Oxford: L. LICHFIELD FOR R. YOUNG & E. FORREST, 1640. First edition. Second issue with no printed title and the colophon dated 1640. Bound in contemporary full calf with six raised bands and red morocco spine label. Old leather repairs to the spine ends and engraved frontis portrait mounted and laid down. Armorial bookplate of Edward Dalton L.L.D F.S.A. Folio (pages 282 x 185 mm) collating complete: [38], 60, [14], 352, 351-477, [21], including engraved frontispiece portrait and pictorial title by William Marshall. Internal contents are clean and fresh.

First published in Latin with the title "De Dignitate & Augmentis Scientiarum" in 1623, the work was a greatly extended version of his earlier "The Advancement of Learning," and contains the first part of the monumental "Instauratio." Bacon surveys the sciences employing a classification system based on the faculties and objects of human knowledge, a system upon which Diderot based his Encyclopédie. STC 1167.3; Madan p. 217; Gibson 141b; PMM 119.
Item #663