1984, ISBN: e8bbd45bc226a91da930e5547aab2f09

London: Allde, for Astley, 1592. ONE OF THE FIRST TRULY SCIENTIFIC BOOKS PUBLISHED IN ENGLAND" (WATERS). Third edition (first, 1581) of one of the greatest rarities in the entire literat… Plus…

London: Allde, for Astley, 1592. ONE OF THE FIRST TRULY SCIENTIFIC BOOKS PUBLISHED IN ENGLAND" (WATERS). Third edition (first, 1581) of one of the greatest rarities in the entire literature of navigation and magnetism, and "one of the first truly scientific books published in England" (Waters, The Art of Navigation, p. 153). "It is usual to ascribe to Galileo the development of the scientific method in the seventeenth century. It will be seen that in England the principles underlying Galileo's methods had been in practice for a quarter of a century before the great Italian rose to fame" (ibid., p. 156, note). We know of only one other 16th-century edition of The New Attractive having appeared on the market - Horblit's copy of the fourth edition (1596) (in a modern binding), offered by H. P. Kraus in Cat. 168 (ca. 1984) for $15,000. The Newe Attractive "is the first English work devoted to the use of the compass, and it contains Norman's proposal for a magnetic field of force acting independently of matter - one of the most important concepts in the history of science" (Tomash & Williams). Norman's work was issued with A Discourse of the Variation of the Compasse, the only published work of William Borough (bap. 1536-98), which was based on Richard Eden's English translation of Jean Taisnier's study of terrestrial magnetism in his Opusculum perpetua ... De natura magnetis (1562). "In 1581 Robert Norman had published The Newe Attractive; it came out with William Borough's The Variation of the Cumpas as one book. Norman's contribution described his discovery of the phenomenon of magnetic dip [now called magnetic inclination] - the deflection in the vertical plane of a pivoted compass needle towards the earth. The importance of his discovery lay not so much in the attempts it inspired to use magnetic dip as a method of position-finding at sea as in its definition of the scientific method - Norman's method of research. For Norman claimed that he had founded his arguments 'only upon experience, reason, and demonstration by exact trial and perfect experiment.' His researches were amongst those which inspired Dr. William Gilbert's and resulted in the publication of De magnete in 1600 ... In The Newe Attractive, besides describing magnetic dip, Norman discussed Borough's subject, magnetic variation [the angle between the geographic meridian and the direction of the magnetic field as indicated by a compass needle, now called magnetic declination]. Norman's researches upon this phenomenon had led him to conclude that the attempts to use variation as a means to determine longitude precisely were doomed to failure. In his opinion (which was correct), they were based upon a theory contrary to the observed and recorded facts relating to the distribution of variation over the surface of the globe. As this conclusion was contrary to that of many scholars and navigators, Norman showed unusual intellectual impartiality and courage in publishing it. Like Borough he believed in the necessity for more accurate instruments with which to measure variation and in the need to collect and study systematically the observations recorded, in order to provide a firmer basis for determining the truth about its distribution. In his pamphlet Borough described not only new instruments for finding variation but also, for the first time in any English book, the results of his scientific measurements and the various ways in which variation could be measured. In doing so, Borough introduced English seamen for the first time to spherical trigonometry in print. He also gave them a detailed criticism of the plane sea-chart and of the hydrographical expedients adopted in its construction" (Waters, English Navigation Books, p. 35). OCLC lists, in the US, 2 copies of the first edition (1581), 4 of the second (1585), 2 of the third (1592) (New York Public and Wisconsin-Madison), and 2 of the fourth (1596). Provenance: John Scott (1830-1903) and Robert Lyons Scott (1871-1939), shipbuilders, the latter's gift in 1921 to The Royal Institution of Naval Architects, Scott Library Collection, with book label; Christie's London, Scott Library sale, 4-5 December 1974, lot 354 to Traylen, £1900 = $4560. Robert Norman (fl. 1560-1585) served at sea for 18 or 20 years before settling in the seafaring district of Ratcliff, on the north bank of the Thames, London, as a maker of navigational instruments, and in particular marine compasses. Norman belonged to a class of men who were coming to play an increasingly important role in the wider rise of science: intelligent, ingenious craftsmen, sailors and travellers who, while not 'learned' in the sense of having received a Latinate classical education, were to approach the study of natural phenomena from an original viewpoint, based not on philosophical analysis of classical sources but on practical experience. They formed that cadre of men whose praises were soon to be sung by William Gilbert, Francis Bacon, and