

WEIMAK AND JENA. 183 



extraneous, but yet by which it is supposed to be governed. 

 These phantoms succeeded each other Proteus-like, till the 

 newer chemistry developed by the discoveries of Gralvani and 

 Volta gave a fresh direction to the enquiry and seemed to point 

 to a solution. 



In the early vigour of his genius, Humboldt was the first 

 to take up this question from a chemist's point of view. 1 He 

 had as early as 1793, in his 'Aphorisms from the Chemical 

 Physiology of Plants,' 2 defined the principle of life as that 

 ' inner ' power which dissolves the bond of chemical affinity 

 and prevents free combination taking place in organic bodies. 

 But the mind of Humboldt in these early years was deeply 

 imbued with the poetic imaginative power of the spirit of Plato, 

 and stimulated by the charm of the poetic circles of Weimar 

 and Jena, ' who delighted to adorn the truths of science in the 

 elegant garb of poetry,' he was incited to symbolise and per- 

 sonify the problems which science had still left unsolved. He 

 was thus led to contribute to the 'Horen,' a paper entitled 

 6 The Principle of Life, or the Grenius of Ehodes.' 3 



Two pictures by unknown artists, to give an outline of the 

 story, are supposed to form the subject of a variety of criticism 

 in the Hall of Arts at Syracuse. In one of them a group of 

 youths and maidens are seeking with passionate gestures to 

 embrace, while above appears an allegorical figure, called the 

 Grenius of Rhodes from the pictures coming originally, as it 

 was thought, from that island a butterfly on the shoulder, 

 and holding on high a flaming torch, seeming by a gesture of 

 command to warn them from a nearer approach. The other 

 picture represents the same Genius without the butterfly, with 

 torch extinguished and head hung down, while the youths and 

 maidens fling themselves below into each other's arms with 

 every expression of rapturous gratification. 



While some of the critics regard the Grenius as the expression 

 of spiritual love forbidding the indulgence of sensual pleasure, 



1 Du Bois-Keymond, ( Untersuchungen liber die thierisclie Elektricitat/ 

 vol. i. p. 75. 



2 l Aphorismen aus der chemischen Physiologie der Pflanzen.' 



3 l Die Lebenskraft, oder der rhodische Genius.' See Ule, < Die Natur,' 

 1856 No. 45. 



