Small Octavo (ca. 20x15,5 cm). 2 pp., with an integral leaf. Brown ink on watermarked laid paper, addressed and sealed on verso of the second leaf. Mild fold marks, a small chip on the second leaf after opening not affecting the text, otherwise a very good letter.

An interesting example of scientific correspondence, this letter was written by noted French linguist and orientalist Antoine Silvestre de Sacy and addressed to his younger colleague Charles-Hippolyte de Paravey (1787-1871). The letter contains criticism of Paravey’s new book ‘Essai sur l’origine unique et hiéroglyphique des chiffres et des lettres de tous les peoples’ (Paris, 1826), with the main object of the criticism being, most likely, Paravey’s traditional “biblical” view on the history of civilization. Apparently, both orientalists were acquaintances from the French Asiatic Society (Société asiatique, founded in 1822), which they both were the founding members of.

Silvestre de Sacy: “Monsieur, I am not responsible for assessing your work in the Journal des Savants and I am pleased with it, as it would have been impossible to present your system from a favourable view point. Far from sharing your conviction about what you deem a finding, I only see an endless assertion of principles, which can be opposed with as much assertiveness as you show defending them. <…> In science principles are facts; if asserted without solid ground, the construct theory is weak and those principles are deceptive <…> I may be wrong, Monsieur, [but] imagination played a major role in your work <…> Please, Monsieur, forgive a candid expression of opinion, I thought I owed it to your honourable character and to the truth” [in translation].

Antoine Isaac, Baron Silvestre de Sacy was a French linguist and orientalist, a specialist in Semitic languages. He was a professor of Arabic and Persian in the School of living oriental languages (École speciale des langues orientales vivantes), a secretary of the Academy of Inscriptions, the first president of the French Asiatic Society; he studied the Pahlavi inscriptions of the Sassanid kings, the religion of the Druze, and issued a number of works, including three Arabic textbooks. Silvestre de Sacy was a contemporary and teacher of Jean-François Champollion and took part in deciphering the Rosetta stone.

Charles-Hippolyte de Paravey was a French engineer and orientalist, a representative of the biblical view on the history of civilization. In his ‘Essai sur l’origine unique et hiéroglyphique des chiffres et des lettres de tous les peoples’ (Paris, 1826) he tried to prove the existence of a "single center of civilization" that would have existed before and after the flood, and therefore, a single source of human race which later spread across the globe.