Studies in the Theory of Descent

London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1882

FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH of Weismann's Studien zur Descendez-Theorie (1875-1876).

Weismann described the seasonal dimorphism of butterflies and then first proposed his theory of the mechanism of heredity. This theory is now called “blastogenesis”. This theory holds that inheritance takes place exclusively through the germ plasm and that none of the other cells of the body pass genetic information to germ cells. This means that the characteristics acquired during life are not transmitted onto the next generation. This is in direct conflict with Lamarckian evolutionary theory and Darinʼs earlier theory of “pangenesis”. Charles Darwin was very supportive of Weismannʼs work and wrote the introduction to this book.

Octavo. Two volumes, early half-calf over brown boards.

$600

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Evidence of Man's Place in Nature

FIRST EDITION (precedes the English edition of the same year). “Huxley wages his struggle [in favor of Darwinʼs theory of evolution] in the pages of his book--in its metaphors and myths, in its rhythms and repetitions, in its images and instructions. ʻThe difference between Man and Ape is less than the difference between Ape and Monkeyʼ--over and over the lesson is repeated, like on of the slogans in the Brave New World of Huxleyʼs grandson Aldous.” –Misia Landau, Narratives of Human Evolution Small 8vo. Original cloth, original spine lablel. Spine ends chipped, spine label and extremities lightly rubbed. Clean throughout. A very attractive copy. Synthesis of the anatomic and embryological evidence of human evolution. Contains a precursor to the “man evolved from apes” theory, noting the resemblance of manʼs skeleton to that of an ape. This predated Darwinʼs Descent of Man by 8 years.

$750

Three Papers by William and John Hercshel

First printings of three important papers demonstrating the universal validity of Newton's laws of gravity and motion. Extracted from Philosophical Transactions 93, pt2; 94, pt. 2; 114, pt. 3.Isaac Newton developed the laws of physics (motion and gravity) from observations on earth and the motions of the moon and planets within the solar system, and though scientists believed these laws to be universal, it was more than 100 years before they were demonstrated to hold outside the solar system. William Herschel published the results of a 25 year program of measuring the motion of binary stars in in two parts, in 1803 and 1804. He was able to demonstrate that orbital motion of these double stars obeyed Newton’s law of gravity and motion, thus providing the first scientific evidence of the validity of the laws of physics outside our solar system. More than 20 years later in 1824, William Herschel’s son John Frederick William Herschel (1792–1871) published an even larger study of the motion of double stars (360 in all) that supported his father’s earlier work. “Account of the Changes that have Happened, During the Last Twenty-five Years, in the Relative Situation of Double-Stars, with an Investigation of the Cause to which they are Owing” by William Herschel (Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 93 Part 2 pp. 339-382, 1803)“Continuation of an Account of the Changes That Have Happened in the Relative Situation of Double Stars” by William Herschel (Extract from Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 94 Part II pp. 353-384, 1804)“Observations of the Apparent Distances and Positions of 380 Double and Triple Stars, Made in the Years 1821, 1822, and 1823, and Compared with Those of Other Astronomers; Together with an Account of Such Changes as Appear to Have Taken Place in Them Since Their First Discovery. Also a Description of a Five-Feet Equatorial Instrument Employed in the Observations” by John Herschel (Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 114 Part 3, 1824) Very good condition. The first and third extracts are untrimmed and bound in early paper wraps; the second is a more recent extract and lacks wrappers. All are housed in an attractive custom clamshell box.

$1,500

The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication

FIRST AMERICAN EDITION. In this work, Darwin first proposed his theory of pangenesis as the mechanism of heredity. The theory holds that body cells shed “gemmules” that collect in the reproductive organs, thus transmitting their characteristics to the next generation. Mendelʼs theory of genetics supplanted this theory in the early 1900s. Octavo, two volumes. Original green cloth. Light wear at head of both volumes; light spotting to spine of volume II. Cloth generally clean. An attractive set.

