S4 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



for the reading and discussion of the newest poetical effusions, 1 

 neither could lie take any interest in the shallow criticisms on 

 literature, art, and the stage, which abounded in the periodicals 

 of the Berlin of that day. Accustomed as he was in conver- 

 sation to express himself upon these subjects with a refined and 

 discriminating criticism, he could never regard such discourse 

 .as worthy of the serious occupation of thoughtful minds. The 

 6 Jahrbiicher fur wissenschaftliche Kritik,' commenced in 1826, 

 must have been powerless to arouse his interest, since it ema- 

 nated almost exclusively from the circle of literati gathered 

 round Hegel. 



Slight as was the attraction offered him by the elegant 

 literature of the day, philosophy, in the form at least in which 

 it was then popular at Berlin, could as little command his 

 attention. Hegel was the ruling spirit of the age, and in 

 saying this we have said everything. Humboldt, whose realistic- 

 method of viewing nature had been but little affected by the 

 philosophy of Kant, although his mode of thought had doubt- 

 less been strengthened by that system, had no power of com- 

 prehension for the fantastic creations of Hegel's school of philo- 

 ,sophy ; his reasoning powers, founded upon the old-established 

 principles of logic, had never yielded to the seductive charm 

 of the dialectic method. Its scheme of Natural Philosophy, the 

 weakest and at the same time the least original part of this 

 -otherwise intellectual system, was too irrational to permit of 

 his sympathies being given to it as a whole. In view of these 

 considerations, it is amusing to observe the expectations of 

 sympathetic intercourse excited by his return in the circle of 

 which Hegel was the centre. 



In the second number of the ' Berliner Conversationsblatt fur 

 Poesie, Literatur und Kritik,' edited by Friedrich Forster and 

 AVilhelm Haring (Willibald Alexis), published on January 2, 

 1827, it was thought that there could be 'no more worthy 

 commencement ' of its Chronicle of the Events of Berlin than 

 the announcement that, upon the gracious invitation of his 

 Majesty the King, Herr Alexander von Humboldt was about 

 to change his residence from Paris to Berlin. Then followed 



1 See Karl von Holtei, 'Vierzig Jahre' (2nd edition), vol. iii. p. 224, &c. 



