Difference between revisions of "Artis Logicae Compendium"

Revision as of 14:44, 7 November 2014

by Henry Aldrich

Artis Logicae Compendium
Title page from Artis Logicae Compendium, George Wythe Collection, Wolf Law Library, College of William & Mary.
Author	Henry Aldrich
Editor	{{{editor}}}
Translator	{{{trans}}}
Published	Oxoniae: E Theatro Sheldoniano, Impensis A. Peisley
Date	1723
Edition	{{{edition}}}
Language	Latin
Volumes	{{{set}}} volume set
Pages	[14], 129, [19]
Desc.	Duodecimo (16 cm.)
Location	[[Shelf {{{shelf}}}]]
	[[Shelf {{{shelf2}}}]]

Frontispiece.

Henry Aldrich (1648-1710) was born in Westminster and educated at Christ Church, Oxford, where he later became a tutor.^[1] In 1689, he was appointed Dean of Christ Church. Aldrich had wide-ranging interests: he sang in the Christ Church Cathedral choir, designed the Peckwater quadrangle in Christ Church, and was known as a humorist as well as a mathematician. He was also involved in the politics of the college, and actively opposed James II’s attempts to catholicize the university.^[2]

Aldrich published the Artis Logicae Compendium in 1691. A small book, it included the basic elements of Aristotelian philosophy: "a classification of terms and propositions, an account of syllogistic structure, a few pages on method, and an appendix on fallacies."^[3] It became "the standard Oxford textbook for the whole century," until the middle of the nineteenth century.^[4] During that time, it was re-issued in different editions and expansions, including an English translation by the Protestant theologian John Wesley.

Evidence for Inclusion in Wythe's Library

Listed in the Jefferson Inventory of Wythe's Library as "Artis Logicae. Aldrich. 12mo." This was one of the titles kept by Thomas Jefferson. He later sold a copy of the 1723 edition to the Library of Congress in 1815. However, the volume no longer exists to verify Wythe's prior ownership. Both George Wythe's Library^[5] on LibraryThing and the Brown Bibliography^[6] include the 1723 edition based on Millicent Sowerby's entry in the Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson.^[7] as listed by The Wolf Law Library followed the recommendations of Brown and LibraryThing and purchased the 1723 edition.

Description of the Wolf Law Library's copy

Bound period-style full calf with blind rules and corner stamps to boards. Spine features four raised bands with gilt rules and red label.

Find this book in William & Mary's online catalog.

References

1. ↑ Stuart Handley, "Aldrich, Henry (1648-1710)” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004-, accessed October 14, 2014.
2. ↑ Ibid.
3. ↑ James Van Evra, “Richard Whately and Logical Theory," in Handbook of the History of Logic, ed. Dov M. Gabbay and John Woods (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2008), 80.
4. ↑ James Franklin, "Artifice and the Natural World,” in The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Philosophy, 'ed. Knud Haakonssen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 1:838.
5. ↑ LibraryThing, s.v. "Member: George Wythe," accessed on November 7, 2014.
6. ↑ Bennie Brown, "The Library of George Wythe of Williamsburg and Richmond," (unpublished manuscript, May, 2012, rev. May, 2014) Microsoft Word file. Earlier edition available at: https://digitalarchive.wm.edu/handle/10288/13433.
7. ↑ E. Millicent Sowerby, Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, 2nd ed. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1983), 5:14 [no.4644].