212 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



appearance of heresy. The compilers of the great legislative work 

 the common law of Prussia Klein, Carmer, Cocceji, stood iso- 

 lated beside the administration of such men as Groerne, Hoym, 

 Struensee ; the theory of law and justice was powerless against 

 the corrupt practices of the officers of the crown. Notwith- 

 standing the principles of justice recognised by the State, the 

 burdens of feudalism, the privileges of the nobility, and the 

 distinctions of rank remained undisturbed. 



Such a condition of things produced in manners and in 

 literature a frivolous scepticism, which reached its climax in 

 Schlegel's ' Lucinde,' a mere glorification of passion, in which 

 love and marriage are regarded as synonymous. 



The better part of the community viewed these proceedings 

 with grief and horror. To Humboldt the society in Berlin of 

 every grade had long been in the highest degree distasteful. 

 As early as 1795 he the young mining official, the court-bred 

 son of a royal chamberlain gave open expression to the senti- 

 ment, 1 ' that court life robs even the most intellectual of their 

 genius and their freedom.' Even at that time the Berlin 

 Eoyal Academy of Science well deserved the appellation he 

 gave it somewhat later of ' a lazar-house,' ' a hospital in which 

 the sick sleep more soundly than those in health.' 2 At the 

 time when he was investigating the processes of life and the 

 principles of a practical art of healing with untiring energy 

 and self-sacrifice, quacks, charlatans, adepts, and magnetisers 

 were carrying on their deceptive quackeries in the royal sick- 

 chamber in the marble palace at Potsdam by the aid of mag- 

 netic passes from the hands of women, by kittens, and the 

 entrails of unborn calves. 



What was there, then, in Berlin to detain Humboldt in such 

 a home after the death of his mother ? 



After a short stay at Berlin, whither he had been summoned 

 by family affairs, Humboldt returned to Bayreuth to wind up 

 his official engagements in Franconia, and by March 1 we find 

 him at Jena with his brother, who had likewise been seized 

 with so strong a propensity for roving, that he had confided 



1 In the < Genius of Khodes.' 



2 De la Koquette, < Humboldt, Correspondance, etc./ vol. i. p. 184. 

 (< Le Globe, Journ. geogr. etc.' p. 179.) 



