Lot n° 121
Estimation :
300 - 400
EUR
121 [DIDEROT (Denis)]. Pensées sur l'interprétation de la na - Lot 121
121 [DIDEROT (Denis)]. Pensées sur l'interprétation de la nature. s.l.n.n., 1754.
In-12 [3] f., 240 p. (fancy num. 3-206), [6] f., marbled fawn basane, smooth spine decorated.
This was long thought to be the original edition, but there is an extremely rare edition from 1753, entitled De l'interprétation de la nature. Tchemerzine, aided by Heilbrunn, gives a full notice of the particularities of this edition, which remains the first to have been put on the market.
"In Pensée LVIII, Diderot has a brilliant intuition about the atom. He rejects Buffon's thesis of the separation between the organic and inorganic worlds, and Maupertuis' theory of the molecule endowed with reason and memory. He developed the "chain of beings" (transformism avant la lettre) and spoke of the essential property of sensibility in matter, ideas already announced in the Encyclopédie's Animal article", according to the editors of the Bnf's Diderot catalog.
Provenance: The historian and politician Louis Nicolas Jean Joachim de Cayrol (1775-1859), attested by his wet stamp on several leaves.
Binding slightly rubbed, headbands worn, corners dulled, one spine split, old annotations on endpaper, Cayrol's bookplate wet-stamped on several leaves, other defects minor.
(Tchemerzine, IV, 442b).
My orders
Sale information
Sales conditions
Return to catalogue