Amsterdam: Johannem Riewerts, and Dirk van Affen-steeg, 1663. First edition. 4to. (xvi), 140 pp. With a woodcut diagram on title-page and others throughout text. Quarter red morocco over marbled paper-covered boards, stamped in blind and in gilt, boards and extremities rubbed; all edges trimmed; marbled endpapers; light spotting to text; scattered marginalia in pencil, heavier at rear. Kingma & Offenberg 1

Scarce first edition of Baruch Spinoza's first book, the only one published in his lifetime under his own name. Based on lectures he developed for a young student on Rene Descartes's Principia Philosophiae of 1644, Spinoza published the above work at the behest of his many supporters, who sought a general introduction to Descartes, and who considered Spinoza the leading expert. In this published work, Spinoza reorganized the philosophy of Descartes into a Euclidian or geometrical format with axioms, definitions, propositions, and proofs, and added an appendix focusing on Cartesian metaphysics.