THWABTED PLANS. 229 



and two Councils ; but insurrection will be just as rife under a 

 republican despotism as under ecclesiastical rule. There is only i 

 one advantage to be gathered from the present state of things, ) 

 and that is the extermination of the feudal system and of all the 

 aristocratic privileges which have so long pressed upon the 

 poorer and more intellectual classes of mankind an advantage 

 which T am happy to think will still remain, should monarchical 

 institutions again return to be as prevalent as republicanism 

 seems likely to be now. Amid the various emotions, mostly of 

 a melancholy character, which have been excited within me by 

 the events of the closing century, I have, I believe, continued 

 faithfully to prosecute the aims I have had in view. I have 

 never laboured with such persistent industry, nor been more 

 successful in my experiments. For the space of five months I 

 have daily observed the state of the atmosphere, and I hope to 

 work out the results of these very troublesome investigations in 

 Paris before I start on my voyage. You may perhaps have 

 seen in Zach's journal that I have been able to determine 

 astronomically the position of several places in this neighbour- 

 hood, which I accomplished by means of the sextant with 

 which in former days you used to observe in your gay and 

 beautiful garden. 



6 Pray do me the favour to insert the enclosed notice in the 

 " Intelligenzblatt." l I hope it may prove the means of re- 

 lieving me from much troublesome correspondence. I cannot 

 possibly travel all over Germany to teach every unskilful pair of 

 hands how to perform my experiments.' . . . 



William von Humboldt, who, as we have seen, had preceded 

 his brother to Paris, had soon learned to regard it as a home, 

 and was on terms of friendly intercourse with various dis- 

 tinguished votaries of science and art. A new social existence l 

 had sprung up with the new phase in political life, and scientific) 

 circles had gradually resumed that position in society which/ 



1 Several physicists had complained to him that they could not succeed 

 with his experiments. ' It seems a strange requirement to expect to be able 

 to produce in a few days, or it may be hours, all the phenomena which 

 another has only succeeded in accomplishing after five years' hard work and 

 the observation of several hundred cases.' The ' Notice ' is printed in the 

 '.Jen. allg. Literaturztg., Intelligenzblatt/ 1798, No. 79, col. 670. 



