INTRODUCTION. 



forms a purple belt about the mountains. In 

 the stormy region of the Paramos, all the more 

 lofty vegetables and large flowering herbs grad- 

 vally disapper. Glumac?eous monocotyledo- 

 cous tribes now cover the surface without vari- 

 ety, and form unbounded meadows, looking yel- 

 low in the distance, where the Llama sheep is 

 seen feeding in solitude, and the cattle intro- 

 duced by Europeans roam in herds. Upon the 

 2iaked masses of trachytic rock, which here 

 and there rise above the surface of the turf-clad 

 soil, none but plants of the lowest organization 

 can thrive : the tribe of liverworts, which the 

 atmosphere, now of greatly diminished density, 

 and containing little carbonic acid, supports 

 but sparingly : Parmelias, Lecideas, and Le- 

 prarias with their many- coloured sporules, form 

 the flora of this inhospitable zone. Patches or 

 islets of lately fallen snow now begin to cover 

 the last efl!brts of vegetable life, and then, 

 sharply defined, the line of eternal ice begins. 

 Through the white, and probably hollow, bell- 

 shaped summits of the mountains, the subter- 

 ranean powers strive, but mostly in vain, to 

 break through. Where they have succeeded in 

 estabUshing a communication with the atmo- 

 sphere, through cauldron-shaped fiery throats or 

 far penetrating chasms, they rarely send forth 

 lava, as in the Old World, but carbonic acid, 

 hydrosulphurets, and hot watery vapour in 

 abundance. 



So magnificent a spectacle, in its first assault 

 upon the rude natural feelings, could excite 

 nothing but wonder and dull amazement in the 

 mind of natives of the tropical world. The in- 

 timate connection of grand periodically recur- 

 ring phenomena, and the simple laws according 

 to which these phenomena are grouped zone- 

 wise, present themselves there, above all other 

 places, with signal clearness to the senses of 

 mankind ; but from causes which, in many por- 

 tions of this highly favoured quarter of the 

 earth, oppose the local development of high 

 civilization, all the advantages of this more fa- 

 cile study of these laws have remained with- 

 out effect — so far, at least, as historical data en- 

 able us to conclude. The profound researches 

 of recent times have made it more than doubt- 

 ful that the pecuhar seat of the Indian civiliza- 

 tion — one of the fairest flowers in the history 

 of humanity, the south-eastern spread of which 

 has been so ably investigated by William von 

 Humboldt(') — was within the limits of the trop- 

 ics. Airyana Baedjo, the ancient Zend coun- 

 try, lay to the north-west of the upper Indus ; 

 and after the religious disunion or secession of 

 the Iranians from the Brahminical institutes, 

 and their separation from the Hindoos, the ori- 

 ginal common language acquired its distin- 

 guishing features, and the social institutions 

 gained their peculiar characters in Magadha(^), 

 or Madhya Desa, between the little Windhya 

 and the Himalaya chain. 



A clear insight into the operations of the 

 physical agencies was first, although, indeed, 

 at a much later period, acquired by the races 

 that people the temperate zone of our northern 

 hemisphere, and this, in spite of all the obsta- 

 cles which, under higher latitudes, complicate 

 the phenomena of the atmosphere, and render 

 difficult the discovery of general laws in the 

 climatic distribution of organic beings. From 



hence has a knowledge of the character of trop- 

 ical countries, and of countries situated near 

 the tropics, been brought by larger movements 

 of masses of mankind, or by individual foreign 

 settlers — a transplantation of scientific culture 

 which has had a like beneficial influence on the 

 intellectual existence and industrial prosperity 

 both of colonies and parent states. And here 

 we touch the point at which, in the commerce 

 betwee^n mind and the world of sense, another 

 form of enjoyment is associated to that which 

 depends on excitement of the feehngs — an en- 

 joyment of nature which springs from ideas ; 

 the point at which, in the war of the conflicting 

 elements, the orderly, the legitimate, is not 

 merely surmised or suspected, but is positively 

 known by force of reason : the point at which 

 man, as the immortal poet has it — 



Amidst fleeting phenomena, seeks the stable pole.O 



To follow this variety of enjoyment, spring- 

 ing from ideas, to its source, we have only to 

 cast our eye back upon the rise and progress 

 of the history of the philosophy of nature ; in 

 other words, of the ancient doctrine of Cosmos. 



An indefinite dread sense of the unity of the 

 powers of nature, of the mysterious bond which 

 connects the sensuous with the super-sensuous, 

 is common even among savage communities ; 

 my own travels have satisfied me that this is so. 

 The world which is revealed to man through the 

 senses, blends, often without his consciousness, 

 with the world which, in obedience to his inter- 

 nal promptings, he creates in the guise of a 

 realm of wonders in his own interior. The 

 latter, however, is nothing like a true reflection 

 of the former ; for however impotent the Ex- 

 ternal be to dissever itself from the Internal, 

 still creative fancy, and the disposition to rep- 

 resent in concrete shapes the significant in phe- 

 nomena, proceed incessantly in their workings, 

 even among the rudest nations. That which 

 presents itself to single more gifted individuals 

 as the rudiments of a natural philosophy, as an 

 induction under the guidance of reason, ac- 

 quires existence as the product of instinctive 

 susceptibilities among whole tribes of men. In 

 this way, out of the depth and activity of blind 

 feeling, is also eliminated the first impulse to ad- 

 oration, the sanctification of the preserving as 

 of the destroying powers of nature ; and, if 

 man, in passing through the different phases 

 of his progress, now feels himself less fettered 

 to the earth, and rising by degrees to mental 

 freedom, he can be satisfied no longer with a 

 mere indefinite feeling, an obscure suspicion of 

 the unity of the natural forces. The faculty of 

 thought, with its attributes of analysis and ar- 

 rangement, now asserts its rights, and growing 

 in the same measure as the human kind im- 

 proves, in presence of the plenitude of life that 

 flows throughout creation, the eager desire to 

 penetrate more deeply into the causal connec- 

 tion of phenomena is experienced. 



It is extremely difficult to obtain speedy and, 

 at the same time, certain satisfaction to such a 

 desire. From imperfect observations, and still 

 more imperfect inductions, erroneous views ot 

 the character of the natural forces arise ; views 

 which, embodied and fixed in significant words 

 and phrases, distribute themselves, a common 

 inheritance of fancy, through all classes of a 

 nation. By the side of the scientific system of 



