PRZIBRAM, Walter. Versuch einer Darstellung der Empfindungen. Vienna, Alfred Hölder, 1898.
4to. Contemporary half morocco over boards, spine lettered in gilt, original front wrapper bound in; pp. 28, five folding tables; light marking to boards, a little tightly bound, otherwise very good.
This is the very rare pothumously published Essay on the Explanation of the Senses, an attempt to get to grips in a scientific and quantitative way with the senses of touch, taste, vision and hearing, their components such as colours, bitter or sweet, high or low pitch, all visualised in three-dimensional space and dealt with in an arithmetical way. The author, who died before the publication of this work, discusses as well the relation between linguistic expression and the actual physicality of a sensation. Synesthetic correlations, oppositions of qualities, analogies between different senses, and the interaction of simultaneous stimuli of different senses are all dealt with in depth and with references to Helmholtz, Ernst Mach, Chevreul, and Herbert Spencer.
No copy could be traced in either Britain or North America.
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