DESCARTES. L'Homme et la formation du foetus.

4to. 245x180mm. Contemporary full marbled brown leather binding, gilt title and ornaments on the spine with raised bands with gilt title and friezes, sprayed edges. Pages (64), 511, (9). Woodcut vignette on the Titlepage, ornate and illustrated headpieces and Initials. 52 woodcut illustrations in the Homme, 32 in the Traité de la Lumière. Annotations and corrections by a contemporary hand in the text of the 'Foetus', in black ink. Slight diffuse foxing and sporadic speckles, unsophisticated copy.

Second edition in French, revised and corrected. L'Homme, accompanied by a remarkable iconographic apparatus, is dedicated to the brain and to the organ of sight and marks a significant progress in the study of physiology. For Descartes, the rules that govern physiology are the same as those that govern mathematics. The work, published posthumously, is introduced by a long preface by the curator Claude Clerselier, a faithful friend of Descartes. The work concludes with an in-depth commentary on "l'Homme" and on the figures who illustrate it, by Louys de La Forge, physician and disciple of Descartes. For a long time it was considered the first comprehensive treatise on human physiology. As an appendix to his "Discourse on Method", René Descartes (1596-1650) wrote it directly in French.

In this edition, the Traité de l'homme is followed, from page 405, by the Traité de la lumière, which had appeared separately in 1664, in which Descartes sets out his physical theory of the universe.