La Chambre, Marin Cureau De (1594-1669)

Art De Connoistre Les Hommes

      1660. Acceptable Amsterdam: Chez Iacques le Jeune, 1660. 1st Edition. [8]+431+[7]pp. Engraved title-page. 12mo. Attractively rebound in later 20th century calf-backed marbled boards with morocco spine label and raised spine bands. Lacks the last leaf of the table-of-contents at the rear, else an attractive copy in a pleasant modern binding. Uncommon. Translated into English in 1665 as The Art How to Know Men. Wellcome II, p. 419; Caillet 2728. 10.0 ounces = 285 grams. 5.9 x 3.6 x 1.0 inches = 14.8 x 9 x 2.5cm. An important 17th century French work on character. Both this and La Chambre's Les caracteres des passions (Amsterdam: 1658-63) are significant period contributions to psychology. Writing in an age when science and pseudoscience still weren't separate, La Chambre wrote works on the passions, chiromancy, light and rainbows, and animal rationality. La Chambre was physician to Chancellor Seguier, as well as to Louis XIII & Louis XIV. He was one of the early members of the French Academy in 1635, and later in 1666 one of the first members of the Academy of Sciences. He had been a protoge of Cardinal Richelieu, who approved the fact that as early as 1634 he chose to publish in French rather than Latin.