i 5 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



which force radiated on every side, and in which numerous threads ran 

 together. 



That was the time when he, sometimes with an essay only a few 

 pages long, created new studies, like that of plant-geography ; or by 

 some suggestive medium of graphic representation, such as the iso- 

 thermal curves, revealed the law hidden in formless masses of single 

 facts. As the whole real world waved before his inner vision, so 

 " swelled before him also the historical flood of floods," only that he 

 festooned the bare scaffold of civic history with the fruit and flower 

 garlands of the history of civilization, of discovery, and of art. As 

 Uhland composed some of his finest romances in Paris, there likewise 

 originated the " Views of Nature," Humboldt's favorite work. 



While the reminiscences of Jena were thus revived in him, his 

 mind was nevertheless permanently purified from much dross that had 

 clouded it in those days. In the interval that separates Humboldt's 

 labors after the journey to the tropics from the " Experiments on Ex- 

 cited Muscular and Nervous Fibers," we recognize the influence of his 

 intercourse with the Parisian academicians, of their always careful, 

 frequently exaggeratedly skeptical views. In one point, excelling 

 through the greater depth of German thought, he left his masters 

 behind him. While a kind of shallow vitalism was prevailing in 

 France, Humboldt had long passed the position he had once sustained 

 in the " Rhodian Genius," and had explained the process of life as a 

 result of the physical and chemical qualities of the matters combined 

 in the organic texture. 



It is perhaps less known that Humboldt was a pre-Darwinian Dar- 

 winian. He gave me the "Essay on Classification," sent him by Louis 

 Agassiz, in which, only three years before the appearance of the " Origin 

 of Species," a book Humboldt did not live to see, the doctrine of peri- 

 ods of creation and teleological views were portrayed with unblunted 

 sharpness, and supported by numerous plausible arguments. Hum- 

 boldt's expressions on this occasion left me no doubt that he, far from 

 sympathizing with Agassiz's views, was a believer in mechanical causa- 

 tion, and an evolutionist. If we may credit certain Parisian traditions, 

 Humboldt and Cuvier were not on the best footing with each other. 

 Perhaps Humboldt was more inclined toward the doctrines of Lamarck 

 and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. 



It is time to consider what had become of German science during 

 this period. It had, in a certain sense, sunk deeper and deeper. Philo- 

 sophical speculation had won ground at nearly all points, and in nearly 

 all the universities its subtilties were announced as ready wisdom by 

 professional philosophers as well as by naturalists and doctors, and 

 were eagerly taken up by the misguided youth. Goethe's false theo- 

 ries and maxims, supported by his fame as a poet, increased the con- 

 fusion. The wars of Napoleon did harm to German science, not only 

 by external force, but also through the Christian-romantic reaction 



