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Description: 1/250. Two parts, folio. [16], 246, [2, colophon & blank]; iv, 67, [1, blank]pp. With bibliographical references and index; separate title for the Notes (dated 1901); decorative initials and ornaments; diagrams throughout (1 folding). Full limp vellum, spine lettered in gilt; green silk ties. Offsetting at endleaves from ties; a few pages with touches of mild to light foxing. A nearly fine copy. First edition (limited to 250 copies) of this English translation of the author's De Magnete, Magneticisque Corporibus et de Magno Magnete Tellure (London, 1600), reproducing the woodcut illustrations and diagrams of the original edition. The physician and natural philosopher William Gilbert (1544?-1603) "provided the first comprehensive and satisfactory explanation of the behaviour of the nautical magnetic compass." The present work, and the only one published in his lifetime, secured the author's enduring significance as it announced a new science of the earth. His rejection of the Aristotelian-Galenic theory of matter, along with the traditional division by Christian Aristotelians of the cosmos into a superior celestial world and an inferior terrestrial one was influenced by Bernardino Telesio and Francesco Patrizi, and especially the vitalist, infinite universe described by Giordano Bruno. Along with Francis Bacon, Gilbert "pioneered the iconoclastic modern positions that knowledge progressed, and that science needed to begin anew on empirical and experimental foundations" (ODNB). References: S. Pumphrey, "William Gilbert" [in:] ODNB. Full title: William Gilbert of Colchester, Physician of London. On the Magnet, Magnetick Bodies Also, and on the Great Magnet the Earth; a New Physiology, Demonstrated by Many Arguments & Experiments. London: Imprinted at the Chiswick Press Anno MCM.
Seller: ERIC CHAIM KLINE, BOOKSELLER (ABAA ILAB), Santa Monica, CA, U.S.A.