Essai sur La Différence du nombre des Hommes dan les Tems Anciens et Modernes, Dans lequel on établit qu'il étoit plus considérable dan l'Antiquité. Traduit de l'Anglois de M. R. Wallace, Chapelain de S. M. B. & Membre de Societé Philosophique d'Edimbourg. Par M. de Joncourt, Professeur de Langues Etrangeres à Paris.
A Londres: 1754. First French translation. Front joint slightly wormed and worn at base, corners lightly worn. Still, a handsome copy. Contemporary French sheepskin, spine ornately gilt in compartments to a thistle motif, morocco label. Edges stained red. Octavo. [1], ii leaves, 292 pp. Item #11739
This work opposed Hume’s views on the population issue and contributed to the European debate in which Montesquieu (whose influence on Wallace is evident in his Persian Letters and The Spirit of Laws) championed the greater populousness of the ancient world, while Voltaire, like Hume, adopted a more sceptical position, waxing ironical at Wallace’s expense in his article on population in the Dictionnaire philosophique” (Norah Smith in Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century British Philosophers).
See Chuo University, David Hume and the eighteenth century British Thought, 222, for commentary on the first edition. Kress 5408.
Price: $950.00