1700 Father Malebranche his Treatise Concerning the Search after Truth

This volume is a rare copy of the 1700 second English edition of Father Malebranche his Treatise Concerning the Search after Truth, translated by Thomas Taylor and printed in London by William Bowyer. Originally published in French as De la recherche de la vérité (1674–1675), this text is the magnum opus of Nicolas Malebranche, a prominent French rationalist philosopher and Oratorian priest. Malebranche is highly significant in early modern philosophy for seeking to synthesize the Cartesianism of René Descartes with the Christian theology of Saint Augustine. This specific work famously expounds his doctrines of occasionalism; the theory that God is the only true causal agent in the universe; and the "Vision in God," which posits that human minds perceive all ideas through an immediate connection with the divine intellect.

This comprehensive 1700 edition serves as an important historical artifact tracking the transmission of continental Rationalism into the Anglophone world. Beyond the core philosophical treatise on overcoming sensory errors, this volume bundles together several related theological and polemical texts. It features Malebranche's controversial Treatise of Nature and Grace, his direct rebuttals to contemporary critics like Louis Le Valois (Monsieur de la Ville), and a short discourse on physics titled A Short Discourse upon Light and Colours. By presenting these defenses alongside his primary text, this edition captures the intellectual friction, scientific curiosity, and deep theological debates that defined European thought at the dawn of the Enlightenment.