Justin Croft : Rare & Fine Antiquarian Books - Specialist in antiquarian books, especially in the field of literature, history, social sciences, religion, art and architecture, science and medicine

First and only edition of this very scarce astronomical work written in an enthusistically Cartesian vein. Dedicated to the gentlemen of the Académie Royale des Sciences, Le système du monde rehearses (with the help of diagrams) the basic Ptolemaic and Copernican theories of the universe and then pursues a more sophisticated enquiry into the nature of planetary motion according to Copernicus, Galileo and Descartes. "Claude Gadroys (1642-1678) believed that Descartes has discovered a new world as truly as Columbus and others had discovered America. Although he professed not to accept the explanations of Descartes on every point, he did adopt his theory of tourbillons or vortices, his three elements or kinds of particles of matter, and his three laws that everything remains in the state it is, so long as nothing changes it, that a body in movement tends to continue to move in a straight line, and that bodies moving in circles try to break away from the centre of their movement" (Thorndike). The work is devoid of Newtonian influence (Newton's already formulated theories of gravitation remaining unpublished in 1675).Our copy is bibliographically interesting in containing alternative settings of several leaves. The first of these (pp. 87-8, given in two versions) apparently derives from a decision taken while the work was in the press to remove the rather rudimentary Copernican diagram from p. 87 and to alter the wording of the surrounding text. Our copy gives both versions, which makes for some confusion in the ordering of the text, but provides an insight into authorial and editorial practice in a work with an extensive scheme of diagrams. The alternative setting of pp. 271-6, which appear out of order, are harder to explain, but again there are variances between the texts of the two versions.Gadroys had earlier published a work entitled Discours sur les influences des astres (1671) which considered the claims of astrology in the light of the philosophy of Descartes. He refers the reader to this work in his brief treament of astrology towards the end of the present work.