$450

Bryan and Darrow at Dayton: The Bible Evolution Trial

FIRST EDITION. Contains full record (with commentary) of the famous Scopes Monkey Trial.“The Eugenics Society officially endorsed sterilization in June 1926. Prior to this it had been nominally neutral on the issue, although in practice firmly supporting sterilization. By 1926 the scene was set for a more aggressive push. Leonard Darwinʼs big book The Need for Eugenic Reform came out in that year. It was an earnest work that comprehensively set out the wide gamut of arguments for and against eugenics, and sterilization, and it had a generally good reception.” –David Paul Crook, Darwinʼs Coat-Tails: Essays on Social DarwinismOctavo, original green cloth.

$75

Die Lehre von der Pflanzenzelle

FIRST EDITION. Hofmeister describes the fundamental structures and processess of the cell, and gives the first account of what later became known as chromosomes. Hofmeister's work inspired Mendel to begin the research on plant hybridization that led to Mendel's discoveries on the inheritance of traits. Large octavo. Early quarter-calf over pebbled cloth. Spine lightly rubbed; stamp at title, generally clean. A sound, attractive copy.

$125

"Relative State" Formulation of Quantum Mechanics

FIRST EDITION of the famous Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. “Many worlds” is an alternative to the Copenhagen interpretation that creates a special role of the observer by postulating the collapse of the universal wave function at every observation. Instead, Many Worlds proposes that the wave function never collapses, and views reality as a many-branched tree in which every possible outcome is realized through a splitting of reality into alternate universes – hence “many worlds.”In: Reviews of Modern Physics, vol. 29, no. 3, July, 1957, pp. 454-62, the entire issue in original orange printed wrappers offered here. Spine toned, owner signature on front wrapper, the word 'Gravitation' written in block letters at top of spine. A fresh, attractive copy.

$1,000

Hydrodynamica, sive de viribus et moribus fluidorum

FIRST EDITION of Bernoulli's masterpiece, the foundational work for hydrodynamics (a term Bernoulli invented).Bernoulli's "reputation was established in 1738 with Hydrodynamica, in which he considered the properties of basic importance in fluid flow, particularly pressure, density, and velocity, and set forth their fundamental relationship. He put forward what is called Bernoulli’s principle, which states that the pressure in a fluid decreases as its velocity increases. He also established the basis for the kinetic theory of gases and heat by demonstrating that the impact of molecules on a surface would explain pressure and that, assuming the constant, random motion of molecules, pressure and motion increase with temperature" (Britannica)."Besides introducing the first hydraulic theory of fluid flow, this book is the most remarkable general work in theoretical and applied mechanics written in the pre-Langrangean period of the 18th century, based on a deep physical understanding of mechanical phenomena and presenting many new ideas for the following scientific progress" (Mikhailov, in Landmark Writings in Western Mathematics, 1640-1940).With 12 folding engraved plates and 86 illustrations. Quarto, contemporary full calf rebacked with the original spine laid-down.

$17,000

Almagestum seu magnae constructionis mathematicae opus [Almagest]

