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HUMBOLDT. KARL WILHELM, BARON VON. 



HUMnOLDT, KARL WILHI.I.M. ISAKON VON. 



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(January 1803) ; tome months were spent in examining the city of 

 Mexico and other parts of the country round, and in a visit to the 

 United States ; and in January 1804 the travellers sot sail for Europe, 

 taking Cuba again on their way. They returned to Europe in August 

 1804, bringing with them, as the result of their five years' absence. 

 an immense mass of new knowledge in geography, geology, climatology, 

 meteorology, botany, zoology, and every other branch of natural 

 science, as well as in ethnology, and political statistics. 



The task of digesting and systematising this knowledge and pre- 

 senting it to the scientific world still remained to be accomplished ; 

 aud to this task Humboldt, taking up his residence in Paris, where 

 Boopland also resided, devoted almost exclusively the next twelve 

 years of his life. Under the general title of ' Voyage de Humboldt et 

 Bonpland dans I'intorieure de 1'Amerique dans les annexes 1799-1804,' 

 a succession of six or seven works of large dimension, with illustrative 

 plates and atlases, was issued between 1807 and 1817, each work being 

 devoted to observations in a particular department ; and even these 

 left the total mass of results unexhausted. The first part of the 

 general work, published in 1807, was by Humboldt himself, and was 

 on the geography and distribution of plants in the equinoctial regions ; 

 the second, by Humboldt and Bonpland jointly, was on the zoology 

 and comparative anatomy of the expedition ; the third, by Humboldt, 

 was a political essay on the kingdom of New Spain, in two quarto 

 volumes ; the fourth, edited by Oltmanns, contained a digest of obser- 

 vations in astronomy and magnetism ; and the fifth, forming a huge 

 work by itself, was specially botanical, and was entitled 'Plantes 

 Kquinoxiales recuilles au Mexique, dans 1'Isle do Cuba, dans les 

 provinces des Caracas, de Cumana, et de Barcelona, aux Andes de la 

 Nouvelle Grenade, de Quito, et do Perou, et sur les bords du Rio 

 Negro, de I'Oronoque, et de la Riviere des Amazons.' All these instal- 

 ments of the main work appeared originally in Paris; where also 

 appeared in six volumes folio (1815-18), a separate work in Latin by 

 C. S. Kunth, ' On the New Genera and Orders of Plants collected in 

 their Exploration of the New World by Aimd Bonplaud and A. 

 de Humboldt, and by them described and partly sketched.' Works 

 also appeared in Germany and England, giving in a more popular 

 form the results of the great American exploration ; the most notable 

 of which in England were 'Researches concerning the Inhabitants 

 of America, with descriptions and views of Scenes iu the Cordilleras,' 

 2 vols. 1814 ; and ' Personal Narrative of Travels in the Equinoctial 

 Regions of the New Continent during the years 1799-1804, by Alexander 

 de Humboldt and Aim6 Boupland,' 5 vols. 1814-21 both translated 

 and edited by Helen Maria Williams. It was not till about the year 



1817 (if we except an ' Inquiry concerning Electrical Fishes,' published 

 at Erfurt in 1806) that Humboldt had leisure for works not imme- 

 diately growing out of his American travels. In that year he published 

 a general essay entitled 'De Distributione geographica plantarum 

 secunduin cosli temperiem et oltitudinem montinm prolegomena.' In 



1818 he revisited Italy with Gay Lussac, and afterwards spent some 

 time in England ; in 1823 he published 'A Geographical Essay on the 

 Superposition of Rocks in both Hemispheres ;' and in 1826 he took up 

 his residence in his native Berlin where he has for the most part 

 lived since, honoured with every mark of esteem both by Frederick 

 \\illum III. and by the present sovereign, and more and more beloved 

 by the Berliners as age added its venerable dignity to his face and 

 mien. In 1829, when iu his sixty-first year, he accepted a pressing 

 invitation of the Russian Emperor Nicholas to accompany Messrs. Rose 

 and Ehrenberg in their travels into the Asiatic regions of the Russian 

 empire. In the company of these gentlemen he visited Siberia and 

 the shores of the Caspian, and advanced as far east as the frontiers of 

 the Chinese empire, returning by Moscow and St. Petersburg. Among 

 various works, issued by him or under his superintendence, giving the 

 scientific results of this expedition, may be mentioned ' Fragmens de 

 Geologic et de Climatologie Asiatiques,' 2 vols., Paris, 1831. Of Hum- 

 boldt's subsequent works, the chief (omitting memoirs and essays 

 scattered through scientific journals) are his ' Critical Examination of 

 the History of the Geography of the New World, and of the progress 

 of Astronomy in the 15th and 16th centuries,' 5 vols., Paris, 1836-39 ; 

 and his famous ' Kosmos : a general survey of the physical phenomena 

 of the Universe,' begun in 1845, and continued since. In this great 

 work, of which there are several English translations, the naturalist 

 passes into the sage, and communicates, as it were, the essence of all 

 the accumulated knowledge of his life, in the form of a connected 

 system of science pervaded by a philosophic meaning. The spirit of 

 contemplation is here Men brooding, as it were, over the results of 

 life-long acquisition, and imparting to them a poetic unity. Something 

 of the same sublime tone of mind which is visible in this work is said 

 to characterise the personal conversation of the man, as he moves 

 about in the society of Berlin, a Nestor of eighty-seven, surrounded by 

 men and women of two younger generations. With the present King 

 of Prussia his intercourse is constant and familiar. His last visit to 

 England was iu 1842, when he came over to be present at the 

 christening of the Prince of Wales. He will be remembered in future 

 times as perhaps all in all the greatest descriptive naturalist of his 

 age, the man whose observations have been most numerous and of the 

 widest range, and the actual creator of several new branches of 

 .natural science. 



