WEIMAE AND JENA. 177 



Physical Sciences.' His genuine admiration of the great poet 

 culminates in the fine passage with which he concludes the 

 chapter in e Cosmos ' * on the poetic description of nature. 

 'Where is the nation of the imaginative South who might not 

 envy us our great master of poetic art, whose works are deeply 

 imbued with an intense love of nature displayed with equal 

 fervour in the " Sorrows of Werther," the " Reminiscences of 

 Italy," the "Metamorphoses of Plants," and the "Miscellaneous 

 Poems " ? Who has so eloquently incited kindred minds " to 

 unravel the profound mysteries of the universe," and renew the 

 bond by which, in the primitive ages of the world, philosophy, 

 physical science, and poetry, were united ? Who has so attrac- 

 tively portrayed that land in which his imagination found a 

 home, where 



Soft blows the air beneath that southern sky, 

 Where myrtles bloom and laurels tower high " ? ' 2 



And yet the remarkable love of nature distinguishing these 

 two men, who held each other in such high esteem, was inspired 

 by feelings of a very opposite character. Goethe was pre- 

 eminently characterised by an inborn love of nature and all 

 natural phenomena, a subjective comprehension and a keen 

 susceptibility for the impression produced by the forces of 

 nature, while, as the enemy of all objective exact investigation, 

 he viewed with the utmost abhorrence the ' physico-mathe- 

 matical guild.' It was only in later life that he felt any 

 impulse towards scientific investigation, and then he accom- 

 plished important results, not merely by means of isolated 

 discoveries, but by developing a comprehensive view of nature 

 and method of observation. He attained that insight into 

 naturje which led to the perception of the reciprocal action of 

 cause and effect, by which he was enabled to rise from the 

 individual to the type, from the special to the universal, from 

 the small to the great, from the part to the whole. 



The characteristic of Humboldt's mode of thought, on the 

 contrary, was an early and overpowering impulse towards 



1 f Kosmos,' vol. ii. p. 75. 



' Ein sanfter Wind vom blauen Himmel weht, 

 Die Myrte still und hoch der Lorbeer steht? ' 

 VOL. I. N 



