PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS AFTER DESCARTES

[Descartes]: Meditations metaphysiques touchant l’opération de Dieu dans l’ordre de la nature. Ou l’on explique d’une manière claire & methodique les plus importantes verités de la Metaphysique: Comment Dieu opère dans les esprits & dans les corps, & quelles sont les voies qu’il emploie pour executer les desseins éternels de sa divine Providence sur tous les éfets qu’on a de coûtume d’atribuer à la nature, & au miracle. A Rotterdam, chez Reinier Leers 1690.

Uncommon volume of metaphysical meditations which follow the mechanical philosophy of the universe associated with René Descartes (1596-1650). “They explain what the great man hadn’t the time to develop” (p.[3]). Subjects include the creation of the world; human thought; truth; sensations; free will; relations of souls and bodies; life force; miracles.

This book of anonymous authorship has been catalogued both as by the philosopher Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715) and by his disciple François de Lanion (’the Abbé Lanion’) (1650-1709), who were both authors of works with comparable titles. Investigation has found neither of their books to be this text and we similarly note that this is not the work with similar title by René Fédé (1645-1716). What all of these works - and ours - have in common is that they reflect the great influence of the work of Descartes.

Details

Only located edition. One volume, 15 cms. x 8.8 cms., duodecimo, pp. [12] 346 [2]. Light or medium browning, bound in contemporary laced-case binding of vellum over boards, edges mottled red. Supposed author (”Malebranche”), year and shelfmark inked to spine.

Bibliography:

STCN 057786844. Not in Barbier. OCLC shows copies outside European mainland at: UCLA; British Library, Manchester, Oxford.

The text compared with Malebranche, Meditations chrétiennes et metaphysiques (edition of Lyon 1699), Lanion, Méditations sur la metaphysique (Cologne 1683), Fédé, Méditations metaphysiques ([n.pl.] 1683).