UUMBOLDT, KARL WILHELM, BARON VON, one of the most 



distinguished linguists of his time, was born at Potsdam, near Berlin, 

 on the 22 ad of June 1767, and after having received a careful edu- 

 cation, together with his celebrated younger brother, the Baron 

 Alexander von Humboldt, the subject of the preceding article, studied 

 Uw in the universities of Gottingen and Jena. At Jena he formed 

 an intimate and lasting friendship with the poet Schiller, who had 

 great influence over him, and early turned his attention towards those 

 studies in which he afterwards rose to great eminence, philology, 

 philosophy, and mithetios. Humboldt wrote at au early age several 

 essays and memoirs, and made translation* from the Greek philo- 

 sophers and poets, which appeared in different reviews in Germany ; 

 but though he was distinguished by his talents from most of his 

 equals in age, he examined himself carefully before he entered upon 

 any subject with a view to publish his ideas. Ho was thirty three 

 when he published his first great production, a critical essay on 

 Gothe's poem ' Hermann and Dorothea : ' but this work at once 

 established his fame, and is in its way a model of xstheticul criticism. 

 After Humboldt had left Jena (1793) he carried on a correspondence 

 with Schiller, which was published at Stuttgart in 1830, and which 

 is one of the most remarkable collections of private letters that have 

 ever been printed. They exchanged their ideas on various topics, 

 especially on metaphysics, poetry, and history; the letters an 

 extremely clear and well written, and those of Humboldt are quite as 

 interesting as those of Schiller. It is pleasant to soe that these two 

 eminent men were just towards each other with regard to their 

 respective accomplishments and deficiencies, as will be seen from 

 Schiller's judgment of Humboldt iu another part of this article. In 

 1802 Humboldt was appointed resident, and a few years afterwards 

 minister plenipotentiary at the Holy See. After his return front 

 Rome, iu 1808, he was made chief of the departments of religion and 

 public instruction in the home ministry, but tendered his resign ition 

 two years afterwards, and for some time retired to his seat at Tegel, 

 near Berlin, where he devoted his time exclusively to literature, till, 

 in 1812, he was sent as ambassador to Vienna. In this capacity he 

 took part at the Conferences of Prague in the summer of 1813, where, 

 after long negociations, Austria gave up her neutral portion and 

 espoused the cause of Prussia aud Russia. During the campaigns of 

 1813 and 1814 he was in the head-quarters of the King of Prussia, 

 Frederick William III. ; assisted at the conferences of Ch&tillon ; 

 signed with Hardenberg the Treaty of Paris ; and after the peace 

 returned to Vienna, where he discharged the functions of minister- 

 plenipotentiary of Prussia, together with Hardcuberg, at the Congress 

 of Vienna. The treaty of 1815, through which the King of Saxony 

 lost one-half of his kingdom, which was given to Prussia, was con- 

 trived and signed by Humboldt He continued his diplomatic career 

 at Frankfurt, where he made himself conspicuous through his con- 

 ciliatory eloquence in the delicate business of dividing Germany 

 among its princes, and afterwards as ambassador at the court of St. 

 James's, which he left during a short time in order to assist at the 

 Congress of Aix-la-Chspelle. In 1819 he was appointed minister and 

 a privy councillor at Berlin. The retrograde policy of the King of 

 Prussia was supported by the state-chancellor, Prince Hardeuberg ; 

 but Humboldt and the ministers Von Beyme and Von Boyen tried to 

 persuade the king to be faithful to those liberal principles which he 

 had proclaimed in 1813, and especially advised him to keep the solemn 

 promise he had given to introduce a general national representation. 

 Unable to oppose a barrier to the king's policy, Humboldt, Beyme, 

 and Boyen tendered their resignation, aud Humboldt again retired to 

 Tegel, where he henceforth devoted all his time to literature. He 

 died on the 8th of April 1835. 



During forty years he had enjoyed the well-deserved reputation of 

 one of the greatest philosophers and linguists of Europe, aud he was 

 certainly an extraordinary man. The number of languages, most of 

 them barbarous or half-civilised, which ho had thoroughly studied, 

 besides the classical languages, was very great. He acquired the most 

 difficult languages, as, for instance, the Basque, iu fewer mouths than 

 others would have spent years in learning them. He was equally 

 distinguished for the views he took iu comparing the development of 

 languages with the development of the human mind, as well as iu 

 comparative grammar ; and as a critic of the ideal iu poetry, philo- 

 sophy, aud the fine arts, he had few equals iu Germany. Humbaldt 

 was mediocre as a poet, and it seems he felt his inferiority in this 

 respect, for after having published a few poems, he stopped. Hu left 

 a great number of poems in manuscript, chiefly sonnets, most of 

 which were afterwards published by his brother Alexander; but 

 though they are beautifully written and of a most elegant and delicate 

 versification, they are vogue and sentimental. Schiller, in a letter 

 which was written when Humboldt first attempted authorship, speaks 

 thus to his friend : " I am convinced that the principal cause which 

 seems to prevent your success as an author is the predominance of 

 the reasoning faculties of your mind over the creating faculties, aud 

 consequently the preventive influence of criticism over invention, 

 which always proves destructive to mental production. Your 

 'subject' becomes immediately au 'object' to you, although even iu 

 abstract sciences nothing can be created but by 'subjective ' activity. 

 In many concerns I cannot call you a genius; yet 1 must avow that 

 you are a genius in others. For your mind is of so particular a 

 description that you are sometimes exactly the contrary of all those 



