EABLY HOME. 39 



The ecclesia triumphans or triumphare cupiens has, mean- 

 while, to contend with all her might against a powerful oppo- 

 sition, and is occasionally defeated in her most cherished plans, 

 as, for instance, in regard to a civil edict requiring that all 

 enactments on the subject of religion should, whenever prac- 

 ticable, be issued by the crown. It is confidently reported that 

 a new edict for the restriction of the liberty of the press has 

 been lately rejected almost unanimously by the Council of State, 

 two ministers only voting in its favour. 1 It may be regarded 

 as an open question whether a victory of this kind is in reality 

 a triumph of truth. For it is maintained by some that many 

 of these liberal acts only originate from motives of financial 

 policy, as, for instance, if the peasantry are not allowed to dance 

 on a Sunday, the revenue from the music tax will be diminished, 

 and so on. ... Silberschlag 2 has recently delivered some 

 lectures on the sun at the Academy of Sciences. The result 

 of his reasoning, supposed to be incontrovertible, is as follows : 

 The sun is really a kitchen fire, and the spots are clouds of 

 smoke and great heaps of soot ; consequently, where there is 

 a kitchen fire, there must be meat to roast, such as godless 

 people, Deists, Universalists, and Atheists, and the devil is 

 the cook who turns the spit.' 



Still greater absurdities had been committed at the Academy 

 during the previous year. In 1787, the same year in which 

 Humboldt matriculated at the University of Frankfort, Semler 

 communicated to the Academy his discovery that gold was 

 formed in a certain volatile salt when kept in a moist and 

 warm condition. Klaproth tested this salt by order of the 

 Academy, and actually found in it a small piece of gold-leaf- 

 placed there by Semler's servant in order to cheer his credulous 

 master in his labours. 



Such was the intellectual and moral atmosphere of Berlin at the 

 time when the two Humboldts were entering man's estate, and 

 were therefore of an age to be most easily influenced by external 



1 The edict on religion was dated July 9, 1788 ; the edict on the censor- 

 ship of the press December 19, 1788. 



2 Johann Esaias Silberschlag was principal preacher at the Church of the 

 Trinity, Councillor of the Upper Consistory, and Privy Councillor of the 

 Itoyal Commission for Public Buildings. 