FIRST EDITION of the first Latin translation from the original Greek text. The Almagest, written in about 150 AD, "served as the basic guide for Islamic and European astronomers until about the beginning of the 17th century. Its original name was Mathematike Syntaxis (“The Mathematical Arrangement”); Almagest arose as an Arabic corruption of the Greek word for greatest (megiste). It was translated into Arabic about 827 and then from Arabic to Latin in the last half of the 12th century. Subsequently, the Greek text circulated widely in Europe, although the Latin translations from Arabic continued to be more influential."The Almagest is divided into 13 books. Book 1 gives arguments for a geocentric, spherical cosmos and introduces the necessary trigonometry, along with a trigonometry table, that allowed Ptolemy in subsequent books to explain and predict the motions of the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars. Book 2 uses spherical trigonometry to explain cartography and astronomical phenomena (such as the length of the longest day) characteristic of various localities. Book 3 deals with the motion of the Sun and how to predict its position in the zodiac at any given time, and Books 4 and 5 treat the more difficult problem of the Moon’s motion. Book 5 also describes the construction of instruments to aid in these investigations. The theory developed to this point is applied to solar and lunar eclipses in Book 6."Books 7 and 8 mainly concern the fixed stars, giving ecliptic coordinates and magnitudes for 1,022 stars. This star catalog relies heavily on that of Hipparchus (129 bc), and in the majority of cases Ptolemy simply converted Hipparchus’s description of the location of each star to ecliptic coordinates and then shifted these values by a constant to account for precession over the intervening centuries. These two books also discuss the construction of a star globe that adjusts for precession. The remaining five books, the most original, set forth in detail geometric models for the motion of the five planets visible to the naked eye, together with tables for predicting their positions at any given time."Commissioned by Pope Nicholas V (1446-1455), translated from Greek into Latin by Georgius Trapezuntius (1396-1472), edited by Luca Gaurico (1476-1558). An earlier Latin version had appeared in 1515, but was translated from the Arabic. Norman 1760; See Stillwell 97; Wellcome 5281.Venice: Lucantonio Giunta, 1528. Tall folio (313 x 218 mm), 18th-century full vellum with ink notation on spine. Collation: A6 a-s8 (s8 blank); 149 leaves (of 150, without a blank). Title printed in red and black. Printed in Roman, Gothic and Greek types with woodcut mathematical diagrams in margins throughout. Occasional light staining, mostly to margins; small hole in q8 (affecting border of table, a likely paper flaw); repairs to hinges. A beautiful wide-margined copy.

$15,500

Island Life: Or, the Phenomena and Causes of Insula Faunas and Floras, Including a Revision and Attempted Solution of the Problem of Geo- logical Climates

FIRST EDITION of one of Wallace's most important works. Wallace's treatment of the general distribution of island plant and animal life and the influence of the glacial epochs of these distribution patterns. Included is the first theory of continental glaciation, a discussion of island classification, and a survey of worldwide island faunas and floras.Octavo. Original green cloth. 3 maps (1 chromolithograph, 2 tinted); numer wood-engraved text illustrations throughout. A clean copy throughout; very minor rubbing at extremities. A very desirable copy.

$1,400

An essay towards solving a problem in the Doctrine of Chances

First edition of Thomas Bayes's extremely influential work on the concept of "inverse probability", the basis of modern statistical inference.Bayes's paper marked “a truly Copernican revolution in statistical concept ... [It] served to embed his name in what has become ... one of the most widely known eponyms in all of science, Bayesian inference ... The ideas this essay contains have been of vast influence” (S. M. Stigler, The History of Statistics).''Bayes, a Nonconformist minister, published only two works during his lifetime: Divine Benefits (1731), a religious treatise; and Introduction to the Doctrine of Fluxions (1736), in which he responded to Bishop Berkeley's attack on the logical foundations of Newton's calculus. For the latter work he was elected a member of the Royal Society in 1742. In 1763, two years after Bayes's death, Richard Price, a fellow Nonconformist minister, economist, and actuary to whom Bayes had bequeathed his papers, found Bayes's Essay and submitted it to the Royal Society for publication. The arguments in Bayes's paper were adopted by Laplace, who saw in them the basis for statistical inference; they were later challenged by George Boole in his Laws of Thought.“Bayes’s Essay contains the first statement of Bayes's Theorem for calculating 'inverse probabilities', which forms the basis for methods of decision analysis, statistical learning machines, and Bayesian networks. Bayesian networks are complex diagrams that organise the body of knowledge in any given area by mapping out cause-and-effect relationships among key variables and encoding them with numbers that represent the extent to which one variable is likely to affect another. Programmed into computers, these systems can automatically generate optimal predictions or decisions even when key pieces of information are missing. Bayesian or subjective decision theory is arguably the most comprehensive theory of decision-making; however, until the late 1980s, it had little impact due to the stupefying complexity of the mathematics involved. The rapid advances in computing power and the development of key mathematical equations during the late 1980s and early 1990s made it possible to compute Bayesian networks with enough variables to be useful in practical applications" (Hook & Norman).With the advent of the Internet, Bayesian networks have been applied extensively to fundamental search structures. "Search giant Google and Autonomy, a company that sells information retrieval tools, both employ Bayesian principles to provide likely (but technically never exact) results to data searches. Researchers are also using Bayesian models to determine correlations between specific symptoms and diseases, create personal robots, and develop artificially intelligent devices that 'think' by doing what data and experience tell them to do" (Michael Kanellos, "18th-century theory is new force in computing").Only one other mathematical contribution of Bayes has come down to us, which appears on pp. 269-71. It is referred to by Price on p. 401 of the Essay in connection with the evaluation of factorials needed for the second rule. In this paper Bayes considers the series for log n! given by Stirling and de Moivre. He makes the important observation that "at length the subsequent terms of this series are greater than the preceding ones, and increase in infinitum, and therefore the whole series can have no ultimate value whatsoever" (p. 270). This was contrary to de Moivre's view that the series "converged, but slowly". Bayes was, in fact, the first to appreciate the asymptotic character of Stirling's series: there is now an extensive theory of such 'asymptotic series'. The present volume also contains a paper by Ferguson on the anticipated 1769 transit of Venus, which prompted Captain Cook's voyage to Tahiti, and led to the first accurate measurement of the sun's distance, illustrated with a fine large folding engraved plate.An essay towards solving a problem in the Doctrine of Chances. By the late Rev. Mr. Bayes F.R.S. Communicated by Mr. Price in a Letter to John Canton, A.M. F.R.S. in Philosophical Transactions, Vol. LIII (1763), pp. 370-418. London: L. Davis and C. Reymers, Printers to the Royal Society, 1764. With 26 engraved plates, mostly folding. Quarto, contemporary full calf rebacked. The entire volume, #53 for 1763 offered. "Belfast Society" in gilt on front board. Moderate wear to contemporary boards with renewed corners and edges; interior fine.

