Toussaint

15630 — No place, 1748. 2 works bound in 1 volume. (4), (30), (1)-106 pp.; (2), (107)-334 pp.; (2), (335)-474 pp.; (1), 45 pp. 12mo. Contemporary calf, spine gilt with raised bands, red label with gilt lettering, lightly rubbed along joints and head and foot of spine. First work: Conlon 48 :803; Cioranescu, iii, 1720; Peignot, Livres condamnés, ii, 162-3; Le Bucher bibliographique, 798; INED 4344. First issue of the first edition. Inspired by Diderot's Pensées. The author, one of Diderot's friends, denounces in this work a.o. death-penalty, which he considers a defiance of Natural Law. ' .... François-Vincent Toussaint and his famous book Les Moeurs, published in 1748 and condemned on 6 May of that year by the Parlement of Paris. Les Moeurs was one of the first (and therefore one of the boldest) works in the eighteenth century to set forth the arguments for a natural morality unbolstered by any religious belief or public cult' (Arthur M. Wilson, Diderot, pp. 53-54). 'Tout le monde, homme et femme, se piquant un peu de quelque sort d'esprit dans un certain monde, voulut voir ce livre. Chacun se demandait: Avez-vous lu le livre des Moeurs? Un seul exemplaire passait rapidement dans plusieurs mains' (Belin, Mouvement philosophique, vol. i, p. 26).Second work: Conlon 48: 188.This work is not by Toussaint.