Political Science or, The State. Theoretically and Practically Considered

New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Company, 1878 [1877]. First Edition. Two tall octavo volumes (24cm). Publishers brown pebbled cloth, titled in gilt on spines; x,584,(5) + vi,626,(2)pp. Gift inscription to each volume, "To Dave," dated 1877. Printed bookplate of Rev. George [Dering] Wolff to both pastedowns (see note below). Light rubbing and wear to boards; front free endpaper of v.1 with a circular loss at center, the result of adhesion to the flyleaf, where paper residue obscures a portion of the gift inscription. Bookplate in v.1 with rough erasure. Texts very fresh, mostly unopened; still Very Good overall.

Woolsey's most important contribution to scholarship, written following his long tenure as President of Yale College (1846-1871). As a political philosopher, Woolsey attempted to bridge the gap between natural law (he asserted the State has a "divine" origin) and the legal positivism of such near-contemporaries as John Austin. These attempts were not entirely successful, and as the doctrine of natural law was very much out of academic favor by the 1870s Woolsey's work was, in the words of his DAB biographer Harry Ellwood Starr, "severely criticized as unscientific in treatment and based upon theological assumptions." Later assessments were less damning, however, and Woolsey, even if anachronistic, has remained a source of validation for contemporary advocates of common law and state-supported religion.

This set from the library of prominent American German Reformed minister George Dering Wolff (1822-1894). Wolff was a late convert to Catholicism, after which he became the editor of two Catholic quarterlies, most notably the American Catholic Quarterly Review, which he helped to found in 1876 and for which he served as editor and regular contributor until his death.