‘...one of a few
separate copies’
Mackintosh, Sir James DISSERTATION
ON THE PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY, CHIEFLY DURING THE SEVENTEENTH AND
EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES
Edinburgh, Privately
Printed, MDCCCXXX [1830]
1st Edition, 4to
(27cm), (4), 210pp, Inscribed by the author to fly-leaf. ‘From the Author, to Mr Dunn, as a small
Proof of the highest Esteem & Regard, May 1830’ Contemporary half calf,
boards with restoration to hinges. Original endpapers preserved. Wear and
rubbing to covers and leather. Loss to extremities. Spine label with loss, not affecting title. A
few smudges and foxing spots, but generally very clean throughout. Some pencil annotations to text and to rear
endpaper.
A presentation copy of
an excessively scarce first edition. A
statement of printing (p.(iii)), dated April 1830, reads: ‘The Dissertation of
which this one of a few separate copies taken off for the Author’s friends,
forms part of a series of Discourses on the History of the Sciences, prefixed
to the Seventh Edition of the Encylopaedia Britannica, now in course of
publication.’ Sir James Mackintosh
(1765-1832) was a Scottish jurist from Aldourie just outside Inverness. He trained as a doctor and barrister in
Edinburgh and Aberdeen Universities but is also remembered for his work as a
journalist, judge, administrator, professor, philosopher and politician. Regarding the present work: in a letter to
Macvey Napier (the editior of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, who proposed the
dissertation in 1828) he wrote ‘I begin to hope well of my discourse, in which
I endeavour to make a development of ethical principles as they historically
arose -- a new attempt in our language.’
Not in the NLS. There appear to
be at least 8 subsequent printings of this work including two in the US (the
last being a ‘fourth edition’ in Edinburgh dated 1872). The only copy I can
trace of this private 1830 printing is in the British Library.
[ref:1438]£600