By "the father of modern empirical psychology"

VIVES, Joannes Ludovicus.

De anima et vita libri tres.

Basel: Robert Winter, 1538.

1st Edition. Hardcover. Fine. Item #001826

4to (194x138 mm). [8], 264 pp. Printer's device on last leaf. 19th-c full leather with blindstamped supralibros (the Flemish lion) on both boards, spine with 4 raised bands. Endpapers renewed, title with old cancel stamp, neat ink annotations and markings in old hand, small dampstain spot to foremargin of most pages. A good clean copy. ----

Adams V-939; Garrison-Morton 4963.2; BM/STC German p. 898; Norman 2159 (also w/o index); Zilboorg & Henry, pp. 180-195. - THE VERY RARE FIRST EDITION OF VIVES'S MOST IMPORTANT PSYCHOLOGICAL WORK. This copy is without the index at end: approximately half of the known copies are without the index, suggesting that some copies of this work may have been sold before it was completed. A friend of Erasmus and Thomas More, Vives has been called "the father of modern empirical psychology..." (Zilboorg & Henry). "Vives anticipated Bacon and Descartes in devoloping an empirical psychology in which the mind was to be studied both through introspection and observation of others. From his exhaustive analysis of memory he developed a theory of association of ideas, which recognized the emotional origin of certain associations, as well as the link between associations, emotions and memory. He was also the first to describe the physiological effects of fear" (Garrison-Morton). Vives maintained that the essence of the human mind was indescribable but could be known through the mind's actions.

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