$8,750

Introductio in Analysin Infinitorum

FIRST EDITION of Euler's foundational work on mathematical analysis. "In his 'Introduction to Mathematical Analysis' Euler did for modern analysis what Euclid had done for ancient geometry. It contains an exposition of algebra, trigonometry and analytical geometry, both plane and solid, a definition of logarithms as exponents, and important contributions to the theory of equations. He evolved the modern exponential treatment of logarithms, including the fact that each number has an infinity of natural logarithms. In the early chapters there appears for the first time the definition of mathematical function, one of the fundamental concepts of modern mathematics. From Euler's time mathematics and physics tended to be treated algebraically, and many of his principles are still used in teaching mathematics" (PMM 196). Without the engraved portrait of the dedicatee Jean-Jacques Dortous de Mairan, possible indicating that this is an early issue. Titles in red and black with engraved vignettes, frontispiece by Soubeyran after De la Monce; with directions to the binder and 40 folding engraved plates in rear (largely unopened), woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces and chapter vignettes. Quarto, original blue wrappers with paper labels; custom cloth box. Two volumes. A few leaves with light dampstaining in outer margin, otherwise a fine, crisp uncut copy; extremely rare in original wrappers.

$12,000

Mechanique Analitique

FIRST EDITION, a foundational work in modern mechanics. "Joseph-Louis Lagrange (1736-1813) continued the work of the earlier half of the century on the calculus; he extended mathematical analysis and the theory of equations; and in 1788 he published his Mechanique Analitique, a work second only to Newton's Principia in the history of mechanics" (Goodwin, The New Cambridge Modern History). "With the appearance of the Mechanique Analitique in 1788, Lagrange proposed to reduce the theory of mechanics and the art of solving problems in that field to general formulas, the mere development of which would yield all the equations necessary for the solution of every problem... [it] united and presented from a single point of view the various principles of mechanics, demonstrated their connection and mutual dependence, and made it possible to judge their validity and scope" (DSB)."Lagrange produced his greatest work, Mecanique analytique (1788; Analytical Mechanics), in Paris. This summarized the research in mechanics since Isaac Newton, based on Lagrange's own calculus of variations, and finally placed the mechanical theory of solids and fluids on a rigorous and analytical foundation" (Biographical Encyclopedia of Scientists). Dibner 112.Quarto, contemporary mottled calf, gilt-decorated spine with morocco label. Spine ends and corners a little worn, otherwise fine.

$14,500

WEISMANN, AUGUST