A STUDY OF SPINOZA; with a Portrait by Martineau, James - 1883

London: Macmillan and Co, 1883. Second Edition Revised. Leather with blind- & gilt-stamping. Very Good +/None. Engraved frontispiece portrait. 8vo, rebound in dark brown calf with gold-ruled borders, five hubs, and the elaborately gilt-decorated backstrip with printed label laid down, illustrated with a steel engraved frontispiece portrait of Spinoza after Woffenbuttel [plus tissue guard], all edges gilded [a.e.g.], marbled endpapers, xiii, [xiv] + 393 pages. James Martineau (1805 - 1900) was an English religious philosopher influential in the history of Unitarianism and Transcendentalism. For 45 years he was Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy and Political Economy in Manchester New College. He was also the brother of Harriet Martineau (1802-1876), novelist and Liberal, which put both in the circle of George Eliot and G.H. Lewes. The great poet Tennyson "regarded Martineau as the master mind of all the remarkable company with whom he engaged". Prime Minister Gladstone said of Martineau; "he is beyond question the greatest of living thinkers."<br/> <br/> Baruch Spinoza (born Benedito de Espinosa; later Benedict de Spinoza; 1632 - 1677) was a Jewish-Dutch philosopher who is usually credited, along with Descartes and Leibniz, as being one of the three major Rationalists.<br/> <br/> He made significant contributions in virtually every area of philosophy. He is best known for his Ethics, which presents an ethical vision developing from a monistic metaphysics in which God and Nature are identified. <br/> <br/> This revised second edition remains a major study of the great naturalistic philosopher Spinozal.<br/> <br/> Condition: This volume has been handsomely and sturdily rebound and remains structurally sound. Apart from a few light specks of foxing on the attractive frontispiece and title page, the pages are clean, only slightly age-toned, and without annotations or markings. Some rubbing to the leather and spine.