80 Natural History hi Foreign Countries. 



Baron h amboldt delivered a discourse at the opening (which has been 

 printed), and another at the close, of the Mieeting. Various memoirs were 

 read by different members; and, amongst them, one by M. Reinwardt (of 

 Leyden), on the characters of the vegetable kingdom in the Indian Archi- 

 pelago. The project of a new edition of Pliny's Natural History was dis- 

 cussed. It was stated that the King of Bavaria had sent a young scholar to 

 collate the MSS. at Florence and in Paris, and that the King of Saxony had 

 promised his assistance to obtain a collection of those at Madrid, in the 

 Escurial, and at Toledo ; and a hope was expressed that the Prussian go- 

 vernment might defray the expense of a collation of the Vossian Codex, at 

 Oxford. Professor Lichtenstein said that the Berlin Academy had made 

 such great sacrifices for an edition of Aristotle, that it could do nothing on 

 this occasion. Professor Oken, on this, suggested that every member pre- 

 sent should subscribe a dollar, as a fund towards the expenses of the pro- 

 jected edition of Pliny, which was done, to the number of about 400. 



The following is an extract from the opening speech of Baron Humboldt, 

 as given in the Foreign Review and Continental Miscellany : — "In every 

 place where the German language is resounding, where its philosophical 

 structure exercises its influence on the minds and on the feelings of the na- 

 tion, from the highest top of the Alpine mountains of Europe down to the 

 other bank of the Vistula, where astronomy is raised to new splendour in 

 the country of Copernicus, in every place of the large regions inhabited by 

 the German nation, we make it our business to enquire into the secrets of 

 the powers of nature, displayed in the ample vault of heaven, in the deepest 

 problems of mechanics, in the bowels of the terraqueous globe, or in the 

 finest tissues of organic beings. Protected by magnanimous princes, this 

 Society has increased every year in interest and in extension. Every dif- 

 ference produced by diversity of faith and of political constitution has va- 

 nished here. Germany reveals here its intellectual unity ; and this unity 

 weakens none of the ties attaching us to the constitution or the laws of our 

 birthplace, in the same manner as the knowledge of truth, and the perform- 

 ance of duty, are the final scope of morals. It is this separation in life, this 

 /emulation of mental efforts, which the glorious annals of the German nation 

 •prove to be productive of the highest achievements of humanity, of science, 

 and of the fine arts. 



" The principal purpose of this SocISty does not consist, like that of other 

 •academies forming a close corporation, in the communication of memoirs, 

 ,in giving a number of lectures, all written to be printed, after some time, in 

 their Transactions. No ; its principal purpose is to encourage the inter- 

 course of men cultivating the same field of science j the oral exchange of 

 ideas making them more impressive and stimulating in the shape of facts, of 

 opinions, or of doubts ; and in the formation of relations of friendship ; 

 ■illustrating the science, agreeably tempering the habits of life, and giving 

 forbearance and amenity to the manners. 



" Tmth cannot be discovered without difference of opinions ; for it is 

 never known at once in its whole extent, nor simultaneously by the whole of 

 mankind. Every step appearing to lead the naturalist towards his distant 

 goal, brings him only to the entrance-door of new labyrinths. The quantity 

 of doubt is not diminished ; it spreads only, like a movable mist, over other 

 regions. Those who call a golden age the times when diversity of views, 

 or, vulgarly speaking, the disputes of men of learning, will be settled, have 

 no idea of the wants of science, and of its uninterrupted progress, and are 

 like those who, with lazy self-complacency, defend, from year to year, im- 

 mutably the same opinions." 



The Meeting of next year will be held at Heidelberg. Baron Humboldt 

 mentioned, in his farewell discourse, that he should be unable to attend, as 

 he calculated that he should be then on his travels in Asia, most probably 

 in the heart of Siberia. Report speaks in the highest terms of the excellent 



