4to (250 x 189 mm). Woodcut device on title; engraved head-piece; one engraved folding plate. (Some minor spotting.) Modern half calf, marbled boards, edges sprinkled red. Provenance: The University of Keele Library, Turner Collection (presentation bookplate). 

FIRST EDITION of Fontenelle's attempt at a theory of infinity. "In it he displayed his interest in the notion of infinity and his talent as a historian; in a few pages he retraces the history of the mathematical study of curved lines from Archimedes to Newton and Leibniz...According to Fontenelle, none of the geometers who had invented or employed the calculus of infinity had given a general theory to it; that is what he proposed to do" (DSB).