Man on His Nature. The Gifford Lectures, Edinburgh 1937-8.

£2,750 · Offered by Shapero Rare Books

oliver sacks's working copy First edition, first impression of this key work in the philosophy of neurobiology. From the library of neurologist Oliver Sacks, with his octopus bookplate and extensively marked-up in his hand. Sir Charles Sherrington (1857-1952) was one of the leading neurophysiologists of the twentieth century, whose work 'provided the basis of modern understanding of the nervous system, and the ways in which it receives, controls, utilizes, and responds to information from the external world (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography). The present work was first presented as a series of lectures at Edinburgh in 1937 and 1938. 'The book was widely read and went into several editions, including an exceedingly popular paperback. Described by the Sunday Times as 'one of the landmarks in the history of man's speculation about his own place in the universe', it was reprinted by the Physiological Society and given to every delegate attending the 17th International Physiological Congress in Oxford in 1947. It was selected as one of the hundred outstanding modern British books at the Festival of Britain in 1951. It was here that Sherrington explicitly addressed the mind–brain problem: 'But what of mind? Mind knows itself and knows the world: chemistry and physics, explaining so much, cannot undertake to explain mind itself. Sherrington continued to believe throughout his life that dualism was as reasonable an assumption to make as was monism' (ODNB). Sacks has engaged as

• Binding: Hardcover

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