Fontenelle

Bernard Le Bovier De FontenelleBiblio.com

Oeuvres De Monsieur De Fontenelle Des Académies. Françaises Des Sciences Des Belles Lettres De Londres De Nancy De Berlin & De Rome

réf. 57794EB. Very Good. Hardcover. Leather. 12mo. Chez les Libraires Associés Paris. 1766. 11 volumes. Illustrated with 8 frontispieces including a portrait by H. Rigaud after Dolsier. Seven other frontispieces are found in the remaining volumes those by Clavaro A. Coipel Gravelot and Pilart. Four of the five engravings throughout the set are by B. Pilart and Clavaro after Duflos. Bound in calf leather with gilt titled spine labels present to the spine and gilt decoration present to the boards. Leather lightly rubbed and worn along the extremities. No ownership marks present. Text is clean and free of marks binding tight and solid. A beautiful and complete eleven-volume set of the works of the brilliant French polymath Bernard de Fontenelle 1657 - 1757. Many of the characteristic ideas of the French Enlightenment are found in their earliest form in Fontenelles works. His writings are valuable to scholars to this day Raman Variety in Religion and Science 122. Fontenelle is remembered by historians as an erudite scholar brilliant wit and an effective exponent of science. He fostered enlightened thinking using enjoyable language. Fontenelle warned that people would reject science as useless if they didnt understand it. He was so impressed with the power of mathematics that he said even a work of morality politics criticism will be more elegant other things being equal if it is shaped by the hand of geometry. He felt the joy that mathematics can give saying: Nothing probes more clearly that the mind seeks truth and nothing reflects more glory upon it than the delight it takes sometimes in spite of itself in the driest and thorniest researches of algebra Raman Variety in Religion and Science 122. It is particularly interesting to note that Fontenelle foresaw that science would rise to great heights but he also feared humanity was too weak to look at truth straight in the eye Fontenelle was one of the spirits that inspired the French Encyclopedie and the associated Enlightenment which were to significantly affect the course of human history ibid. Voltaire described Fontenelle as having the most universal mind produced by the era of Louis XIV. This set includes Fontenelles enormously popular Entretiens sur la Pluralité des Mondes a utopian analysis of the universe that took Europe by storm and was precursor and inspiration to scores of imitations. It was first published in 1686 and first translated into English by Aphra Behn only two years later. Although the Entretiens clearly owes a tremendous debt to the astronomical traditions of Galileo and Brahe Fontenelle's sensational tale of the inhabitants in 'other planets in other galaxies and even on comets could hardly fail to captivate' Nina Rattner Gelbart Introduction to the Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds . In the form of an elegant dialogue between a scientist and a Marquise Entretiens sur la Pluralité des Mondes takes as its starting point that 'Toute la philosophie n'est fondée sur deux choses: sur ce qu'on a l'esprit curieux et les yeux mauvais': that is that if we had a perfect understanding we would not need science because all would be spontaneously revealed. Meant as a quick summation of scientific discovery but also as pure speculation on the possibilities of the universe Entretiens sur la Pluralité des Mondes suggests that as it has taken six millennia for Europeans to cross the Atlantic Ocean to America it may take a little longer for the inhabitants of other worlds to cross the far greater expanses of space. Fontenelle also explains his theories on astronomical systems the moon other planets and coments. This set also includes other writings on science and mathematics as well as Dialogues des Morts anciens and Histoire des Oracles' works which exemplify Fontenelle's desire to propagate philosophical thinking. EB; 8vo 8" - 9" tall . hardcover

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