Catalogue Number 7 - Susanne Schulz-Falster

Humboldt’s First Contribution to Linguistics
37 HUMBOLDT, Wilhelm von. Prüfung der Untersuchungen
über die Urbewohner Hispaniens vermittelst der Vaskischen
Sprache. Berlin, bei Ferdinand Dümmler, 1821. £1200
4to, pp. viii, 192 including index; occasional light spotting and foxing,
and paper creased; contemporary marbled boards, spine label lettered in
manuscript; extremities chipped; ownership inscription in ink to title
page; a good copy.
First edition, uncommon, of Humboldt’s earliest contributions to philology
and linguistics, which culminated in his philosophy of speech Über die
Verschiedenheit des Menschlichen Sprachbaues (Berlin, 1836).
The present work contains his study of the Basque language. Humboldt
had made extensive visits to the French and Spanish Basque districts, studying
the language in remote villages and with local philologians, and had
consulted rare Basque manuscripts in the Spanish Royal Library. He had
planned to produce a Basque–Spanish dictionary, based on these studies, but
instead eventually published the present work, Researches into the Early Inhabitants
of Spain by the help of the Basque language. Here he already attempted to
trace a connection between the character and evolution of the Basque peoples
and the style and content of their language. Based on the study of place names
he established that the Basques are the descendants of a people who were
much more widespread at an earlier period, extending through the whole of
Spain, the southern coast of France and the Balearic Islands.
He maintained that the development of individual languages is aVected
by physiological, ethnological, historical, geographical and political circumstances
and that stages in the cultural development of peoples leave
strongly marked traces in their languages. His famous work on the heterogeneity
of language, published as an introduction to his study of the ancient
Kawi language of Java in 1836 is the clear continuation and culmination of
this work.
Goedecke XIV 560, 708; Vater p. 43; see Printing and the Mind of Man 301; not in
Borst.
Free Trade in a Free Europe
38 JUSTI, Johann Heinrich Gottlob von. Die Chimäre des
Gleichgewichts der Handlung und SchiVahrt, oder: Ungrund und
Nichtigkeit einiger neuerlich geäußerten Meynungen von denen
Maaßregeln der freyen Mächte gegen die zu befürchtende
Herrschaft und Obermacht zur See, wobey zugleich Neue und
wichtige Betrachtungen über die Handlung und SchiVahrt der
Völker, und über den höchsten Punkt der daraus entstehenden
Macht und Glückseligkeit beygebracht werden. .. Altona, verlegts
David Iversen, 1759. £1000
susanne schulz-falster rare books catalogue seven
4to, pp. 86; decorative initials, engraved head- and tail-pieces; title a
little dust-soiled and stained; uncut in recent calf-backed boards; a good
copy.
First edition of Justi’s eloquent defence of the free trade doctrine as espoused
by England and Prussia, and in eVect a further clariWcation of his
earlier publication on the balance of power in Europe. His publication was
sparked oV by French propaganda against England, articulated in particular
by Maubert. Justi maintains that the idea of free of trade is incompatible
with the concept of balanced trade and naval commerce, as the interests of
diVerent nations will always be mutually exclusive. In extremis the
diVerences will lead to war, which by deWnition damages the trade balance
of all combatants. Justi gives a detailed introduction to the principles that
characterise international trade, i.e. the proper balance between free enterprise
and state intervention. He concludes with an interesting chapter on
the trade of neutral powers in time of war, one of the basic principles of
international law.
Humpert 10090; OCLC records copies at Harvard, the University of Wisconsin
and Keio University.