HARTSOEKER Nicolas. Cours de Physique accompagné de plusieurs pièces concernant la Physique qui ont déja paru, et d’un Extrait critique des lettres de M. Leeuwenhoek. La Haye, Jean Swart, 1730.

3 parts in 1 vol. 4° di mm. 260 x 195, pp. 46, 323; pp. 9, 120; pp. 66, 2. With copper plates out text, 1 vignette and many illustrations within the text. Ancient full calf binding, spine with 5 ribs.

First posthumous edition of the Cours de Physique, accompanied by the Recueil de plusieurs pièces de Physique, during which the on fait principalement voir the Invalidité du Système de M. Newton. Et où se trouve, entre autres, une Dissertation sur la Peste ... Seconde édition, [already appeared in 1722], which constitutes the second part; then follows the Extrait critique des Lettres de feu M. Leeuwenhoeh, dedicated to research in the field Hartsoeker embryological, and addressed to various scientists of the time. Babson Coll. [Suppl.], P. 14: "An important posthumous work of the famous Dutch physician, who was the first to study the construction of the microscope ... The book is divided into parts dealing with the basic principles of physics, the nature of air, fire, water, glass, and lodestone, the ocean, astronomical bodies, and the origin of rivers, wells and fountains. Following this ... [are] several pieces critising the Newtonian theory ". Nicolas Hartsoeker [1656-1725], the Dutch scientist ingenuity fervent and often imaginative, bizarre and moods, is best known for his research in the field of embryology [identified under the microscope, in the semen, what he called animal sperm, thus producing all the theories that animalculistiche impervesarono until Spallanzani]. He was an opponent of Newtonian physics and the theory of emptiness; equally hostility to the Cartesian philosophy. He became simultaneously appreciate and hate from the major scientists of the [Cassini, Leeuwenhoek, Bernoulli, Leibnitz], and it was very bound of friendship with his father Malebranche and the Marquis de l'Hospital. Peter the Great, as you have recognized in Amsterdam, asked him to follow him in Russia; Hartsoeker but would not leave his city.Nice specimen, slight sign of yellowing. The lot is offered with a valid export licence.

Bierens de Haan, n. 1937; Poggendorff, I/1026.