WEIMAK AND JENA. 165 



"What thoughts within me sought expression 

 Would need too long to make confession. 1 



Not merely was his interest excited by the study of plants, 

 animals, and minerals, but investigations into the nature of the 

 atmosphere and clouds, of light and colour, possessed for him a 

 powerful charm. 



Of this prince of poets, therefore, it may well be remarked, 

 in the language of Alexander von Humboldt, 2 that ' the great 

 creations of poetic fancy did not withhold his penetrating 

 glance from investigating the depths of Nature's secrets.' 



As early as 1786 Groethe wrote his paper on the inter- 

 maxillary bone, which was followed in 1790 by his 'Metamor- 

 phoses of Plants,' and in 1791 and 1792 by his first treatises 

 on optics, the precursors of his subsequent work on colour, 

 ' Farbenlehre.' 



It was about this time that Alexander von Humboldt first 

 crossed his path. Steffens 3 relates that Groethe, who usually 

 kept all younger poets ungraciously at a distance, eagerly 

 welcomed to his side those youths who were engaged in any 

 branch of natural philosophy. It was therefore his love for 

 the natural sciences that constituted the mental elective affinity, 

 the strong power of attraction which drew him irresistibly to 

 Alexander von Humboldt, in whose experiments on the galvanic 

 action of the filaments of the nerves and muscles he had taken 

 the liveliest interest. 4 According to Eckermann, he has ac- 

 knowledged in express terms how much he was indebted to the 

 circumstance that, just as he was beginning to get tired of the 

 world, he had been brought under the inspiring influence of the 

 two brothers Von Humboldt, then in the height of their fresh 

 youthful energy. ' The debt I owe to Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, 

 the brothers Humboldt, and Schlegel,' he writes, 'may some day 



1 Was ich dort gelebt, genossen, 

 Was mir all dorther entsprossen, 

 "Welche Freude, welche Kenntniss, 

 War' ein allzu lang Gestandniss.* 



2 ' Rede bei der Eroffnung der Versammlung der Naturforscher und Aerzte 

 in Berlin/ 1828. 



3 Steffens, ' Was ich erlebte/ vol. iv. p. 101. 



4 A. von Humboldt, ' Versuche iiber die gereizte Muskel- und Nervenfaser,' 

 vol. i. pp. 76, 77. 



