Le Systeme de l’ame

Paris: Jacques d’Allin, 1665. Contemporary mottled calf, spine and label gilt, edges sprinkled red. Ownership inscriptions on the title and verso, one dated 1674. Bookplate of “Pitfirrane.” In very good condition. Second edition of this pioneering work in neuropsychology. The author attempts to explain the guiding principles of human behavior and argues that life processes are responses to linking images that are innate to the organism. The text describes cognition in all living things, including plants, natural instinct, and the functions of the soul. Cureau de la Chambre’s assertion that even inanimate vegetation has the faculties of thought and soul is unique; he claims that “everything which is living knows and all that which knows is living.” He goes on to classify cognition as either the “vegetative faculty” or the “natural faculty,” the former being the body’s passive and innate mode, the latter purposeful behavior resulting from intelligence. He acknowledges the Divine role in both: God designs organisms to function effectively without active intelligence but also gives free will to some.

Marin Cureau de la Chambre (1594-1669) was a French physician. He served as royal physician to Louis XIII and Louis XIV and wrote numerous books on human and animal passions, light, digestion, and occult practice. Peter Bayle called him “one of the most illustrious 17th century followers of Aristotle. Despite his groundbreaking work in the field of psychology, he was basically forgotten to the history of medicine.

Caillet 2735; Wright, John P. “The Embodied Soul in Seventeenth-Century French Medicine” in CBMH/BCHM Vol 8: 1991, 21-42.