Beschreibung:

LEIBNITZ, Gottfried Wilhelm von (1646-1716)]. Essais de Theodicée sur la bonté de dieu, la liberté de l'homme et l'origine du mal . Amsterdam: Isaac Troyel, 1710. 2 parts bound in one volume, 8 o (185 x 118 mm). Collation: * 4 **-*** 8 **** 6; A-Z Aa-Ss 8 Tt 2; a-f 8 g 2; A-C 8 (*1r title, *1v contents, *2r preface, ****6v errata; A1r Discours de la conformité de la foy avec la raison , G5r Premiere partie des Essais sur la bonté de dieu, la liberté de l'homme et l'origine du mal , P2r Seconde partie des Essais... , Dd3r Troisieme partie des Essais... , Qq7r Abregé de la controverse reduite à des argumens en forme , Ss2v index; a1r Reflexions sur l'ouvrage que M. Hobbes a publié en anglois, de la liberté, de la necessité & du hazard ; A 1r section title: Causa dei asserta per justitiam ejus, cum caeteris ejus perfectionibus, cunctisque actionibus conciliatam . Amsterdam: Isaac Trojel, 1710, A 1v blank, A 2r text, C 8 blank). Engraved printer's devices on titles, woodcut headpieces. Title-page to volume II tipped in before P2, folding letterpress table following C 7. (H5 with marginal repair affecting last letters in 6 lines of text, browning and spotting.) Contemporary calf (hinges weak, spine largely perished); folding cloth case. Provenance : ?D. Pancoug: signature and inscription on title -- deleted signature on flyleaf -- Thomas Lynn Bristowe: armorial bookplate -- [Lathrop Harper] FIRST EDITION OF THE ONLY MAJOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORK BY LEIBNITZ PUBLISHED IN HIS LIFETIME. "In the preface to the Théodicée , Leibniz declares that there are two famous labyrinths in which our reason goes astray: the one relates to the problem of liberty (which is the principal subject of the Théodicée ), the other to the problem of continuity and the antimonies of the infinite" (DSB). The work was composed with the encouragement of Sophia Charlotte of Brandenburg, who wished a reply to Pierre Bayle's view that faith and reason are in opposition. Leibnitz himself sought to reconcile philosophy and theology and to combine physics and metaphysics. The work includes a reply to the views of Thomas Hobbes on liberty, and a brief essay on the qualities of the deity. PMM 177.