the early fellows of the Royal Society. But there was a tension between 'mathematical practitioners' such as Norman, and the university men. This was laid bare in the preface to The Newe Attractive, in which Norman delivers a thinly-veiled rebuke to Thomas Digges who, in his Addition to the 1576 edition of his father Leonard's A Prognostication everlastinge gave, as well as the first detailed and illustrated description in English of the Copernican system, a discourse on the variation of the compass and on the errors in English navigational practice. Digges denied the then prevalent theory that a compass always points to a single attractive point (the magnetic north pole), stating that this was inconsistent with observations, and instead proposed a purely geometrical model of variation. Digges also wished to reserve for mathematically-trained men like himself the right to form theories of effects such as variation: 'it may be said by the learned in the mathematicalls ... that this is no question or matter for a mechanician or mariner to meddle with, no more than is the finding of the longitude, for that it must be handled exquisitely by geometrical demonstration and arithmetical calculation, in which arts they would have all mechanicians and seamen to be ignorant.' Norman did not dispute the validity of Digges's listing of navigational errors or argue against his hypothesis of variation. Rather, he contended that mechanicians not only have the right but many also have the ability to make their own intellectual and empirical contributions. Learned authors such as Digges, 'being in their studies amongst their books can imagine great matters and set down their conceipts in fair show and with plausible words', but they should not expect to parasitically exploit their more humble compatriots.' According to Norman, the learned wished 'that all mechanicians were such as for want of utterance should be forced to deliver unto them their knowledge and conceipts, that they might flourish upon them and apply them at their pleasures'. Norman was rejecting Digges's crude demarcation between expert mathematicians and gross mariners. The Newe Attractive was intended to demonstrate that the mechanician need not be an inarticulate drudge but could legitimately participate in both the pleasures of discovery and the publication of results. "As Norman's title-page proclaimed, The Newe Attractive contained a short discourse on the lodestone, its location, varieties, colour, attractive properties, and so on, and also a 'newe discovered secret', that of dip - the declining of a magnetized compass needle below the horizontal plane. After dealing with theories on the attractive point, Norman described in his third chapter how '... I found continually that ... the North point ... would bende under the Horizon', that is, the compass needle, when suspended at its mid-point would dip or incline downwards, with its north end down ... He therefore devised a series of experiments to find out the cause. By them he proved that the cause was ... some attractive power on the earth. He then devised a dip-circle and measured the angle of dip for London, which he gave accurately as 71°50'. The discovery of dip excited for many years the hope that it would be able to be used for the determination of latitude, and thus avoid celestial observations and the accompanying calculations, or be useful in thick weather, just as it was hoped to use variation to determine longitude" (Waters, The Art of Navigation, pp. 153-4). A similar logic was to lie behind Edmond Halley's magnetic surveys of the Atlantic, over a century later. "Turning his critical powers to the problem of variation, Norman showed in his ninth chapter ... that variation was not 'by proportion', the theory upon which rested the current hopes of longitude-finding by variation, By this theory variation was supposed to be due to the eccentricity [location] of the magnetic pole or 'attractive point'. This Mercator located 16° and William Borough 16°22' distant from the geographical pole on the meridian of longitude of St. Michael's in the Azores, along which meridian the variation was supposed to be nil. [Moving east or west of this meridian, the variation was supposed to increase steadily,] the amount varying, owing to the eccentricity of the attractive point, according to the latitude. Consequently, ... if you could find your latitude, which was easy, and your variation, which was not difficult, you could straightaway find your longitude ... But Robert Norman pointed out that the observed vagaries of variation near N. W. America and N. E. Russia showed that, in fact, there was no such proportional variation ... "Importance is added to The Newe Attractive by what appears to be the earliest diagram to show the effect of variation on compass direction ... Norman was the originator of 'the double fly' method of explaining and indicating variation ... Besides this practical aid to the navigator, Norman has in his tenth chapter what must have been equally valuable. This is a commentary upon 'the common Compasses, and of the divers different sortes and makinges of them with the inconveniences that maie growe by them, and the