B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S A U G U S T 2 0 2 3 25 "THE MOST WORTHY… OF THE GREAT PHILOSOPHERS": BEAUTIFUL 1768 EDITION OF LOCKE'S COLLECTED WORKS, THE FIRST FOURVOLUME, FIRST QUARTO EDITION 25. LOCKE, John. The Works of John Locke. London: H. Woodfall, et al., 1768. Four volumes. Large quarto (91/2 by 11-1/2 inches), period-style full marbled calf gilt, raised bands, red and black morocco spine labels, marbled endpapers and edges. $7500 Seventh edition, the first quarto edition, first four-volume edition, of Locke's collected Works, with copper-engraved frontispiece portrait, a handsomely bound set. "Locke had a formative influence on the principles of the Declaration of Independence and of the early state constitutions" (Covenanted People 37). Jefferson, who had a fifth edition of the Works in his library, "ranked Locke with Bacon and Newton as the three greatest men that have ever lived, without any exception" (Sowerby 1362; emphasis in original). This massive first quarto edition contains the immensely important Two Treatises of Government, "the basis of the principles of democracy," as well as Locke's letters on Toleration and The Reasonableness of Christianity. Also included is the groundbreaking Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, "the first modern attempt" to analyze human knowledge (PMM 193, 194). "John Locke is the most worthy… of the indisputably great philosophers. His influence has been enormous." In his famous tribute, Voltaire observed, "Many a philosopher has written the tale of the soul's adventures, but now a sage has appeared who has, more modestly, written its history. Locke has developed human reason before men, as an excellent anatomist unfolds the mechanism of the human body. Aided everywhere by the torch of physics, he dares at times to affirm, but he also dares to doubt. Instead of collecting in one sweeping definition what we do not know, he explores by degrees what we desire to know" (Seymour-Smith, 242, 245). Stated "Seventh Edition": second issue with title pages reading "Volume the First" ("Second," "Third," "Fourth") instead of "Volume I" ("II," "III," "IV"), among other minor changes. Volume I with copper-engraved portrait of Locke after Kneller, by Cipriani and Basire. Occasional mispagination as issued without loss of text. "The first collected edition [in three folio volumes] bears the publication date of 1714" (Yolton, 400). Only very infrequent minor marginal soiling. A handsomely bound set in fine condition.
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