HALE, Sir Matthew (1609--1676)

The primitive origination of mankind , considered and examined according to the light of nature

London: printed by William Godbid, for William Shrowsbery, 1677.
Folio: a4 b2 B-3B4 3C2, 104 leaves, pp. [12] 380, including the blank a1. Woodcut diagrams on pp. 119 and 123. Plates: Engraved portrait frontispiece signed 'F. H. van Hove sculp.'. Leaf size and condition: 320 x 195mm. Worming in the gutter of sigs F and H, well away from the text, some light staining and a few spots, but generally clean and fresh. Binding: Contemporary calf. Rebacked with the original spine laid down; with the original invoice for the repair work, by W. H. Price of Wells, dated 7 August 1880. Provenance and annotation: Presentation copy from the publisher to Edward Webbe inscribed on initial blank: 'Edw: Webbe de Lincolnes Inne ex dono bibliopol Gulielmus Shrewsbury maij 9no 1677'; E. W. Edwards, signed and dated 1880; James Stevens Cox (1910--1997) with later bookplate (Maggs Catalogue 1350 (2003) no. 132). References: Wing H258; Garrison--Morton 215; Norman 965; Hunter and MacAlpine p. 204.
First edition.
§ An important precursor of Malthus and the earliest work on evolution cited in Garrison--Morton. Hunter and MacAlpine quote from it for Hale's humanist approach to psychiatry. This good large copy, with a fine impression of the portrait of Hale, was presented to Hale's fellow lawyer at Lincoln's Inn, Edward Webbe. The presentation inscription is by the publisher, William Shrewsbury, perhaps acting on Hale's instructions before his death the previous year. Shrewsbury had published Hale's Contemplations moral and divine in the previous year and it was to prove one of his best sellers. Webbe matriculated at Balliol College, Oxford aged 17 on 17 July 1663 and is recorded as a barrister-at-law at Lincoln's Inn in 1673. In 1880 the book belonged to one E. W. Edwards of Wells, Somerset, who had it repaired by a local bookbinder for 4s. Besides the invoice he kept a letter from a friend who had helped him getting the binding work done, who writes: 'Any other of your old Library I hope you will also have repaired. These old volumes are now in very few hands & should be well cared for & preserved.' The book later belonged to James Stevens-Cox, F.S.A. (1910--1997), who is characterised by Robert Harding in Maggs' catalogue of his library -- mostly of theology -- as 'a bibliophile and antiquary by inclination, an all-round eccentric by nature, and, by turns, a hairdresser, antiquarian bookseller and finally, publisher by profession'. <<Hale, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, "seems to have been the first to use the expression 'Geometrical Proportion' for the growth of a population from a single family" (Hutchinson). In this he anticipated Malthus. He believed that in animals, especially insects, various natural calamities reduce the numbers to low levels intermittently, so maintaining a balance of nature. >>Garrison--Morton 215.

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