Item ID: 5838 Recherches sur les Causes des Principaux Faits Physiques. Jean Baptiste LAMARCK.
Recherches sur les Causes des Principaux Faits Physiques.

Recherches sur les Causes des Principaux Faits Physiques.

One engraved plate & one folding printed table. xvi, 375 pp.; 2 p.l., 412 pp. Two vols. 8vo, cont. cat’s paw calf (light foxing & minor stains). Paris: Maradan, Seconde Année de la République [1794].

First edition. Lamarck (1744-1829), the noted biologist and evolutionist, had pronounced chemical theories and they were an important part of his ideas about nature and evolution. He was an adversary of Lavoisier’s anti-phlogistic theory and proposed the four-element theory (earth, air, water, and fire). Lamarck believed that these four elements “have no attraction for one another but tend to separate unless constrained by force…He proposed a new ‘pyrotic theory’.”–Partington, III, p. 490. Lamarck attempted to account for a great number of chemical and physical phenomena such as sound, electricity, magnetism, color, and vaporization with his system.

“In this work Lamarck sets forth his views on the immutability of species and attacks the theory of the spontaneous origin of life. The book is interesting in the history of chemistry, because Lamarck attacks Lavoisier’s anti-phlogistic theory.”–Duveen, p. 334.

Nice set.

❧ Cole 739. Neville, II, p. 4.

Price: $1,950.00

Item ID: 5838