De la recherche de la vérité.

First edition of Nicolas de Malebranche's debut work and magnum opus, complete with the folding plate facing p. 64 and the zoomorphic, foliate, and figural headpieces and historiated initials throughout. A second volume would complete this first edition in 1675.

Contemporary brown calf binding, spine with five raised bands, gilt fillet-ruled compartments with fleuron tools and gilt title, gilt roll on the board edges.

Head cap lacking, tail cap damaged; wear to the hinges, which are also cracked 3.1 cm and 2.5 cm at the lower and upper extremities respectively; a small hole on the hinge adjoining the upper board; scattered scuffs to the slightly warped boards; corners worn.

Marginal browning to the opening leaves; dampstaining to the upper margin throughout; ink offset to the final leaves.

Scattered foxing.

A copy with manuscript annotations and underlining in brown ink and pencil throughout the preface.

"Of all Malebranche's works, La Recherche de la Vérité is the most thoroughly imbued with Cartesianism, as its very title attests. Descartes is the author of a dialogue entitled 'The Search for Truth by the Light of Nature,' and in the Stockholm inventory the 'Rules for the Direction of the Mind' are described as 'Useful and Clear Rules for the Direction of the Mind in the Search for Truth.' We know that before 1674 Malebranche had read this text, unpublished at the time, but almost certainly communicated to him by Clerselier, and that he drew upon passages from it which are not mentioned either in the Port-Royal 'Logic' or by Fr. Poisson. In titling his own work 'The Search after Truth, in which are treated the Nature of the Human Mind and the Use it Must Make of itself to Avoid Error in the Sciences,' Malebranche was thus drawing on Cartesian phrasing."

Ferdinand Alquié, 'Le cartésianisme de Malebranche,' 1974

(our own translation)