Method Science by Sergeant John, First Edition (2 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. 1st Edition. S., J. (SERGEANT, JOHN) (1622-1707). The method of science. London: W. Redmayne for the Author, 1696. FIRST EDITION. 8 vo. Contemp. mottled calf, old rebacking with the original gilt paneled spine laid down. (70, includes errata leaf), (2, blank), 429 pp. Title within ruled borders. Front joint partially cracked but tight, lightly uniformly browned; a very good copy. An interesting, early, and scarce treatise on method in science by the Roman Catholic convert and controversialist, John Sergeant. His writings during an active 40 year period engaged all the major Protestants, especially Dr. Stillingfleet, the Bishop of Worcester, his greatest and most frequent adversary. The violent reaction to Sergeant s writings caused him to publish under assumed names or cryptically, with initials only. His approach here is one of applying logical structure, a demonstrative logick , to the pursuit of improving science. His method puts aside (with all due respect) the philosophy of Descartes, and the approach of the experimentalist, like Boyle, for his application of logic. "In a word, tis Connexion of Terms which I onely esteem as Proper to advance Science. Where I find not such Connexion, and the Discours grounded on Self-evident Principles, or (which is the same) on the Metaphysical Verity of the Subject, which engages the Nature of the Thing, I neither expect Science can by gain d, nor the Method to Science Establish d." (Preface). Wing S2579. N.L.M. (17th C.), no. 11023.

First edition of one of the principal works of the Roman Catholic controversialist and philosopher John Sergeant (1623-1707). "A more thoroughgoing Aristotelian critique of Locke came from. John Sergeant, who, as a Catholic, stood outside the clerical assaults emanating from the established church. Sergeant's critique of Locke was part of a more wide-ranging critique of what he called 'ideists', a category which yokes Descartes and Locke together. He targets Locke in his The Method to Science (1696) and Solid Philosophy Asserted, against the Fancies of the Ideists (1697). His principal objection to Locke's epistemology was its implicit scepticism. he charged Locke that his natural philosophy failed to provide universal conclusions or maxims" (Sarah Hutton, British Philosophy in the Seventeenth Century, OUP 2015, p. 202). With an interesting provenance: contemporary ownership inscription at head of title page of Thomas Sandys (and one or two neat marginal corrections), possibly the "interloper" or private trader, who, in 1689, was at the centre of a court case against the East India Company. With a later ownership inscription on the front free endpaper verso: "The property of Shaderick Penn, Bought at Harpers Ferry, Sept the 4 1819 price $1.00"; this may be an alternate spelling of Shadrak Penn Jr, editor of the Louisville Public Advertiser and "the dominant editorial voice in the state for a number of years" (John E. Kleber ed., The Encyclopaedia of Louisville, 2001, p. 569). Wing S2579. Octavo (171 x 108 mm). Contemporary mottled calf neatly rebacked. Tiny ownership inscription on front pastedown of Leonard J. Eslick of St Louis University. General light paper toning and foxing. A very good copy.