"THE WILL OF THE STATE IS BUT THE SUM OF THE INDIVIDUAL WILLS THAT CONSTITUTE IT": PUFENDORF'S WHOLE DUTY OF MAN, 1691 FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH

PUFENDORF, Samuel. The Whole Duty of Man, According to the Law of Nature. London: Printed by Benj. Motte, for Charles Harper, 1691. Octavo, contemporary full dark brown mottled calf, raised bands. $7500.

First edition in English of this practical abstract of Pufendorf’s earlier landmark work, On the Law of Nature and Nations (1672), in contemporary calf.

A landmark in the German Enlightenment, "the De Jure Naturae is a large work in eight books which presents an entire system of jurisprudence, private, public and international, based on the conception of natural law. Pufendorf was a disciple of Grotius, and was considered of first rank by Kent" (NYU 578). Pufendorf "teaches that the will of the state is but the sum of the individual wills that constitute it, and that this association explains the state. In this a priori conception… he shows himself as one of the precursors of J. J. Rousseau and of the Contrat social. Pufendorf powerfully defends the idea that international law is not restricted to Christendom, but constitutes a common bond between all nations because all nations form part of humanity" (Britannica). First published in German in 1672 (and in English in 1703), this work was "received with great favor and commented upon by the learned throughout all Europe" (Marvin 593-4).

In the present work, The Whole Duty of Man, Pufendorf extracts material from De Jure Naturae—which was not published in English until 1703—to outline a more focused study of "one's duties as a human being, acquired by the use of reason, [and] distinguished from knowledge of one's duties as a citizen, as determined by the civil law of one's country" (Brown, et al., 318). First published in Sweden, in Latin, in 1673. Bound with leaf of publisher's advertisements at rear. Wing P4182. ESTC R17921. Brown, Nardin & Rengger, International Relations in Political Thought (2002). With the 20th-century bookplate of the Fox Pointe Manor library of Howard and Linda Krohl, as well as that of businessman and author George Armin Goyder (1908-97). Penciled annotations to rear flyleaf and free endpaper.

Endpapers and flyleaves tanned; faint dampstain to lower corner of several interior leaves of generally clean text, light rubbing and scuffs to sound and attractive binding. A desirable, extremely good copy in unrestored contemporary calf.