HUET, Pierre Daniel. Commentarius de rebus ad eum pertinentibus. Amsterdam,Henry du Sauzet, 1718.
Small 8vo. Modern full calf, spine with raised bands, lettered and ruled in gilt; pp. [xvi, the initial two blank], 427, [112], [2, blank], title page in red and black and with woodcut vignette; this page with two small paperflaws, initial blank with re-inforced margins; a good copy of an uncommon autobiography.
First edition of this intellecual autobiography by the French philosopher and scientist Pierre-Daniel Huet, initially a proponent of Cartesianism, then later turning against Descartes as a proponent of fideism, a position which ranks faith equal with reason. He was bishop of Soissons and later Avranches. His intellecual output ranged from etymology to chemistry, logic and the history of the trade in antiquity. He set up the second sceintific institution in France with a Royal charter, the Académie de Physique in his hometown of Caen.
Provenance: Presented by Thomas Lynford (died 1724), CoE clergyman, chaplain to William III, Queen Anne, and George I in 1722 to the Archdeacon of Barnstaple (inscriptions to initial blank).
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