Item #53837 Language: Its connexion with the present condition and future prospects of man. By a Heteroscian. Rowland G. Hazard.
Language: Its connexion with the present condition and future prospects of man. By a Heteroscian.

Language: Its connexion with the present condition and future prospects of man. By a Heteroscian.

Providence: Marshall, Brown and Co., 1836. First edition of Hazard's "first considerable publication," small 8vo, pp. 153, [1];pp., original embossed terracotta cloth, gilt-lettered spine; spine sunned, light foxing, light dampstaining on terminal leaves; all else near fine. Errata slip tipped in at p. 153. An early American work on language and philosophy. The author (1801-1888) was a native Rhode Islander who spent most of his life at the family business manufacturing woolens. He served three terms as a member of the R.I. House of Representatives. He possessed the habit "of looking for general principles, and of applying the results of abstract thinking to practical ends, [and] engaged himself with problems of Reconstruction, and other questions of the day ... His underlying interests were philosophical. When on his business trips, while travelling on packets and stage-coaches, on boats and trains, he made notes for later books. Language... possibly had its inception in discussion with his friend --and Poe's friend-- Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman, on the nature of poetry" (DAB). The book attracted the attention of William Ellery Channing who wrote, "I have known a man of vigorous intellect, who had enjoyed few advantages of early education, and whose mind was almost engrossed by the details of an extensive business, but who composed a book of much original thought, in steamboats and on horseback, while visiting distant customers." Item #53837

Price: $225.00

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