Natural Evidence of a Future Life, derived from the Properties and Actions of Animate and Inanimate Matter.
London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green & Longman, 1835. First Edition. Hardcover. Octavo. xxiv + 372pp. Full leather library binding, raised bands, gilt rules & lettering on spine. Both the front and rear boards have the seal of "The Society of Writers to the Signet" - a prestigious private society of Scottish solicitors - stamped in them in gilt. The author, Frederick Collier Bakewell (1800 – 1869) was an English physicist and inventor, with an interest in natural philosophy. He is now most widely remembered for his "image telegraph" an early ancestor of the facsimile machine which built on the work of Alexander Bain and was exhibited at the 1851 World's Fair in London. In "Natural Evidence of a Future Life" Bakewell uses science - chiefly in the form of a study of the properties of matter, and of life itself, to argue a scientific ("natural" as opposed to "supernatural") case for the existance of the survival of mind after death. From the collection of Dr. M. H. Coleman, with his ex-libris seal blind-stamped on the front free endpaper. Leather of front hinge cracking, although the board is still firmly attached. Darkening to edges of endpapers, Contemporary handwritten name (?) - indistinct - on front pastedown. Marginal pencil annotations to several pages, otherwise a tight, clean & complete VG copy. Item #49544
Price: $250.00