plattes [charts] made by them'. In the ninth chapter he has already shown that the common compass very nearly indicated true north, because it 'hath the Needle set in the Flie, half a pointe to the Eastwards of the North' to allow for variation. He has also explained that others had it set off three-quarters or even a whole point, and others again had it set directly under the ... North of the Compass' ... as Norman explained, these compasses had been long used and charts had been drawn 'every one according to the Compasse of that Country'. Many seamen used English compasses with Levant charts and as a result 'made but wide reckonyngs'" (ibid., pp. 154-5). The New Attractive was dedicated to William Borough {1536-99), who was described as the prime stimulus to Norman's discovery of magnetic dip. The extent of their cooperation is attested by the circumstances of publication: Norman's book did not appear alone but, bound with it, was Borough's only publication, A Discourse of the Variation of the Compass or Magnetical Needle. William Borough was brought up in a seafaring family. In 1553, aged sixteen, he was serving under his brother Stephen on the first English voyage in search of the north-east passage. Although no route was found to the fabled riches of the east, this voyage laid the foundations for the Muscovy Company's trade with Russia, and William quickly became one of the Company's principal navigating masters. After rising to prominence in these trading voyages. Borough transferred his services to the crown, occupying a sequence of administrative positions on the Navy Board from the beginning of the 1580s onwards. Respected for his navigational expertise, Borough also offered advice on various other technical matters such as the design of ships. Borough was also called on as a commander, and he often acted as an admiral or vice-admiral in royal warships. In 1598, Borough could look back on a career exemplary for its upward mobility. He was Controller of the Navy, was entitled to bear arms and had taken the Lady Jane Wentworth as his second wife. But Borough was more than just a successful navigator making his way into the Elizabethan high establishment. His publication of the 1581 Discourse made clear his intellectual commitment to the mathematical arts, and this text was only the most visible index of his long-term endeavours in navigation and hydrography. "The Discourse opens with definitions and a discussion of the variation instrument commercially available at Robert Norman's house at Ratcliffe. (Borough also added his own newly improved variation instrument at the end of the book). There then follows a series of chapters on different methods of determining variation. These chapters are arranged in order of mathematical sophistication, from the equal altitude observational method, through the use of the globe as a conceptual and computational aid, to techniques which demanded competence in the spherical trigonometry more typically associated with mathematical astronomy. "Borough recommended that his readers follow whichever methods best suited their interests and abilities. For an ordinary mariner, the method of observing the sun at equal altitudes in both the morning and afternoon involved no more mathematical sufficiency than addition and subtraction [the geographical meridian was then the mid-point between those two observations]. Equally, the interests of the expert mathematician were accommodated, for Borough was very far from ignorant in the 'geometrical demonstration and arithmetical sinical calculations' that Digges had dictated as essential. Borough was comfortable with the Latin mathematics of Regiomontanus, Copernicus, Rheticus and Rheinhold. Indeed, the more advanced aspects of Borough's presentation may have served not just as an exposition of mathematical procedures but also as a means of heading off the possibility of mathematical attack. Certainly, these chapters were later viewed rather as ingenious exercises than practical techniques, even in a learned text such as William Gilbert's De Magnete. "Borough thus endeavoured to draw in all the relevant constituencies to whom appeal could be made. But it is clear that his sympathies lay more with those who practised than studied. Just as Digges had enumerated errors in the contemporary practice of mariners, so Borough conversely took a certain pugnacious pleasure in highlighting difficulties with the texts and maps of noted continental authorities. Even though he otherwise admired their learning, Borough found faults with particular points in Petrus Nonius [Pedro Nunes] and Gerard Mercator, while more sweeping criticism was reserved for Guillaume Postel, Michiel Coignet, an, Allde, for Astley, 1592, 0, Leiden: Joannes Maire, 1637. FIRST EDITION. 