£950.00
Four volumes, octavo.
Second revised and enlarged edition.
Published at Leiden by Elie Luzac between 1752 and 1758.
Complete in four volumes, retaining their contemporary paper-covered boards with manuscript spine titles. Library stamps and shelf labels to bindings and title pages. Text generally clean with light age toning and occasional spotting expected of eighteenth-century paper. Bindings rubbed and worn with losses to paper covering, though structurally sound and entirely unsophisticated.
An attractive survival of this important eighteenth-century philosophical work.
Year: 1752 – 1758
Edition: Second Revised and Enlarged Edition. Four Volumes.
Publisher: Leiden: Elie Luzac, 1752–1758.
During the middle of the eighteenth century Europe witnessed an extraordinary intellectual transformation known as the Enlightenment. Many philosophers challenged established religious belief, while others sought to reconcile reason with Christianity rather than abandon it altogether.
Jean-Henri-Samuel Formey (1711–1797) became one of the leading Protestant intellectuals of the period. A French Huguenot refugee who settled in Berlin, Formey served as Secretary of the Royal Academy of Sciences under Frederick the Great and became one of the most prolific philosophical writers of his generation.
Le Philosophe Chrétien represents one of his most influential moral works. Rather than attacking religion, Formey argues that philosophy and Christian faith should strengthen one another. Throughout these volumes he explores ethics, virtue, education, society, personal conduct and moral responsibility using the rational style that defined the Enlightenment.
Printed by the renowned Leiden publisher Elie Luzac, the work reflects the important role of the Dutch Republic as one of Europe’s greatest centres of free intellectual publishing during the eighteenth century
Collectors increasingly recognise that the Enlightenment was not solely represented by Voltaire, Rousseau and Diderot. Equally important were writers like Formey who sought to preserve Christian ethics while embracing reason and scholarship.
This complete four-volume set offers:
For institutions and private collectors alike, it provides an excellent example of the rich dialogue between religion and reason that shaped eighteenth-century Europe.Leiden: Elie Luzac, 1752–1758.
