Le Progrez et avancement aux sciences Divines & humaines
Rare first French edition of the Book on Sciences “the first major published text by Francis Bacon” (J. P. Cavaillé) which would influence Descartes and the Enlightenment philosophers.
A very fine copy preserved in its contemporary vellum.
Flexible vellum, remains of ties, smooth spine, handwritten title on spine, marginal dampstaining, binding partially detached.Contemporary binding
170 x 108 mm.
Bacon, Francis. The Progress and Advancement of Divine and Human Sciences.
Paris, Pierre Billaine, 1624.
Rarefirst French edition “of the first major published work by Francis Bacon” (J. P. Cavaillé).
This work had a profound influence on Diderot, D'Alembert, and on the structure of the Encyclopédie.
These two books, addressed to King James I, contain a critique of the state of the sciences along with a very ambitious program for the general reform of knowledge.
Francis Bacon (1551-1626), Lord Chancellor of England, has been called the father of experimental philosophy: indeed, he was the first who fully recognized and perfectly demonstrated that, in all branches of the physical sciences, there is only one way to reach certain truths and to be sure that one has reached them: that is to observe nature.
Horace Walpole wrote: “Bacon was the prophet of the truths which Newton afterwards came to reveal to men.”
It was especially in France that the most worthy appreciators of this philosopher's works were found. When Voltaire wrote his Letters on the English, he highlighted the merit and importance of Bacon's works.
“At the beginning of the 17th century, the illustrious Bacon, who deserved to be called the Father of philosophy, had just founded a new school. The dominant idea of this great man was the reform of science. It cannot be believed that Descartes was unaware of this revolution carried out in English philosophy, and it is impossible to deny the reality of the influence of Bacon's writings on Descartes” (Notice on Descartes, Works of Descartes, 1864).
“ His proposal was: ‘A total reconstruction of sciences arts and all human knowledge… to extend the power and dominion of the human race… over the universe’. His notions for a planned development of science and social organization based on scientifically ascertained facts are still relevant to what has become one of the crucial problems of the twentieth century” (PMM).
Provenance: Library of Brother Marin Lœil, a Franciscan friar at the convent of Niort in 1626, with two curious repeated ex-libris stamps and a handwritten ex-libris in Hebrew.
