Man on His Nature. The Gifford Lectures, Edinburgh 1937-8.

oliver sacks's working copy

First edition, first impression of this key work in the philosophy of neurobiology. From the library of neurologist Oliver Sacks, with his octopus bookplate and extensively marked-up in his hand.

Sir Charles Sherrington (1857-1952) was one of the leading neurophysiologists of the twentieth century, whose work 'provided the basis of modern understanding of the nervous system, and the ways in which it receives, controls, utilizes, and responds to information from the external world (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography). The present work was first presented as a series of lectures at Edinburgh in 1937 and 1938. 'The book was widely read and went into several editions, including an exceedingly popular paperback. Described by the Sunday Times as 'one of the landmarks in the history of man's speculation about his own place in the universe', it was reprinted by the Physiological Society and given to every delegate attending the 17th International Physiological Congress in Oxford in 1947. It was selected as one of the hundred outstanding modern British books at the Festival of Britain in 1951. It was here that Sherrington explicitly addressed the mind–brain problem: 'But what of mind? Mind knows itself and knows the world: chemistry and physics, explaining so much, cannot undertake to explain mind itself. Sherrington continued to believe throughout his life that dualism was as reasonable an assumption to make as was monism' (ODNB).

Sacks has engaged assertively with the text, as evidenced by his numerous pencilled annotations: 80 pages include underlining or small marks, 12 feature more significant notes, and the rear endpapers have personal notes. For example, on the first page Sacks responds to Sherrington's assertion that "Natural Science is a branch of knowledge by general consent not primarily based on the a priori...' with 'Is a "Kantian" science [?] a contradiction...". On page 114 Sherrington's 'Even two and a half centuries later it underlay the so-called Nature-philosophy...' earns the retort, 'Am I in danger now (1983) of a new Nature-philosophy?' And he simply writes 'NO!' in reply to Sherrington's musing about beauty on page 160. The year Sacks annotated this copy, 1983, was only two years before the publication of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, which deals with a concept defined by Sherrington: proprioception, the body's sense of itself and its relationship to the space around it. And Sacks would later publish a piece in the New York Review of Books discussing the subject of this work, Sherrington's philosophy of dualism, with reference to Man on His Nature alongside more recent scientific works (November 22, 1990 issue).

First edition, first impression; 8vo; 7 plates, illustrations within the text, bookplate of Oliver Sacks and his pencilled notes in the text, contemporary pencilled ownership inscription to front free endpaper, book club ink stamp to rear pastedown, contents faintly toned; original green cloth, titles to spine gilt, spine rolled, gilt dulled, cloth worn at the extremities and marked with three dark spots on the upper board and two pale marks on the lower board, very good condition; 413pp.