Milestones of Science Books

MUSSCHENBROEK, Pieter van.

Elementa Physicae conscripta in usus academicos ... Editio quinta veneta.

Venice: Remondini, 1781.

5th Edition. Soft cover. Very Good. Item #003277

Two parts in two volumes. 8vo (195 x 135 mm). 446, [2] pp., 11 folding engraved plates; 356 pp., 21 folding engraved plates. All pages uncut. Bound in contemporary Italian carta rustica. Light fraying and marginal dust-soiling, but generally quite crisp and clean. Provenance: Giancarlo Beltrame Library. Very good, unsophisticated copy. ----

DSB IX, p. 594-97; Bierens de Haan 3493. Fifth(?) Italian edition (first published Leiden, 1734) of van Musschenbroek's famous textbook of the fundamentals of physics. It has been a groundbreaking and defining work in the history of Physics, mainly because of van Musschenbroek's didactic qualities and the fact that he retained the Newtonian thought in the Netherlands and the rest of the learned world. The fifth Venetian edition appeared after the death of Musschenbroek. The first three Venetian editions are obscure. "Underlying Musschenbroek's lectures demonstrated with experiments was the experimental philosophy. This philosophy, which he proclaimed in Holland along with Boerhaave and 'sGravesande, was set forth in their books and in academic lectures such as Musschenbroek's inaugural address at Utrecht, Oratio de certo methodo philosophiae (Leiden, 1723). The principal source of inspiration was Newton; but Galileo, Torricelli, Huygens, Réaumur, and others were important to this school. Since the mind, Musschenbroek states in his Elementa physicae (1734), has no innate idea of what bodies and their qualities are, we can obtain knowledge about them only by observation and experiments. But we must be extremely careful, use good instruments, and take into consideration all circumstances -atmospheric pressure, temperature, locality, and weather. Thus we can discover the laws that govern the behavior of bodies, provided the results of experiments, repeated over and over again, are the same, and specific causes are admitted only when the phenomena investigated leave no doubt. The stress is therefore on induction; but deduction, for example, by means of mathematics, is admissible, as Newton had shown, provided such deductions are constantly tested by experiment. The success of such reasoning on the basis of careful experimentation finds its guarantee in the infinite wisdom of the Supreme Being. This philosophy inspire" (DSB, p.596). - Visit our website to see more images!

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