28 MEMOIR OP 



time within our walls? From the banks of the 

 Neckar, the birth-place of Kepler and of Schiller, 

 to the remotest border of the Baltic plains ; from 

 thence to the mouths of the Rhine, where, under the 

 beneficent influence of commerce, the treasures * of 

 exotic nature have for centuries been collected and 

 investigated, the friends of nature, inspired with the 

 same zeal, and, urged by the same passion, flock to- 

 gether to this assembly. Everywhere, where the 

 German language is used, and its peculiar structure 

 afi'ects the spirit and disposition of the people, — 

 from the great European Alps to the other side of 

 the Weichsel, where, in the country of Copernicus, 

 astronomy rose to renewed splendour ; everywhere 

 in the extensive dominions of the German nation 

 we attempt to discover the secret operations of 

 Nature, whether in the heavens, or in the deepest 

 problems of mechanics, or in the interior of the 

 earth, or in the finely woven tissues of organic 

 structure. 



"^ Protected by noble princes, this assembly has 

 annually increased in interest and extent. Every 

 distinction which difi*erence of religion or form of 

 government can occasion is here annulled. Germany 

 manifests itself as it were in its intellectual unity ; 

 and since knowledge of truth and performance of 

 duty are the highest object of morality, that feeling 

 of unity weakens none of the bonds which the reli- 

 gion, constitution, and laws of our country, have 

 rendered dear to each of us. Even this emulation 

 in mental struggles has called forth (as the glorious 



