1842-1843 A Treatise on Man and the Development of his Faculties; Principles of Physiology Applied to the Preservation of Health

Description

First Edition, Illustrated, Leather Binding, Scarce

Two works bound in one. 

The first of these work is the desirable and scarce first English language translation of Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet's work, first published in the original French in 1835 as ' Sur l'homme et le développement de ses facultés, ou Essai de physique sociale'.

Quetelet outlines the project of a social physics and describes his concept of the "average man" who is characterized by the mean values of measured variables that follow a normal distribution. He prioritised averages, for example by identifying the average body as the ideal of beauty. He paved the way for the concept of eugenics.

Illustrated with seven lithograph plates to the rear. Collated, complete.

The second work bound here is the 1843 twelfth edition of Andrew Combe's 'The Principles of Physiology Applied to the Preservation of Health, and to the Improvement of Physical and Mental Education', a work discussing phrenology and human physiognomy.

Illustrated with fifteen vignette woodcuts.

With the inscription of Tho. Strong to the head of the volume I title page, and extensive former owner's notes to the verso of the contents leaf of this volume.

Quetelet's work hailed a new era of statistics, with the 'average man' becoming a popular term in the nineteenth century.