COLLEGE LIFE. 83 



Not less fantastic were the theories of the Abbe Giraud- 

 Soulavie, 1 who thought he was able to prove that the geolo- 

 gical formation of a country exercised an influence upon the 

 physical condition and manners of the inhabitants. ' The 

 inhabitants of basaltic regions,' he maintains, ; are difficult to 

 govern, prone to insurrection, and irreligious. Basalt appears 

 to have been an agent, though hitherto unacknowledged, in the 

 rapid spread of the Reformation.' Humboldt, who in later life 

 formed so just an estimate of the kind of influence exerted 

 upon the inhabitants of a country by the natural conformation 

 of the land, wrote even at this time : ' I need scarcely fear to 

 be misunderstood, and be supposed to deny that the physical 

 constitution of a country exerts an important influence upon 

 the manners of a people. There can be no question that the 

 inhabitants of a mountainous region differ very decidedly from 

 the people dwelling in a plain ; but to attempt to determine 

 what particular influence upon the character is exerted by 

 granite, porphyry, clay- slate, or basalt, must be regarded as a , 

 wanton trespass beyond the boundaries of our knowledge ' a 

 proof of the caution he early displayed in the formation of his 

 opinions and of the modesty which led him to avoid startling 

 modes of expression. 



The last few months of his stay at Gottingen, which he 

 quitted after a year's sojourn in March 1790, passed without 

 any remarkable event. Humboldt always preserved a grateful 

 remembrance of the intellectual advantages that were here 

 afforded him, and nearly half a century afterwards, on the oc- 

 casion of the centenary of the Georgia Augusta (University of 

 Gottingen), in September 1837, he expressed in grateful terms 

 his acknowledgment that it was to this University that he was 

 indebted for the most valuable part of his education. 



It was at Gottingen, at the house of Heyne, that Humboldt 

 first made the acquaintance of George Forster, Heyne's son-in- 

 law, that remarkable genius who shone upon his youth like 

 a guiding star, and was not only the friend with whom he en- 

 joyed the deepest sympathy in ail his tastes and pursuit s, 

 But was also the one who exercised the most powerful influence 



1 ' Histoire nat. de la France merid.' vol. ii. p. 455. 

 G 2 



