248 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLBT. 



RETROSPECT. 



The most marked features in the characters of eminent men 

 may always be traced to two predominant elements their 

 native genius and the outward circumstances by which that 

 genius has either been fostered or repressed. From the com- 

 bined action of these two elements is determined the kind and 

 force of impress which a great man will produce upon his 

 century. 



Alexander von Humboldt, even in the first thirty years of his 

 life, affords an instance in which the highest natural endowments 

 were united to outward circumstances that comprised all that 

 could render life attractive. But of yet higher value than any 

 of these gifts appears the moral force, the indefatigable industry, 

 and the persevering, enthusiastic energy by which he was led 

 to devote these gifts to the benefit of mankind and ennoble 

 them by their consecration to the service of all that could 

 further the extension of knowledge and the spread of philan- 

 thropy. 



Humboldt's endeavours were neither directed to the attain- 

 ment of office, nor the acquisition of honours, still less were 

 they aimed at either riches or pleasure. The motive by which 

 he was influenced in the pursuit of his studies was not so much 

 a preference for any particular branch of scientific investigation, 

 as a powerful impulse early experienced and dominant through- 

 out life towards the investigation of the laws regulating 

 organic and inorganic nature, and the discovery of ' the bond 

 by which the unity of nature is maintained, the parts woven 

 into a whole, and a mutual dependence observed throughout.' 



The brilliant results he early achieved are not mainly to be 

 ascribed to the completeness of his labours and the accuracy of 

 his observations, nor to the method of their prosecution, whether 

 mathematical, analytic, or systematic, but rather to the grasp of 

 thought by which he was able to combine all these methods 

 and assimilate all former theories with those of his own time. 



It was these noble endowments that inspired that sense of 

 superiority which developed in him so early a maturity, and 



