ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. i 59 



and to the confirmation of which he had contributed so much, had 

 come in on the side of the French vengeful hatred and unappeasable 

 hostility. Humboldt, a son of the eighteenth century, was, like Goethe, 

 cosmopolitan in his feelings, without being on that account any less a 

 patriot. Nothing would have shocked him, who spent the best part 

 of his life in Paris, in intercourse with the noblest men of the nation, 

 more than the preponderance of Chauvinism ; nothing would have 

 troubled him more than to observe that mental disease suggesting a 

 back-sliding into the barbarism of primitive society which is becoming 

 epidemic over Europe, and more seriously threatens the progress of 

 mankind than the rivalry of dynasties ever could do. 



Among the articles of faith with which Humboldt was thoroughly 

 permeated, was that of the unity of the human race. On it he theo- 

 retically based his abhorrence of slavery, the worser side of which in 

 practice he had observed in its very home, and he spared no oppor- 

 tunity to make his convictions public. The Abolitionist party in the 

 United States did not fail to make use of so desirable a confederate, 

 and at many an anti-slavery meeting, besides " Uncle Tom's Cabin," 

 brought the " Cosmos " into the fight. Humboldt did not live to see 

 the melancholy drama of the war of secession. The final defeat of 

 the slave-holders and the abolition of slavery would have given him 

 great joy. But how would we have stood before him, the friend of 

 the house of Mendelssohn, who corresponded with Henrietta Herz in 

 the Jewish current hand, if he had heard of the race-persecution we 

 have instituted ? 



In science we could, however, point with peculiar pride to the in- 

 sight into the unity of the forces of Nature which has become so clear : 

 to spectrum analysis ; to the recognition of the nature of comets, a 

 sequel to his observations in Cumana ; and to the establishment of 

 the doctrine of descent, and the associated one of persistent natural 

 selection. To-day, when the nebular hypothesis has, through the me- 

 chanical theory of heat, been combined with geology, and the hand of 

 the doctrine of descent is reaching through paleontology over the 

 hiatus of spontaneous generation ; when we can so far survey the 

 birth of cosmos out of chaos as to be able clearly to define the really 

 doubtful points now, perhaps, a " Cosmos " might be written, but no 

 one longer thinks of doing it. Two qualities which Humboldt pos- 

 sessed in the highest degree, and would be missed by us with regret 

 were necessary to it, and can no more be found the view over the 

 whole field of science, and the careful effort to create beautiful forms. 

 Humboldt would also deeply lament the decay of the historical sense, 

 which often in the growth of science first teaches us the true connec- 

 tion of things. 



Since Alexander von Humboldt was a universal naturalist, and 

 thought historically, while William, not less universal in the mental 

 sciences, sometimes acted as a naturalist, the two brothers met at 



