ROHAULT, Jacques (1620--1675); Samuel CLARKE (1675--1729)

Rohault's system of natural philosophy , illustrated with Dr. Samuel Clarke's notes taken mostly out of Sir Isaac Newton's philosophy. With additions ... Done into English by John Clarke

London: printed for James Knapton, at the Crown in St. Paul's-Church-Yard, 1723.
2 volumes 8vo:A8 b8 c2 B--T8, 162 leaves, pp. [36] 285 [3] (advertisements on last 3 pages); A--T8 U4 X2, 158 leaves, pp. 292 [24] (advertisements on last page). Titlepages printed in red and black; wood or metal-cut headpieces and initials. Plates: 27 folding engraved plates: numbered Tab. I--XXVII (I--XI at the end of vol. I, XII--XXVII at the end of vol. II). Leaf size and condition: 195 x 120mm. A little dustsoiling; wormtracks in the upper margins of the last few leaves of vol. I, well away from the text. Binding: Contemporary panelled calf, plain spines with red morocco lettering pieces. Joints rubbed, small chip in headcap of vol. II. Provenance and annotation: Inscription on rear free endleaf of vol. II 'Edward Rogers Sr. His Book An: 1734 Dom.' and 'Study C9' on front pastedown of vol. I. References: ESTC t115947. Wallis Newton, 143; Babson 103.
The first English edition of Rohault's Traité de physique (1671), translated by John Clarke (1682--1757) from the Latin translation with annotations by Samuel Clarke, Physica, fourth revised edition, 1718. Further editions were published in 1729 and 1735.
§ This complex text includes Samuel Clarke's very extensive notes which 'had the novel effect of turning a Cartesian treatise into a vehicle for disseminating the ideas of Newton' (Joel M. Rodney, DSB 3:294b). Many of the notes are long, but perhaps the longest is on gravity, annotating the section 'Why the Celerity of heavy Bodies increases as they fall' to which Clarke has added 15 pages in double columns of small type and 6 plates. Some annotations are direct quotes from Newton. Clarke matriculated at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, in 1690 and was a fellow of the college from 1696 to 1700, during which time his annotations to Rohault were first published, in Latin. Rohault's Traité de physique (1671) was the leading Cartesian textbook of its era. In it Rohault tempered Descartes' dogmatism with a more probabilistic method, depending on experiment: specifically, he stated that any philosophical explanation is liable to falsification by experiment. Rohault's treatise was first translated into Latin by Théphile Bonet in 1674. In making a new Latin translation Samuel Clark was motivated as much by a wish to improve on Bonet's clumsy translation as to add a Newtonian gloss to Rohaut's Cartesian text. He first published his annotated translation in 1697, revising it in 1702, 1708, 1710 and 1718. In each edition he expanded his notes and 'sharpened their pro-Newtonian edge' (Schuster), in the final version incorporating large portions of Newton's Opticks (1704) which he had translated into Latin in 1706 (see above). This translation of the last of Samuel Clarke's annotated Latin editions into English was made by his brother John, a distinguished mathematician. <<Described by Whiston, his biographer in 1730, as a 'bosom friend' of Newton, Clarke worked on three books important in the Newtonian canon. The first was his translation into Latin of the Traité de physique (1671) of Jacques Rohault. Published in 1697, and containing extensive footnotes, it became the main channel through which Cambridge undergraduates first heard of Newtonian mechanics. Rohault's text, as modified by Clarke, remained in use at Cambridge until the 1730s, when both the final English and Latin editions appeared. It was also Clarke who was chosen by Newton to translate his Opticks of 1704 into Latin. ... [the third of Clarke's Newtonian books was the Leibniz--Clarke correspondence (1717) in which he represented Newton's views on natural theology]'. >>Gjertsen, Newton Handbook p. 117. Literature: John A. Schuster, 'Rohault', DSB 11: 506--509; M. A. Hoskin, ' "Mining all within," Clarke's notes to Rohault's Traité de physique,' Thomist, 24 (1961), 357--363.

• GBP 1,200.00 > otras divisas
• nº de pedido: 17127

• librero: Roger Gaskell (GREAT BRITAIN)