The Principles of Natural Law In Which the True Systems of Morality...
Handsomely Bound Early English Edition of One of the Great Treatises on Natural Law Burlamaqui, J[ean] J[acques] [1697-1748]. Nugent, [Thomas] [1770?-1772], Translator. The Principles of Natural Law. In Which the True Systems of Morality and Civil Government Are Established; And the Different Sentiments of Grotius, Hobbes, Puffendorf, Barbeyrac, Locke, Clark, and Hutchinson, Occasionally Considered. Translated Into English by Mr. Nugent. London: Printed for J. Nourse, At the Lamb, Opposite Katherine Street in the Strand, 1752. xvi, [24], 312 pp. Octavo (7-1/4" x 4-3/4"). Superb period-style calf (by Philip Dusel), gilt rules to boards, raised bands and lettering piece to spine, endpapers renewed. Moderate toning to interior, light foxing to title page and the final four leaves of text, small light stain to head of p.iii. A very appealing copy. $1,500. * Second edition, one of the two reissues of the first English edition (1748), both by Nourse. Burlamaqui, a Swiss jurist and professor of civil and natural law at Geneva, influenced several important Anglo-American jurists and political theorists, such as Blackstone. He was especially influential among the American founding fathers. As Harvey notes, "[he] formulated the principles of popular sovereignty, of delegated power, of a constitution as a fundamental law, of a personal and functional separation of powers into three independent departments... and finally, he provided for an institutional guardian of the fundamental law." Harvey, Jean Jacques Burlamaqui: A Liberal Tradition in American Constitutionalism 178-179. English Short-Title Catalogue N20840.
Price: $1,500.00
Book number 74636