Milestones of Science Books

BOYLE, Robert.

A Disquisition About the Final Causes of Natural Things.

London: H.C., for John Taylor, 1688.

1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Item #002484

8vo (170 x 111 mm). [16], 274, [6] pp., including errata leaf and publisher's catalogue at end, separate title at page [239]. Contemporary plain calf, blind-ruled boards and spine (rubbed, corners worn and bumped), red-sprinkled edges, binding of a few gatherings a bit weak but holding, lacking rear endpaper, front flyleaf loose. Internally only little browned, very minor occasional spotting. Provenance: S. Newcomen; The library of Hugh Selbourne (small ink stamp to title verso). ----

Fulton 186A; Wing B3946. FIRST EDITION, issue with Boyle's name on the title. Fulton describes the Disquisition as "a plea for the teleological interpretation of natural phenomena. He interprets, for example, the perpendicular pupil of the cat's eye as the result of having constantly to climb up and down walls and other steep places (p. 64), while the transverse slit of the pupils of horses and oxen is adapted to their accustomed lateral gaze." It includes a "record of a conversation with William Harvey on how he discovered the circulation of the blood."
"In this tract Boyle takes us into his confidence and gives us briefly his 'confessio fidei' as a biologist. On p. 157 he records a conversation with William Harvey on the discovery of the circulation of the blood. Appended to the 'Disquisition' is a brief tract on disturbances of vision. A variety of case histories are recorded, drawn from Boyle's own experience, and the tract appears to be one of the first in which this method of teaching was employed in an ophthalmological treatise." (Weil XXXII, 195).

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