De L'Espirit: Or, Essays on the Mind and Its Several Faculties: Translated from the edition printed under the author's inspection.

London: Printed for the Translator, 1759. Full Description:

HELVETIUS, Claude Adrian. De L'Espirit: or, Essays on the Mind and Its Several Faculties. Translated from the edition printed under the author's inspection. London: Printed for the Translator, 1759.

First edition in English (published one year after the first edition in France). Quarto

(10 7/8 x 8 1/2 inches; 275 x 215 mm). xvi, 331 [1, blank] pp. with the title page printed in red and black.

Full later crushed morocco. Red morocco spine label, lettered in gilt. Top edge deckled, fore-edge and bottom edge uncut. Newer endpapers. Title-page with a small tear to upper blank margin, presumably from erasing a previous owner's old signature which there are traces of. Leaf B4 with small tear to top blank margin and a small hole in text, only affecting one letter. Leaf X2 with a closed tear, with no loss, and a large marginal stain. Pages 273-296 with a marginal dampstain, not touching text. A few leaves with minor stains and spots. Still, A very good copy with wide margins and virtually no foxing.

"The main position of Helvetius may be summed up as follows: man is a purely sentient animal only differing from other animals by a higher degree of physical sentiency. Human passions are nothing else but the various modes of manifestation of this physical sentiency, which is the only motor of human actions; pleasure or pain are their unavoidable results: to pursue the former and avoid the latter is to conform to the only natural law. Helvetius is thus in some respects a forerunner of modern utilitaranism and hedonism" (Palgrave, Vol. II, p. 299).

Higgs 2090. Kress 5783.

HBS 69044.

$1,000.