The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise. A Fragment
London: John Murray, 1838.
Second edition, thick paper copy. Presentation copy inscribed by Babbage "From the Author" on the title page. viii, xxii, 23-270, [4] pp. with four advertising pages at rear. Rebound in early 20th century green buckram with morocco title label to spine. Very Good+, sunning to spine, moderate rubbing to spine and extremities, and dust-soiling to upper textblock edge. Several penciled check marks; contents overall remarkably clean with trivial foxing; binding tight.
Charles Babbage is best remembered for having invented the first mechanical computer, but the English polymath was also a philosopher. When the 8th Earl of Bridgewater died in 1829, he left a bequest to fund eight treatises on the "Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation," each written by a leading scientist or intellectual of the day. Babbage was not selected to write a treatise, but he wrote one anyway, and put forth his vision of God as a programmer who created a divinely complex calculating engine and then set it motion.
Price: $15,000