4to. pp. 78, [ii], 413, [xxxv]. a-k4, A-3K4. Roman Letter, some Italic. Small woodcut printer's device on title-page, woodcut initials, very numerous woodcut diagrams in text some full page, extensive early pencil annotations and markings, mostly emphasising passages with various markings (trefoils, "NB", "Q", "n", underlinings, etc.), note in French on rear endpaper citing a passage on the action of seawater, autograph 'Thomas Henshaw' (1618-1700), faded pencil inscription on title-page, most probably the author of the annotations, 'Gaddesden Park' in pencil on flyleaf with shelf mark above, Gaddesden Library armorial bookplate, of Sir T.F. Halsey, below. Light age yellowing, tiny single worm hole through to quire L, another in lower blank margin to G, small closed tear to foot of R2. A very good, fresh copy, crisp and clean in very good contemporary English calf, covers bordered with a double blind rule, spine with raised bands, later black morocco gilt label and gilt ruling, a.e.r., joints rubbed,tiny single wormholes in spine. First edition of Descartes' most important and influential work of philosophy and scientific methodology, one of the most influential philosophical treatises of the modern age, with exceptional contemporary provenance that gives tremendous insight into the book's reception into English intellectual circles at the foundation of the Royal Society. Descartes stated that knowledge must be based on the experience of the mind which led to the famous quote for which Descartes is best known, "je pense, donc je suis". His method essentially involved reducing problems down to simpler questions and then building them back up again to more complex queries. The Discours was issued with three other mathematical treatises which Descartes stated would demonstrate his method, as he believed it was more important to show practice than theory. The Cartesian method is outlined in the Four Rules presented in Book II. Books III and IV contain discussions of metaphysics and physiology, the latter of which includes a reference to Harvey's discovery of the circulation of blood. The appended essays on optics, meteorology, and geometry demonstrate the type of results that can be obtained by employing his rules of scientific investigation. His essay on optics contains important observations and experiments on refraction as well as one of the earliest mentions of Snell's law of refraction. His brilliant treatise on geometry laid the foundation for analytic geometry."It is no exaggeration to say that Descartes was the first of modern philosophers and one of the first of modern scientists; in both branches of learning his influence has been vast. Although his scope was less comprehensive than Bacon's, his great predecessor seems nearer to medieval than modern learning by comparison. The revolution he caused can be most easily found in his reassertion of the principle (lost in the Middle Ages) that knowledge, if it is to have any value, must be intelligence and not erudition. His application of modern algebraic arithmetic to ancient geometry created the analytical geometry which is the basis of the post-Euclidean development of that science. His statement of the elementary laws of matter and movement in the physical universe, the theory of vortices, and many other speculations threw light on every branch of science from optics to biology. Not least may be remarked his discussion of Harvey's discovery of the circulation of blood, the first mention of it by a prominent foreign scholar. All this found its starting-point in the "Discourse on the Method for Proper Reasoning and Investigating Truth in the Sciences'. Descartes's purpose is to find the simple indestructible proposition which gives to the universe and thought their order and system. From these central propositions in logic, metaphysics and physics came the subsequent inquiries of Locke, Leibniz and Newton; from them stem all of modern scientific and philosophic thought" (PMM 129).Remarkable contemporary provenance with most interesting and important annotations. The natural philosopher Thomas Henshaw (16181700) inscribed his name on the title of this book and almost certainly made the annotations. He was an English lawyer, courtier, diplomat and scientific writer. While not a published alchemist, he was a significant figure in English alchemical work from the 1650s onwards; he is known to have used the pen-name "Halophilus". Both his mother and his father were described by Hartlib as 'great chemists', and he had a lifelong commitment to the new learning. He spent a period from late 1644 as the travelling companion of John Evelyn, whom he had encountered at Pisa.They visited Athanasius Kircher's rooms in Rome together. Evelyn, Henshaw and Francis Bramston were then together at Padua. At the end of the 1640s Henshaw left Paris, where he had been staying, to return to England. He spent much of the 1650s engaged in intellectual pursuits as part of a circle of alchemists and natural philosophers, before returning to public life in the 1660s. He had been taught by William Oughtred and his library of alchemical works was used by his friend Elias Ashmole; he was also a founding member of the Royal Society and published a number of treatises in the Philosophical Transactions. His daughter Anne married into the Halsey family of Gaddesden, Hertfordshire, (bookplate) where this book remained for more than 300 years. USTC 1011874. Dibner, Heralds of Science 81. Grolier/Horblit 24. Guibert, Bib. Descartes 1. Krivatsky 3114. Norman 621. Printing and the Mind of Man 129. Plomer II, pp. 149 150., Joannes Maire, 1637, 0<