage, in his own translation,
from I.ii.1. Herder makes several references to it, the earliest one being in his aesthetic work, Kritische Wälder (1769). The
first German translation was of edition 3 and appeared in 1770. The name of the translator is not stated but he was in fact
Christian G nther Rautenberg, who had already translated Lord ames’s Principles of Morality and Natural Religion.
It seems that Kant knew and valued TMS, judging from a letter of 1771 written to him by one Markus Herz. A passage
in this letter speaks of ‘the Englishman Smith, who, Mr. Friedl nder tells me, is your favourite’, and then goes on to
compare the work of Smith with ‘the first part’ of ‘Home, ritik’, no doubt meaning Elements of Criticism by Henry Home,
Lord Kames. As Eckstein points out, the date of 1771 (too early for the Wealth of Nations and one year after the
publication of the first German translation of TMS) and the comparison with Kames show that the writer must have had
TMS in mind. The passage also suggests that Herz at least, like Lessing and Herder, was interested in the relevance of TMS
to aesthetics. It is unlikely, however, that ant’s own regard for the work will have been thus confined. Eckstein goes on to
note that there is a passage in Kant’s Reflections on Anthropology where ant writes of ‘the man who goes to the root of
things’ and who looks at every subject ‘not just from his own point of view but from that of the community’ and then adds,
in brackets, ‘the Impartial Spectator’ (der npartheyische Zuschauer)' (Editor's Introduction to Adam Smith, The Theory of
Moral Sentiments, eds D.D. Raphael & A.L. Macfie, vol. I of the Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam
Smith, 1982).
‘German version of Adam Smith’
20. SODEN, Julius von
Die National-Oekonomie. Ein philosophischer Versuch über die Quellen des National-Reichthums, und über die
Mittel zu dessen Beförderung. Wien: B. Ph. Bauer, 1815.
£ 1250
4 volumes, 8vo, xii, [iv], 288; iv, [5] - 433, [2]; iv, [5] - 231, [1], vi, [7] - 87; viii, [9] 487, [1] pp., nineteenth-century pale cloth, somewhat marked, black spine labels
chipped, internally clean and unfoxed, no library stamps, neat early annotations in
pencil on 4 pages at the end of vol. 2, a very good set.
Viennese edition of the first four volumes of Soden's classic work in economics.
Five further volumes were published between 1816 and 1824. Bound here at the
end of the third volume is the 87-page Ideen, veranlaßt durch die Einleitung zur
National-Oekonomie des Herrn Grafen Julius von Soden. Dem letztern zur Prüfung
vorgelegt von Heinrich Wilhelm Crome.
'Inspired by Adam Smith’s ideas about production and distribution of the wealth of nations,
Soden conceptualized his voluminous work Nazional-Ökonomie into a German version of
Smith’s political economy. Soden and Ludwig Heinrich von Jakob, professor of cameralism at
the niversity of Halle, claimed to be the first to create the term ‘Nationalökonomie’ for the
new science, ‘which worked out the principles of all public institutions and measures’ and
which was based on laws similar to the laws of nature' (Dictionary of 18-Century German
Philosophers).
Candide etcetera ...
21. VOLTAIRE, Francois Marie Arouet de
Sammelband of eight works, 1761-1776.
£ 800
8vo, 157, [3], 92, [3], [ii], 68, 108, [2], 77, 22, 24, 15, 15 pp., contemporary calf, rubbed and with minor
worming, spine gilt in compartments with label still just legible saying 'Candide &c &c &c', edges red, light
browning in places, generally very good.
Candide ou l'optimisme, traduit de l'allemand de Mr. Le Docteur Ralph. Tome I, Tome II. [no place or
publisher], 1771.
Testament politique de M. De V***. A Geneve, 1771.
Les lettres d'Amabed, &c, &c. Traduites par l'Abbé Tamponet. Par M.de
V***. A Geneve, 1770.
Reflexions d'un Suisse sur cette question: Seroit-il avantageux aux L.
Cantons Catholiques d'abolir les ordres régulier, ou tout au moins de les
diminuer? Traduit de l'allemand sur la seconde edition. [no place or
publisher], 1769.
[Caption title]: Réfutation du systeme de la nature. [no place, publisher or
date].
[Caption title]: Relation de la mort du Chevalier de la Barre par Mr. Cass**,
avocat au conseil du Roi, à Mr. Le Marquis de Beccaria. Le 15. Juillet 1776.
[no place or publisher].
Lettre de Charles Gouju à se freres, au sujet des RR. PP. Jesuites. [no place,
publisher or date].
Remerciment de la France au parlement. A Trévoux: chez l'imprimeur du Journal, 1761.
22. WIRTH, Max
Grundzüge der National-Oekonomie. Köln: DuMont-Schauberg, 1856, 1859.
£ 150
2 volumes, large 8vo, xiv, [ii], 542, [1]; xv, [iv], 552 pp., slightly later half leather over cloth boards, marbled
endpapers, a few sections with uniform light browning, foxing throughout, mostly quite light, no stamps or
inscriptions, a tidy set.
First editions of the first two volumes of Max Wirth's noted textbook on economics. Two further volumes were
published in 1870 and 1873. Wirth studied law and political economy at Heidelberg and later became a
journalist in Frankfurt where he founded the weekly magazine Der Arbeitgeber. Between 1865 and 1873, he
was director of the Swiss Statistical Bureau. His best-known book was Geschichte der Handelskrisen (1858).
23. WITTGENSTEIN, Ludwig
'A Lecture on Ethics', pp. 3-12 in The Philosophical Review, Volume LXXIV, No. 1, January 1965.
£ 180
Large volume containing all four issues for the year 1965, black library buckram, spine lettered in gilt and with
shelf sticker, original printed wrappers bound in, very good.
First edition of Wittgenstein's only sustained discussion of ethics. At the head of the article an editorial note
states: 'The following lecture, hitherto unpublished, was prepared by Wittgenstein for delivery in Cambridge
sometime between September 1929 and December 1930. It was probably read to the society known as "The
Heretics," to which Wittgenstein gave an address at that time. The manuscript bears no title. So far as is
known, this was the only popular lecture ever composed or delivered by Wittgenstein' (p. 3). The piece was
reprinted in Philosophical Occasions, 1912-1951 (eds Klagge and Nordmann, 1993).
'An important exception to [his] preference for silence ... is a lecture Wittgenstein gave to a
Cambridge student group soon after his return to university life in 1929. This "Lecture on
Ethics" (as it is usually called) is an enormously important document for understanding the
background in religious experience that conditioned much of Wittgenstein's thoughts during
the period of his early philosophy, and is indispensable for interpreting some of the more
mysterious, mystical, and metaphysical-sounding passages in both his Tractatus and the
Notebooks he kept during the First World War from which many Tractatus passages are
drawn' (Russell Nieli, NDPR).
The other three quarterly issues in this volume also contain articles on
Wittgenstein:
April 1965: ‘A New Interpretation of the Tractatus Examined’, David eyt.
July 1965: ‘ ittgenstein on Privacy’, John . Cook.
October 1965: ‘ ittgenstein and Logical Necessity’, Barry Stroud.
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