114 ALEXANDEK YON HUMBOLDT. 



the honourable mention of other scientific labourers is notice- 

 able even at this epoch a characteristic which in ' Cosmos ' 

 developed into a system for the acknowledgment of every per- 

 sonal or literary obligation and during the first course of 

 lectures he brought into notice the scientific men of Berlin, 

 Encke, Seebeck, Buch, Mitscherlich, William von Humboldt, 

 and Rudolphi, referring in general terms to Jiis predecessor 

 Link, and subjoining a half-ironical remark upon Steffens, who, 

 as a ' natural philosopher ' endowed with brilliant gifts of elo- 

 quence, had with some degree of applause selected similar sub- 

 jects for the theme of his lectures upon anthropology. The 

 fifth lecture was devoted to a more minute and distinctive 

 description of the physical phenomena of the universe, in con- 

 tradistinction to an encyclopedia of sciences, to mere natural 

 history, or a description of nature ; in this lecture, also em- 

 bodied in the first volume of c Cosmos,' Karl Ritter is alluded to, 

 in connection with the terrestrial portion of the description of 

 the universe, as the best exponent of geographic data. The suc- 

 ceeding lecture opened with a ' protest against Hegel,' for in the 

 strong censure passed upon the ' system of natural philosophy 

 without facts or experiments,' his school was clearly indicated. 

 There still raged 'amid the abuse of noble powers the wild 

 though brief saturnalia of a purely ideal science,' there still 

 prevailed, particularly in the University of Berlin, ' the in- 

 toxicating delusion of a conquered possession,' characterised 

 ' by its own peculiar symbolic language,' that ' scheme of 

 philosophy narrower than was ever imposed upon mankind in 

 the middle ages.' 1 It cannot be supposed that this annihi- 

 lating censure was delivered before the University in the same 

 form in which it was published seventeen years afterwards in 

 c Cosmos ' though Humboldt maintains 2 that he made use of 

 the same words when lecturing in the music hall but it is 

 evident that he ventured to attack the evil with ruthless seve- 

 rity at the head-quarters of the enemy 3 a deed no less daring 



1 'Kosmos,' vol. i. pp. 68, 69. 



2 From an undated letter to Bockh of the year 1841. 



3 Information reached Hegel that Humboldt had let drop some offensive 

 remarks against his philosophy. In the ' Notes ' forwarded by Humboldt 

 in his justification to Varnhagen for Hegel's inspection, stand the words : 



