344 WORKS PUBLISHED IN 1815 



hushed into peace, and when, under the influence uf a 

 new social order, those countries shall have made rapid 

 progress in public welfare. If then some pages of my 

 book are snatched from oblivion, the inhabitant of the 

 banks of the Orinoco and the Atabapo will behold with 

 delight populous cities enriched by commerce, and fertile 

 fields cultivated by the hands of free men, on those very 

 spots where, at the time of my travels, I found only im- 

 penetrable forests and inundated lands." 



Such was the plan that Humboldt proposed to himself 

 when he sat down to write the historical relation of his 

 travels, and he succeeded perfectly. He produced the 

 finest book of travels ever written. As picturesque 

 as the most perfect masters of description, no writer, 

 living, or dead, ever approached him in varied and pro- 

 found knowledge — in what may be called the philosophy 

 of nature. He is nature's own philosopher. Nearly 

 fifty years have elapsed since the publication of his 

 *' Voyage;" men and manners have changed, and taste 

 with them ; what was a mere groping after knowledge 

 then, is a grasping of it now : similar books have been 

 w^ritten, and excellent ones, too : yet he still holds his 

 ground with all classes of readers. ISTa}^, he has gained 

 ground, for his book was never so popular as at pre- 

 sent. 



From 1814 to 1819, when the second volume of the 

 "Voyage" was published, Humboldt continued his 

 literary labours, writing a number of works, mostly 

 scientific. In 1815, he published the first volume of the 

 " New Genera and Species of Plants." It was a great 

 folio, similar to the " Equinoctial Plants." Like that it 

 was written in ^Latin, and chiefly by Kunth, to whom he 



