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Tag Archives: David Hume

Banned! — Lettre de Thrasibule a Leucippe

26 Tuesday Sep 2017

Posted by rarebooks in Uncategorized

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Adam Smith, Benjamin Franklin, Cesare Beccaria, David Garrick, David Hume, Denis Diderot, Edward Gibbon, Enlightenment, France, French, Greek, Horace Walpole, Jean-Jacque Rousseau, L'Encyclopedie, Laurence Sterne, library, Paris, Paul Holbach, salon, Voltaire

BL2773-L458-1768-title

““How could the human mind progress, while tormented with frightful phantoms, and guided by men, interested in perpetuating its ignorance and fears? Man has been forced to vegetate in his primitive stupidity: he has been taught stories about invisible powers upon whom his happiness was supposed to depend. Occupied solely by his fears, and by unintelligible reveries, he has always been at the mercy of priests, who have reserved to themselves the right of thinking for him, and of directing his actions.”

Lettre de Thrasibule a Leucippe
Paul Heinrich Dietrich, Baron d’Holbach (1723-1789)
…a Londres : [no printer or date, but probably Paris, circa 1768]
First edition

An anti-religious and atheistic attack on superstition, this work compares ancient religions and considers Christianity to be a mixture of Judaism and the religions of Egypt. The work was attributed to Nicolas Freret (1688-1749), but is now considered to be by Paul Holbach, who frequently used the names of deceased writers on the titles of his books in order to disguise his authorship. Nicolas Freret was well-known and highly esteemed in his lifetime, but left little of his own writings.

Here, the French text is presented as a translation of an English text that, in turn, is presented as an original Greek text.

Paul Holbach was a French-German encyclopedist and prominent as a salonist in Paris during the French Enlightenment. He supported Denis Diderot financially and contributed articles and translations to L’Encyclopedie – in all about 400 pieces. His salons were exclusively male and attended by such notables as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, David Hume, Horace Walpole, Edward Gibbon, David Garrick, Laurence Stern, Cesare Beccaria and Benjamin Franklin. Well-fed, his guests were surrounded by Holbach’s three thousand-volume library.

Holbach is recognized today for his philosophical writings, published anonymously or under pseudonyms, and printed outside of France. His writings, however, were certainly recognized in his own day. Voltaire, who was sometimes accused of writing these polemics, made it known that he was not a fan of the « anonymous » Holbach’s work.

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Boom!

04 Monday Jul 2016

Posted by rarebooks in Uncategorized

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American, Benjamin Franklin, Bill of Rights, Boston, Boston Gazette, Boston Massacre, British, colonial, colonies, David Hume, Dunlap, Edmund Burke, England, Great Britain, independence, John Adams, John Wesley, Josiah Quincy, London, monarchy, pamphlet, Philadelphia, Richard Price, Stamp Act, tuberculosis, William Pitt

“…that sacred blessing of Liberty, without which man is a beast, and government a curse”

E263-M4-Q7-1774-title

“No free government was ever founded or ever preserved its liberty without uniting the characters of the citizen and soldier in those destined for the defence of the state…such are a well-regulated militia…who take up arms to preserve their purposes, as individuals, and their rights as freemen.”

OBSERVATIONS ON THE ACT OF PARLIAMENT…
Josiah Quincy (1744-1775)
Boston, N.E., Printed for and sold by Edes and Gill, 1774
First edition

Attorney Josiah Quincy, a Boston native, wrote a series of anonymous articles for the Boston Gazette in which he opposed the Stamp Act and other British colonial policies. His evenhandedness, however, in his approach to the troubles between the American colonies and England, served him and the colonial stance well. He, along with John Adams, defended the British soldiers in their trial after the Boston Massacre. That act aside, in Observations, Quincy urged “patriots and heroes” to “form a compact for opposition…For, under God, we are determined that wheresoever, whensoever, and howsoever we shall be called to make our exit, we will die free men.” In the same year as this publication, Quincy went to England to argue the colonial cause. He died of tuberculosis on the way home in sight of land.

E211-P9625-1776-title

“Our own people, being unwilling to enlist, and the attempts to procure armies of Russians, Indians, and Canadians having miscarried; the utmost force we can employ, including foreigners…This is the force that is to conquer…determined men fighting on their own ground, within sight of their houses and families, and for that sacred blessing of Liberty, without which man is a beast, and government a curse. All history proves, that in such a situation, a handful is a match for millions.”

OBSERVATIONS ON THE NATURE OF CIVIL LIBERTY…
Richard Price (1723-1791)
London printed 1776; Philadelphia, Re-printed and sold by J. Dunlap, 1776?

Richard Price, radical in his religious and political views, was well-known in Great Britain as a writer on economic and political issues. A close friend of William Pitt, David Hume, and Benjamin Franklin, he became one of Britain’s most vocal supporters of American independence. Several thousand copies of Observations were sold within a few days. The pamphlet both extolled the rights of the American colonists and excoriated the British crown. Harshly criticized by John Wesley, Edmund Burke, and others, the controversy quickly made Price a celebrity. Price argued that governments held their power in trust from the people and were not instruments of divine authority. The monarchy of England, he said, was only legitimate because it ruled by consent of the people under England’s Bill of Rights. The revolutionaries in the American colonies were merely asserting the same principle. His pamphlet played no small part in encouraging the colonists to declare independence. In 1778 he was invited by Congress to go to America and assist in the financial administration of the states. He refused the offer, unwilling to quit his own country.

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Book of the Week – An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding

07 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

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David Hume, Elizabeth Holt, Immanuel Kant, John Locke, paneled calf, printer, printing, Thomas Basset

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1690

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1690

An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding
John Locke (1632-1704)
London: Printed by Elizabeth Holt for Thomas Basset, 1690
First edition, first issue
B1290 1690

The foundation work of English political theory, this work is also fundamental in the history of psychology. Between 1763 and 1776, John Locke’s work was especially popular reading among English colonists in North America. Locke’s Essay was the first “modern” attempt to analyze the whole range of human knowledge. He applied an Anglo-Saxon penchant for facts to the study of philosophy (a field long-dominated by speculative enquiry) and concluded that most knowledge emanated from experience. Locke’s Essay was twenty years in the making. He completed the initial draft in 1671, but was unable to work on it further until his escape to Holland in 1683. Final revisions were completed by the time he returned to England in 1689. Although Locke was uncertain about the book’s reception, it quickly ran to several editions. Locke’s theories were continued by David Hume and Immanuel Kant. A busy man, philosopher Locke was also a physician and practiced medicine, although to a limited extent. Printer Elizabeth Holt carried on her husband’s business after his death in 1671. In 1688, she was ordered to “lay down the trade of printing,” part of growing strict control of the printing trade. To continue printing risked having her shop closed down. This may have been one of her last printing jobs. University of Utah copy bound in contemporary paneled calf.

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