RESIDENCE AT BERLIN TO THE KEVOLUTION OF JULY. Ill 



colour, a further censure should have been passed upon phy- 

 sicists for 'holding with incredible pertinacity Newton's ground- 

 less hypotheses.' This utter absence of any scientific education 

 worthy of the name must have impressed itself afresh upon 

 Humboldt, and shown him how little reliance was to be placed 

 upon the powers of comprehension of such an audience. When, 

 therefore, he announced in July that he should deliver during* 

 the coming winter a course of lectures on physical geography, 

 intended rather for the fashionable world than for students, 

 4 for the caps and gowns,' the motive was not so much ' to show 

 that he was no mere courtier,' l as to gather round him persons of 

 education and intelligence, and to influence the future through 

 the rising generation, since it appeared to him that little was 

 to be hoped from the present age. A second course of lectures, 

 delivered at the music hall before a mixed audience, was 

 instituted at the repeated and express desire of the public, and 

 we shall not greatly err in supposing this desire to have ori- 

 ginated in consequence of Schlegel's enterprise of a similar 

 nature. Moreover Humboldt had, as is well known, during his 

 sojourn in Paris, delivered a course of lectures upon physical 

 geography in 1825, before an assembly gathered at the house 

 of the Marquise de Montauban, sister of the Due de Eichelieu ; 

 but we are unable to state the connection that existed between 

 these lectures in Paris and those given at Berlin, beyond the 

 fact that, as they were closely allied in subject, the earlier 

 lectures must to some extent have been preparatory. On one 

 occasion only he incidentally mentions to Bockh, 2 that in 

 the delineation of Nature he had attempted in Paris he had 

 been unable to represent her apart from the reflective influence 

 she exerts upon the mind. It is surprising how very little is 

 known of the lectures delivered in Paris ; it almost seems as 

 if the fact of their existence had never penetrated beyond the 

 private circle for which they were intended. Elie de Beau- 

 mont, who was then in Paris, could not afterwards recall having 

 ever heard of them. 3 



1 Yarnhagen, < Blatter/ vol. iv. p. 269. 



2 Letter of December 26, 1846. 



3 De la Eoquette, ' Humboldt, etc.' vol. i. p. 26. 



