Conferencias de Focion sobre a correlação da moral com a politica, offerecidas ao povo portuguez.

Coimbra, Na Imprensa da Universidade, 1835.. First Edition in Portuguese. Large 8°, traces of early wrappers. Small woodcut arms of Portugal on title page. Typographical rules. Uncut. Light browning. Very small wormtrail (under 1.5 cm.) in upper margin at gutter, not affecting text. In good condition. xvi, 143 pp.; leaves of quire 6 bound in wrong order (3, 4, 1, 2, 7, 8, 5, 6). *** First edition in Portuguese of Mably's Entretiens de Phocion: sur le rapport de la morale avec la politique, which originally appeared in 1763. This translation from a French edition of The Hague, 1764, includes an introduction by the translator explaining why he considers the work useful for his contemporaries. The life of Phocion (pp. v-xiii) does not appear in the Amsterdam, 1763 edition of Entretiens; it is not clear whether the translator found it elsewhere, or composed it himself. The Entretiens was also translated to Spanish and English.Phocion (ca. 402-318 B.C.) was elected strategos in Athens a record 45 times. His frugal way of life earned him the nickname "the Good." Plutarch included his biography in Parallel Lives, which made him well known in the Renaissance and later. (Poussin painted two works based on his story in 1648.) In the preface of the Amsterdam, 1763 edition (not translated here), Mably claimed to have found a manuscript of these conversations at the Monastery of Monte Cassino, just south of Rome.It was perhaps Phocion's legendary frugality that made Gabriel Bonnot de Mably use Phocion's name here. As the Ancien Régime staggered through its final years, Mably advocated a Republic in the manner of Plato - communism as a way to achieve well-being and moral perfection. The Conversations are written as a Socratic dialogue: Phocion attempts to demonstrate to young Aristias that politics and ethics are inseparable and that wisdom and virtue require a love of one's country, which will broaden into a love of humanity.The Abbé de Mably (1709-1785), philosopher and historian, was an important figure in the history of republican thought during the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. He was the elder brother of Étienne Bonnot de Condillac. Rousseau a lifelong friend, had tutored Mably's and Condillac's nephews, and reflected upon the experience in Emile. Although Mably believed that private property was the root of all the ills affecting humanity, he argued that trying to achieve such an ideal would cause as much harm as maintaining the status quo, and therefore advised against revolution.*** Gonçalves Rodrigues, A Tradução em Portugal 4467 (without mention of the preliminary pp.). Not located in Innocêncio. Porbase locates a single copy, at the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal. Not located in Jisc. KVK (51 databases searched) locates only the copy cited by Porbase.