

THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



DECEMBER, 1883. 



ALEXANDER YON HUMBOLDT * 



By EMIL DU BOIS-EEYMOND, 



EECTOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BERLIN. 



PROPERLY to appreciate Alexander von Humboldt's life-work,, 

 one must form a conception of the intellectual atmosphere from 

 which he issued. The opinion may not unfrequently be found among 

 laymen that there was no real German naturalist before Humboldt, 

 They are accustomed, as if to a Hercules, to ascribe all deeds to him. 

 It is not necessary to say that this is all a mistake ; but even profes- 

 sional naturalists frequently remember too little of our older history. 

 I do not speak of the almost ancient figures of Copernicus, Kepler, and 

 Otto von Guericke ; nor of Leibnitz, who had as clear a comprehen- 

 sion of the fundamental ideas of nature as we ; but the eighteenth 

 century displays names worthy of the highest degree of respect, almost 

 as brilliant as these. 



The Bernoullis developed analytic mechanics, Euler recognized the 

 feasibility of achromatic glasses, Tobias Mayer reformed the theory of 

 the moon, Lambert laid the foundation of photometry, Kant conceived 

 the nebular hypothesis, and William Herschel, whom we count among 

 our own, enlarged our knowledge of the starry heavens almost as if the 

 telescope had just been discovered. Had the Dutch physicists left 

 him time, the Canon of Camin would have certainly possessed a perfect 



* From a memorial address delivered in the hall of the university, August 3, 1883. 

 The 'speaker began his address by referring to the custom of annually celebrating the 

 foundation of the university and the memory of its founder, King Frederick William III 

 of Prussia ; he then related the history of the efforts to raise funds to erect the statues 

 of the brothers William and Alexander von Humboldt, just placed in the grounds of the 

 university. Following this account with a brief comparative estimate of the talents of 

 the two brothers, he continued, speaking more especially of Alexander. 

 vol. xxiv. 1Q 



