First edition - Lot 441

First edition [DIDEROT (A4060)] Lettre sur les aveugles, à l'usage de ceux qui voyent. Possant, nec posse videntur. Virg. London, 1749. In-12: 220pp, (1); illustrated with 6 plates out of text. Contemporary marbled fawn calf, ornate smooth spine, red title-piece, cold fillet framing the boards, minor wear, gilt fillet on the edges, red edges. A good copy. First edition of this famous work, in which Diderot reflects both scientifically and philosophically on visual perception. This publication earned him three months' imprisonment in Vincennes for propagating materialistic theses. The Lettre sur les Aveugles, as provocative as it was innovative, represented a decisive turning point in Diderot's thinking, as he moved from skepticism to atheistic materialism. Original first edition, with "balance-shaped" title finial, faulty signatures, unnumbered and blank page 210 and notice to the bookbinder on the recto of the last unnumbered leaf. Page 215 is numbered 115. The 6 hors texte engravings are correctly positioned. A first-issue copy according to Adams (Tchemerzine IV, 432-433).