[VARIGNON, Pierre].

Projet d'une Nouvelle Mechanique. Avec un Examen de l'opinion de M. Borelli, sur les proprietez des Poids suspendus par des Cordes.

Engraved vignette on title, 13 folding engraved plates, & several engraved head-pieces. 9 p.l., 133, [2] pp. Large 4to, cont. mottled sheep (rubbed, upper joint with a short crack, some browning), spine gilt, red leather lettering piece on spine. Paris: la Veuve d'E. Martin, J. Boudot, & E. Martin, 1687. First edition of the author's first book and the first treatise in which the whole science of statics was deduced from the principle of the parallelogram of forces which the author here enunciates, simultaneously with and independently of Newton. Due to the simultaneous publication of the principle by Varignon and Newton (in his Principia), it is difficult to make a judgment regarding priority. However, Varignon alone grasped two important points: "the unification of 'mechanics' (the science of simple machines) was to be carried out on the basis of the composition of forces. The second concerns the inclined plane."­D.S.B., XIII, pp. 585-86. This work is, in part, a commentary on Borelli's milestone De Motu Animalium of 1680-81. Varignon (1654-1722), one of the outstanding scientists of his time, was an intimate friend of Newton, Leibniz, and the Bernoullis. He was the first French scientist of note to advocate the new differential calculus. Good copy. Two old library stamps on title and on versos of plates. Roberts & Trent, Bibliotheca Mechanica, p. 337.

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