List New York Antiquarian Book Fair - Antiquariat - Michael Kühn

Natural against Artifical System
Adanson, Michel. Familles des plantes. 2 Vols.- Paris: Vincent, 1763, 8°. [2], 325 pp., [1],
189 pp., [1] pp., 1 fold. plate, [1], 24 pp., [2, privilège], 640 pp. Contemporary calf, red
edges, marbled end-papers, fine copy. $ 4900.-
“The Familles des plantes presented for the first time a logical plea for an attempt at a natural classification on
the basis of inductive research, free from the aporistic harness of essences and priorities, but typically eighteenth
century: open-minded and rational. Adanson’s view that a plant taxonomist must have a personal knowledge of a
tropical flora marked a difference with his great contemporary Linnaeus. Previously taxonomists had worked
mainly with western European and Mediterranean plants; the world, however, was much wider and had much
that was new in store for the inquisite naturalist who would go out and see for himself. The plant taxonomist
should conduct experiments on hybridization and also study the variability of the offspring of plants from the
wild in cultivation. The constancy of the species was not an item of faith, … New taxa might arise through
hybridization and mutation. A thorough knowledge of the plant world would be reached not by diagnostic
systems which are merely artificial keys, but by a study of all features of the plants in all phases of their
development and by a careful analysis and comparison of their detailed descriptions.” [Stafleu, 311] Unlike his
contemporary Linnaeus, Michel Adanson did not have the benefit of being in the limelight of the history of
botany almost from the moment of his first publication. Adanson turned classification into systematics. He
shared Buffon’s ideas on the origin of species by hybridization; in addition, he was the first to speak of the role
of hereditary mutations in the process of speciation.”
Rare original edition. "The distinction of having first analysed and explained the theoretical foundation of natural
classification, and, what was even more important, of defining the practical method to be used in seeking such
classification, belongs without question to Michel Adanson. His "Familles des plantes" (1763) was a work of
histo-ric significance, which gave clarity and coherence to the ideas of the growing number of proponents of the
"Natural method". It became the main formative influence in developing natural classification in France, and in
ensuring its success" (Morton "History of botanical science, pp. 310/311); DSB I pp. 58/59
Michel Adanson (1727 – 1806) was a French naturalist of Scottish descent. His family moved to Paris on 1730.
After leaving the College Sainte Barbe he was employed in the cabinets of R. A. F. Reaumur and Bernard de
Jussieu, as well as in the Jardin des Plantes. At the end of 1748 he left France on an exploring expedition to
Senegal. He remained there for five years, collecting and describing numerous animals and plants. He also
collected specimens of every object of commerce, delineated maps of the country, made systematic meteorological
and astro-nomical observations, and prepared grammars and dictionaries of the languages spoken on the
banks of the Sene-gal. After his return to Paris in 1754 he made use of a small portion of the materials he had
collected in his Histoire naturelle du Senegal (1757). This work has a special interest from the essay on shells,
printed at the end of it, where Adanson proposed his universal method, a system of classification distinct from
those of Buffon and Linnaeus. He founded his classification of all organized beings on the consideration of each
individual organ. As each organ gave birth to new relations, so he established a corresponding number of arbitrary
arrangements. Those beings possessing the greatest number of similar organs were referred to one great
division, and the rela-tionship was considered more remote in proportion to the dissimilarity of organs. In 1763
he published his Familles naturelles des plantes. In this work he developed the principle of arrangement above
mentioned, which, in its adherence to natural botanical relations, was based on the system of Joseph Pitton de
Tournefort, and had been anticipated to some extent nearly a century before by John Ray. The success of this
work was hindered by its in-novations in the use of terms, which were ridiculed by the defenders of the popular
sexual system of Linnaeus; but it did much to open the way for the establishment, by means principally of
Antoine Laurent de Jussieu's Genera Plantarum (1789), of the natural method of the classification of plants.
Manuscript copy of Bach’s Partita
Bach, Johann Sebastian. Clavier-Übung bestehend in Praeludien, Allemanden, Couranten,
Sarabanden, Giguen …. [Manuscript in contemporary hand, brown ink on paper with watermark;
dating around 1730 to 1760; Thüringen] [o. J.] 9 leaves [335 x 195 mm]. No Wrappers,or
binding, last page with paper flaw, restored in former time. $ 16000.-
Contemporary manuscript copy of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Partita II, BWV 826 after the first edition of 1727,
and not after the edition of 1731. The title of Bach mentioned on the first page was used by Johann Sebastian