'SOLVES THE PROBLEM OF THE HEART'S MOTION'
[HALKERSTON, Helenus.]
Considerations on Man, in his natural as well as moral State. Being an humble attempt towards a plain, simple, and orthodox Explanation of the Nature and Manner of animal and vegetable Motion … Once intended for the Press, in three Volumes. By a Country-Gentleman …
Edinburgh: Printed by A. Donaldson and J. Reid, 1764.
8vo, pp. 44, with a half-title; a fine, crisp copy in contemporary catspaw calf, gilt fillet to front covers, round spine with five raised bands; from the library of the Sandys family at Ombersley Court, Worcestershire, with manuscript shelfmarks.
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Considerations on Man, in his natural as well as moral State. Being an humble attempt towards a plain, simple, and orthodox Explanation of the Nature and Manner of animal and vegetable Motion … Once intended for the Press, in three Volumes. By a Country-Gentleman …
First edition, a presentation copy ‘from the E[arl] of Mortoun’, the dedicatee.
An ample demonstration of Halkerston’s eccentricity, Considerations on Man comprises a brief outline of a supposed medico-theological system to demonstrate the interconnection of soul and body, therefore ‘solving all the phaenomena of the animal world, of our moral and physical intelligence, &c.’ A fine specimen of the degree of specificity provided is found in the following summary assertion on p. 23: ‘* Solves the problem of the heart’s motion’. Elsewhere he reports on how a gentleman he knew sang himself to death, and on how a foetus is at first ‘only a vegetable’ with no soul (it is surprising, he says, that Malpighi and Leeuwenhoek did not notice this).
The author’s letter ‘To the Printer’ suggests it was previously published ‘some time ago’, in a ‘mal à propos and incorrect’ edition and requests this ‘corrected copy’ now be printed ‘at my expense, on the best paper, and in the best type’. However when it was reprinted in Halkerston’s Appeal to Reason (1788), the epigraph states that it was first printed at Edinburgh in 1764. Needless to say, the full three-volume work was never forthcoming.
The dedicatee, James Douglas, 14th Earl of Morton, first President of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh from 1737, and President of the Royal Society from March 1764, would surely have bemused. The recipient was presumably Samuel Sandys, 1st Baron Sandys (1695–1770).
ESTC T82060.
