Collectible - Very Good First Edition

NY: Putnam's, 1879. 1st Edition. xii+[1]+200+[2]pp. + lithographed plate (Outline of the Great Sympathetic Nervous System) with tissue-guard inserted after page 48. 12mo. Embossed ocher cloth with gilt-stamped spine and brown endpapers. Short tear to the top margin of the title-page; ink owner's signature dated 1883 to the front paste-down; a VG, bright copy with just a tad of wear to the extremities and joints. Very scarce. Bucke's first book (of three), published two years after his appointment as medical superintendent of the Asylum for the Insane in London, Ontario. In it one sees Bucke's early attempt to integrate the profound albeit fleeting mystical experience he had had in 1872 into an overarching theory of transpersonal human evolution, with love and faith ultimately vanquishing fear and hate in human moral development. Bucke's ideas reached their fruition in the 1901 Cosmic Consciousness, his magnum opus published shortly before his death in which he described the development of consciousness in three stages from simple (animals), through self-consciousness (typical humans), to cosmic (the next evolutionary stage). Weight: 1 pound 3.0 ounces = 541 grams. Size: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches = 20.8 x 13.5 x 2.3cm. Inquire if you need further information.