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Volume I and II, complete, leather bound with gold titles and 18 folded tables which reminds those of the Enciclopedy. The first edition of this capital work was published by Jan Maire, Leiden (1637) Following the Discours, now celebrated as one of the canonical texts of Western philosophy, plus two Essays of epoch-making importance. (Cajori, History of Mathematics, p. 174), designated by John Stuart Mill as the greatest single step ever made in the progress of the exact sciences. It rendered possible the later achievements of seventeenth-century mathematical physics (Hall, Nature and nature's laws (1970), p. 91). The first of the Essais, La Dioptrique, contains Descartes discovery of Snell's law of refraction of light (earlier than Snell); the second, Les Météores, contains Descartes explanation of the rainbow, based on the optical theories developed in the first Essai. It is no exaggeration to say that Descartes was the first of modern philosophers and one of the first modern scientists; in both branches of learning his influence has been vast. His application of modern algebraic arithmetic to ancient geometry created the analytical geometry which is the basis of the post-Euclidean development of that science. His statement of the elementary laws of matter and movement in the physical universe, the theory of vortices, and many other speculations threw light on every branch of science from optics to biology. Not least may be remarked his discussion of Harvey's discovery of the circulation of blood, the first mention of it by a prominent foreign scholar. All this found its starting point in the Discourse on the Method for Proper Reasoning and Investigating Truth in the Sciences? Descartes?s purpose is to find the simple indestructible proposition which gives to the universe and thought their order and system. Three points are made: the truth of thought, when thought is true to itself (thus cogito, ergo, sum), the inevitable elevation of its partial state in our finite consciousness to its full state in the infinite existence of God, and the ultimate reduction of the material universe to extension and local movement; Grolier/Horblit 24; Dibner 81; Evans 5; Sparrow 54.In October 1629 Descartes began work on The World, which included not only his Treatise on Light, first published as Le Monde in 1664, and the Treatise on Man, first published two years earlier as Renatus Descartes de Homine, but also the material on the formation of colours in the Meteors and the material on geometrical optics in the Dioptrics, both subsequently published in 1637.EX LIBRIS Jeanne and Jannine Darbot. Seller Inventory # 467
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