The Immortality of the Soul, so farre forth as it is demonstrable from the knowledge of nature and the light of reason

Small 8vo, pp [38], 549, [35, with errata on final verso], title page in red and black, a few woodcut diagrams in text, bound in contemporary ruled calf, sometime rebacked with [most of] original spine laid down, lacking label, wear to corners, internally sound and tight throughout, FIRST EDITION. A key work in More's philsophical oeuvre. 'Anxious to defend the concept of immaterial souls from all atheist threats, More insisted that the soul was necessary for life. He was therefore opposed not only to Descartes, but also to traditional scholastic views. The motions of plants and animals (plants being capable of internal motions associated with nutrition, reproduction, and growth), according to scholastics, proved the existence only of vegetative and animal souls respectively. Both of these kinds of souls were regarded as material, however, being composed of subtle fluids or tenuous but nonetheless material spirits in the body. ' - Stanford Ency. More would revise this original text somewhat for his collected philosophical works of 1662.…