RESIDENCE AT BERLIN TO THE REVOLUTION OF JULY. 85 



an expression of regret that Paris hitherto 'had seemed to- 

 appropriate those great men upon whom Berlin possessed a 

 peculiar claim, as though a man of distinguished genius could 

 nowhere find a home save in the drawing-rooms of the Faubourg- 

 St. Germain ; . . . but now that Berlin was beginning to form 

 a centre for science and art, it would soon stand as closely 

 associated with the rest of the world as either London or Paris.' 

 The writer next proceeded to call attention to the riches of 

 the Museum of Berlin, which are vaunted as not much inferior 

 to the collections of other European capitals, and as even supe- 

 rior to most in mineralogy, owing to the c collections from the 

 Cordilleras ' contributed by Humboldt. The passage concludes 

 with the following profound observation, highly characteristic 

 of this kind of pseudo-scientific journal: 'In science, as in 

 politics, it is not the wealth of material that constitutes the 

 value, but the intellectual power by which it is governed. In 

 the study of Nature, Herr von Humboldt has from the first 

 not directed his attention so much to her phenomena as a 

 conglomerate mass of objects, but rather to the deep meaning 

 of her inner life, and by him was first awakened in Germany 

 the taste for natural philosophy. It is customary to hear his 

 praises sounded for the intrepidity with which he ascended 

 Chimborazo, and the resolution which enabled him to persevere 

 when suffering alarming giddiness ; but we accord him still 

 higher praise for having climbed with Schelling and Hegel 

 the heights of natural philosophy without succumbing, as so 

 many empirics have done, to the bewildering effects of such 

 an elevation. It is from these heights that Herr von Humboldt 

 contemplates the world of nature ; and whether in this kind of 

 contemplation he is likely to find most sympathy in Berlin or 

 Paris, there ought in his mind to be little doubt.' 



It is certain that he must have experienced little doubt, 

 on perusing this effusion of ignorance and folly, that he had no 

 ground for anticipating any real sympathy in his scientific 

 labours among a community who, blinded by the glitter of a 

 false imagination, could accord him no higher place than that 

 of a Steffens. A more reliable and at the same time a less self- 

 sufficient kind of mental culture was that emanating from the 



