112 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



With regard to the lectures in Berlin, Humboldt has em- 

 phatically declared in his autobiographical notices c that the 

 book entitled " Cosmos " was not to be traced to those dis- 

 courses, since the foundations for that work were laid long 

 before, during the journey in Peru, and appear in the " Tableau 

 physique des Regions equinoxiales," which was there written 

 and dedicated to Goethe.' If by this statement he sought 

 to indicate the first conception of ' Cosmos,' he might have gone 

 back to a still earlier period, since it was in the year 1796, 

 January 24, that he wrote to Pictet : ' I have been drawing 

 up a scheme for a universal science ; ' l although at that time, 

 keenly as he felt the necessity of such a work, he saw no suffi- 

 cient basis for its construction. Notwithstanding, the reader 

 will be compelled to admit, not merely from the narrative before 

 ITS but also from expressions made use of by Humboldt both 

 at this time and at a later period, that ' Cosmos ' may without 

 hesitation be regarded as the result of these lectures, only that 

 the fruit of after years' careful nursing ripened into a much 

 more glorious product than the blossom gave reason to ex- 

 pect. In the latter years of his life, he again expressly states 

 (' Kosmos,' vol. v. p. 89) that ' Cosmos ' ' originated ' out of 

 these lectures upon physical geography. We shall therefore 

 feel justified in entering with some minuteness into a critical 

 examination of the lectures delivered during the winter of 

 1827-28. Our remarks will not be based upon any notes 

 taken down at the time and subsequently elaborated, though a 

 manuscript of this description lies before us ; for, as Humboldt 

 has himself remarked in reference to this subject, 2 'nothing 

 is more annoying than to see your own ideas published in 

 mingled confusion with the thoughts of another.' All manu- 

 script notes, therefore, taken down at the time were to him 



* abominations.' Fortunately, among his papers there have 

 been found some notes in his own handwriting, giving an 

 outline of the subjects of both courses of lectures, an abstract 

 of which he inserted in the preface to the first volume of 



* Cosmos.' There are besides numerous quarto pages contain- 



1 See vol. i. p. 197 of the present work. 



2 Letter to Richard Zeune (Berlin, February 16, 1857). 



