165
166
165 WALLACE, Robert. A Dissertation on the Numbers of Mankind in antient and modern Times. Edinburgh: for G. Hamilton and J. Balfour, 1753 A DIRECT INFLUENCE ON HUME AND MALTHUS First edition, an important influence on the demographic work of both David Hume and Thomas Malthus. Robert Wallace (1697–1771) was a figure of the Scottish Enlightenment, founding member of the Rankenian Club during his university days and was active in the Philosophical and Select societies. His elaborate history of population was based on the extensive research in ancient history that he had originally presented to the Philosophical Society some time before 1745. Wallace opened his argument with a hypothetical model for the geometrical rate of world population growth, indicating that present world population was far below its potential. As Wallace was completing work on the Dissertation in 1751 he showed it to fellow Philosophical Society member David Hume, who reciprocated with the essay he published in the Political Discourses of 1752: “Of the populousness of ancient nations”. Hume argued that population estimates in ancient sources were unlikely to be as accurate as modern assessments, but he graciously acknowledged his debt to Wallace, to which Wallace replied in the lengthy appendix here. “This polite exchange was widely celebrated as a model for the pursuit of truth in an enlightened age” ( ODNB ). Wallace’s emphasis on the geometrical rate of population growth was a direct influence on Thomas Malthus’s population calculus in the Essay on the Principle of Population . In the preface to the second edition of the Essay , Malthus names Wallace among the four authors who led him to the population question. Octavo (195 × 118 mm). Contemporary sprinkled calf, red morocco spine label. 19th-century armorial bookplate pasted over earlier ownership signature to front pastedown; some contemporary
underlining in ink and a few contemporary annotations. Light wear to tips, a few marks to covers, faint creasing and tiny blemishes to a few pages, marginal strip torn away from p. 299 not affecting text. A very nice copy. ¶ ESTC T145322; Goldsmiths’ 8782; Higgs 619; Kress 5318. £1,100 [127137] 166 WALRAS, Léon. Études d’économie sociale. Lausanne & Paris: F. Rouge, F. Pichon, 1896 FROM PURE TO APPLIED ECONOMICS First edition of one of Walras’s major contributions to his economico-social doctrine, based on lectures which he held at the University of Lausanne during the years of 1870 through 1892, and marking a shift in his focus to applied rather than pure economics. Walras’s main interest had previously been in pure theory, which he had presented in Eléments d’Economie politique pure (1874–77), and in which field Schumpeter called him “the greatest of all economists” (cited in Blaug). In this work, and in his following Etudes d’Economie politique appliquée (1898), Walras moved to issues of applied economics and social economics, reviving activity he began when he was young. Octavo. Original green wrappers lettered in black, professionally rebacked preserving the original spine. Housed in a custom solander box, with green morocco spine label. With 3 diagrams, of which one folding. Leaf and wrapper extremities lightly toned; an excellent copy. ¶ Blaug, Great Economists before Keynes ; Einaudi 5970; Masui 537; Mattioli 3800; The New Palgrave III, p. 863; Sraffa 6248; Walker 194. £4,250 [97679] 167 WARREN, Robert Penn. Who Speaks for the Negro? New York: Random House, 1965
WEALTH AND WELFARE
94
Made with FlippingBook Online newsletter maker