Ars Combinatoria,

Important early work. Second edition of Leibniz's groundbreaking early work on combinatorics, a highly original proposal in logic and mathematical philosophy expanded from his thesis Disputatio arithmetica de complexionibus and first published with the title Dissertatio de arte combinatoria in 1666. Both editions of the text are rare in commerce, with only one copy of each noted in auction records over the last two decades.

Leibniz's Arte Combinatoria is concerned with two issues, the development of a system of symbols denoting human concepts so that they could be symbolically manipulated 'to discover new truths and find proofs for the old ones', and a 'meta-science' for 'investigating the various methods and procedures (deductive and inductive, empirical and logical) internal to each scientific field' (Mugnai, Leibniz: Dissertation on Combinatorial Art, Oxford University Press, 2020). These would remain major pre-occupations for Leibniz throughout his life.

Though the book made Leibniz famous among European intellectuals it was written before he had thoroughly studied mathematics. He responded to this unauthorised edition with a note in the scientific journal Acta Erudatorium, writing that though the text was 'not sufficiently polished' it contained '"many new meditations" he did not regret concerning "the art of discovery" and the "excellent" idea of an alphabet of human thoughts' (Mugnai).

Second edition; 4to (18.5 x 14.5 cm); engraved frontispiece, tables in the text, decorative initials, typographic headpiece, contents faintly toned but overall clean; early 19th century half vellum with marbled boards, manuscript title to spine, small bookplate of the same period in the upper left corner of the front pastedown, the name scratched out and the number '192' in manuscript, calf a little toned, boards rubbed with wear at the edges, very good, unsophisticated condition; 78pp.