Condillac, Étienne Bonnot de (1714-1780) Essai sur L'Origine des Connoissances Humaines.
Amsterdam: Mortier, 1746.
First edition, two 12mo volumes bound in full contemporary mottled sheepskin with gilt-tooled spines, half-titles present in both volumes; bindings unsophisticated and well-preserved; 6 1/2 x 3 5/8 in.
"Condillac always thinks of his work as a completion of Locke's whose Essay he held not to have gone down to the final root of the cognitive process. Locke did not go far enough, Condillac thinks, in his rejection of innate elements; he failed to trace out the origin of perception, reflection, cognition, and volition, as also the relation between the external senses, the internal sense, and the combining intellect, which he discussed as separate sources, the two former of particular, and the last of complex ideas; in short, he omitted to inquire into the origin of the first function of the soul." (Quoted from History of Modern Philosophy from Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time, by Richard Falckenberg, University of Michigan, Holt, 1893.)
