Susanne Schulz-Falster Catalogue Eighteen - International League ...

81. ODOUCET, Melchior Montmignon. Science des Signes, ou
Médecine de l’Esprit, connue sous le nom d’art de tirer les Cartes;
contenant: 1. La Théorie du Livre d Thot, et la Pratique de la science
des signes ou Médecine de l’esprit. 2. Des Combinaisons scinetiques
sur le lotteries de France, et l’Interpétation des songes et visions.
Paris, chez l’auteur, n.d., [ca. 1800].
[bound after:] [WARTEL, Louis.] Les Bêtes Sensitives, par un
membre de la Société Littéraire d’Arras. [colophon:] Arras, d Michel
Nicolas, 1773.
[bound after:] DODSLEY, Robert. Oeconomie de la Vie Humaine,
Edinburgh, n.p., 1752. £1,800
Three works in one volume, 8vo, pp. [iv], engraved frontispiece,
xiv, 126, [2] advertisements, with numerous figures in the text
and 4 engraved plates; half-title signed by the author to guarantee
authenticity; 6; [ii], iv, 101, [1] blank; [iv] engraved frontispiece and
title, xxxii, 160; early nineteenth century roan-backed mottled boards;
extremities a little rubbed, but clean and crisp inside.
An interesting Sammelband of three works documenting late eighteenth
century fascination with the occult.
I. A rare treatise on occultism, magic and divination carried out with a deck
of Tarot cards, as described in the first book on esoteric Tarot (Etteilla, ou
manière de se récréer avec un jeu de cartes) which had appeared in 1785 under
susanne schulz-falster rare books catalogue eighteen
the pseudonym Etteilla, an inversion of the name of the French occultist
and populariser of Tarot, Jean Baptiste Alliette (1738–1791). In 1788
he founded the ‘Société des Interprètes du Livre de Thot’, a group of Frenchspeaking
correspondents through which he continued to disseminate his
teachings. Towards the end of his life he and his circle were interpreting
the hermetic wisdom of the Egyptian Book of Thot. All these topics
are digested in this illustrated work and Odoucet, the foremost pupil of
Alliette, puts them into the context of other hermetic authors, such as
Basilius Valentinus, Nicholas Flamel, cabbalists and Greek philosophers.
At the end is bound in a review of a three-volume work by Odoucet, written
by one Rochelim.
II. First edition of Wartel’s rare work on the question of emotions, feelings,
free will and the soul of animals. Wartel, an Arras cleric, argues against
Descartes’ determinist view of animals and mechanistic explanations of life.
Against the ‘partisans des automates’ Wartel holds his own observations of
dogs and farm animals, proves that animals have memories, emotions and
a soul. As creations of God, who is not a designer of machines, animals
cannot be regarded as soulless creatures. Even what is described as animal
instinct is ‘engraved onto their soul by the great master of nature’ (p. 25).
He gives examples of intelligent behaviour of animals from Buffon, such as
the architectural and social skills of beavers, or the wisdom of elephants. The
second half of the book consists mainly of anecdotes of domestic animals
proving the author’s point.
III. French edition with a spurious imprint of Dodsley’s popular moralistic
epistolary work, The Economy of Human Life (first, 1751). Handsomely
printed, a copy with wide margins.
I. OCLC: Weimar (1793), Yale (1790s), New York Historical Society (1785–
1795); II. Conlon 73:1387; III. ESTC T82510.
The Philosophes under Attack
82. [PALISSOT, Charles de Montenoy.] Petites Lettres sur de
grands Philosophes. Paris, n.p., 1757. £200
12mo in 8s & 4s, pp. [ii], iv, 101, small worm trace in outer lower
margin of last section; modern wrappers.
First edition of Palissot’s popular satire on the encyclopédistes, coming at the
beginning of a whole spate of attacks on philosophes. Palissot attacked the
encyclopédistes for slavishly following Bacon, made fun of their sensitivity
to criticism, accused them of becoming a ‘church, and in passing also
attacked d’Alembert for accepting a pension from France’s enemy Frederick
the Great. The dramatist Palissot (1730–1814) was a renegade from the
philosophe camp and a protégé of the highly influential Comte de Stainville,
later Duc de Choiseul.
Barbier III, 858e; Cioranescu 48774.