Beschreibung:

LOCKE, John (1632-1704)]. An Essay concerning Humane Understanding. In four books. London: [Elizabeth Holt] for Thomas Basset, and sold by Edw[ard] Mory, 1690.
LOCKE, John (1632-1704)]. An Essay concerning Humane Understanding. In four books. London: [Elizabeth Holt] for Thomas Basset, and sold by Edw[ard] Mory, 1690. 2 o in 4s (322 x 94 mm). Contemporary calf (minor repairs to spine ends and joints); cloth folding case. Provenance : contemporary marginal annotations providing the section headings that are printed in the table of contents, a few lines crossed out on pp. 123-129; C. Bishop (old stamp on front fly-leaf). FIRST EDITION, second issue: with cancel title page containing the inverted "ss" in "Essay," without Elizabeth Holt's name in the imprint and the dedication undated. Locke's work formed the basis of 18th-century empirical philosophy. Although begun as early as 1671, it was finally brought to order during the years that Locke spent as an exile in Holland (January 1684-February 1688), in the company of a distinguished literary circle. "His conclusion is that though knowledge must necessarily fall short of complete comprehension, it can at least be 'sufficient'; enough to convince us that we are not at the mercy of pure chance, and can to some extent control our own destiny" ( PMM ). Few philosophical works received such immediate and lasting recognition, leading John Stuart Mill to describe Locke as "the unquestioneed founder of the analytic philosophy of mind." One of the printed emendations of the text is laid in at page 65. Grolier English 36; Pforzheimer 600 ("copies having the title as in the present are uncommon"); PMM 164; Wing L-2739. A VERY TALL CLEAN COPY.