Gabriel Daniel. Voiage Du Monde de Descartes. Paris: [Marie Dallin] Widow of Simon Benard, 1690....
Description
Disembodied Descartes Exploring
the Cartesian Universe
Gabriel Daniel. Voiage Du Monde de Descartes.
Paris: [Marie Dallin] Widow of Simon Benard, 1690. First edition.
Twelvemo. a12, e2, A6, B-S12, T4 [T4 blank]. [28], 11-437, [1
errata] pages. Double-page engraved map, text cuts. Contemporary
French mottled calf, spine gilt, title label in compartment, minor
loss at head and foot of spine, front joint cracked, rear joint
starting, edges speckled red, marbled endpapers, book label of
"Bibliotheque Ouri" on front pastedown; front free endpaper with
paper loss (repaired), holograph pencil numbers on versos of free
endpapers, small hole in title page and facing blank (no text
loss), holograph ink inscription on title page, minor mold marks on
first leaves, dampstain in corner of rear blanks, smudges and
occasional soiling, else in very good condition. From the Krown
& Spellman Collection.Please visit HA.com/6127 for an extended description of this lot.
More Information:
Gabriel Daniel, historian and controversialist, born at Rouen, France, 8 Feb., 1649; died at Paris, 23 June, 1728. He entered the Society of Jesus at Paris in 1667, and after making his last vows at Rennes, 1683, was assigned to the professed house of Paris where his extraordinary talents resulted in his being appointed historiographer of France by Louis XIV.
"The idea of the separation of soul from body, reflected in eighteenth-century 'trance' and 'ectasy' often went back to the Cartesian separation of 'mind' and 'matter.' On this theme Gabriel Daniel wrote a full-length cosmic voyage, as well known in England as it was in France....Descartes, his disciple learned, was not dead, but separated from the matter he had separated from mind, dwelt aloft in an intellectual world of his own creation....Descartes had reached the new sphere, by an 'Act of Will,' but since unfortunately the 'Will' of his disciple was less potent, he depended for motive power upon a peculiar kind of snuff...On went this disembodied spirit, gaily flying off to explore the indefinite Cartesian universe, after many adventures to arrive in outer space where he found M. Descartes still busily engaged in correcting the mistakes of the Almighty!" [Marjorie Nicolson, Voyages To The Moon.]
Cioranescu (17th) 23362. Barbier IV, 1081. De Backer/Sommervogel II, 1796:1. Wellcome II, 429. Maire I, 195. Nicolson 202. Goldsmith 419 (2nd edition.)
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