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Description: Tractatus de Homine [bound with] Tractatus de mente humana. Renati Descartes [René DESCARTES] Tractatus de Homine, et de Formatione Foetus. Quorum prior Notis perpetuis Ludovici de la Forge, M.D. illustratur. Amstelodami [Amsterdam]: Apud Danielem Elsevirium [Elzevier], 1677 [bound with] LA FORGE, Ludovico de [Louis la FORGE] Tractatus de mente humana, ejus facultatibus & functionibus, nec non de ejusdem unione cum corpore; secundum principia Renati Descartes. Amstelodami [Amsterdam]: Apud Danielem Elsevirium [Elzevier], 1669 Small 4to., contemporary calf, ruled in blind to upper and lower boards; four raised bands to spine; edges speckled red; first title printed in red and black, second in black, both with woodcut printers devices; woodcut initials, head and tail pieces throughout; numerous illustrations and diagrams, including the human heart, eyes, and brain; pp. [title], [lxx], [vi, index]; 239, [i]; [title], [xxxiii], [ii, index], 224, [ii] (p. 67 misnumbered 45); the binding rather rubbed all over, with some patches showing through to boards, chipping, and loss of leather, particularly to the outer edge of lower board; spine split at foot, with a couple of small holes, upper hinge weak but holding; some light browning to the paste-downs; internally a very clean example; lacking the ffep only; some passages underlined in pencil; a few numbers written in pink pencil to titles, and p. 191. A fascinating combination of two works, the first being the first Elzevir edition of Descartes Tracatus. First published in Latin in 1662, it appeared in French two years later, with a supplement by La Forge and containing a chapter on the formation of the foetus. Here, it is pleasingly found together with the first Latin edition of La Forges comments on the subject. Withheld from the public while Descartes was alive for fear of censure by the Catholic church, the Tractatus expounds upon the authors Cartesian principles, explored in his 1637 Discourse on Method. Through an examination of both sheep and human brains, Descartes claimed that the body was a material machine, directed by a rational soul found in the brain, or more specifically, the pineal gland. De Homine, Grolier claims, is the first work in the history of science and medicine to construct a unified system of human physiology that presents man as a purely material and mechanical being: man as machine de terre. In conceptualizing man as a machine, Descartes helped emancipate the study of human physiology from religious and cultural constraints and validated a clinical and experimental approach to anatomy and physiology" (Grolier). He further extended his theory to vision, explaining how the retina and optic nerve interacted with the pineal gland to create depth perception. Despite the intricacies of his diagrams, however, his theories were quickly discredited by trained anatomists such as Thomas Bartholin and Nicholas Steno, who argued that the pineal glands mass was too small to have any direct command over the rest of the brain. Written in the 1630s, it is likely that the present work was intended to form, along with the Dioptrique (the Optics) and the Meteors (the Meteorology), part of the larger work, Le Monde (The World), publication of which he abandoned after the condemnation of Galileo in 1633 (like Galileo, Descartes accepted Copernican heliocentricism). Following Descartes's death the text was edited by Claude Clerselier, a disciple of Cartesian philosophy who prepared several of Descartes's works for publication. The French philosopher Louis La Forge was a friend of Descartes and one of the most able interpreters of Cartesianism. This, his Treatise on the Human Mind expounds a doctrine of occasionalism, which argues that created substances cannot be efficient causes of events. Instead, all events are taken to be caused directly by God. [Guibert 202:6; Krivatsy 3123; Wellcome II, p.453; Willems 1531; cf. G&M 574 (1662 edition)] [Krivatsy 6554]
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