EESIDENCE AT .BERLIN TO THE REVOLUTION OF JULY. 125 



undertaking in which he was engaged may be inferred from 

 the fact that he set himself to work in direct opposition to a 

 school of philosophy which, notwithstanding the hollowness 

 and instability of its scheme of science, assumed with lofty 

 self-sufficiency the guise of a select community, and to secure 

 the appearance of profundity adopted a misty and confused 

 language. Nor has he left us in ignorance of the motives by 

 which he was actuated. When invited by Kaurner to take an 

 active part in the formation of the Scientific Society, he 

 declined to do so on account of his great age 72 which 

 rendered him unable to speak in public with his former facility ; 

 at the same time he repudiated by a reference to the lectures 

 of 1827 the insinuation of any aversion to the popularisation 

 of science. c With knowledge comes thought,' he adds, ' and 

 thought imbues men with earnestness and power. I was 

 speaking to the king only yesterday in favour of your interest- 

 ing project, while dining at Sanssouci. The constant change 

 of subject and lecturer suggests something to me both piquant 

 and entertaining. Whether an association of this character, 

 that has for its object the establishment of some eight or ten 

 lectures by various men of science every half-year, whereby 

 several courses of lectures are simultaneously maintained, ne- 

 cessitating as many as three in a week, be not grasping at a 

 little too much, I will not attempt at present to decide. " Multa 

 fiunt eodem sed aliter." ' And after the opening lecture by 

 Raumer, he writes: 'Accept my heartfelt thanks for the 

 pleasure you have afforded me, and for the kind manner in 

 which you alluded to my efforts. May the spread of intellec- 

 tual culture impart that power of thought by which alone 

 the mind can retain the knowledge already acquired.' * The 

 reader will no doubt sympathise with Humboldt's views as to 

 the great utility of an effective course of lectures, and will be 

 disposed to interpret the ironical remark about the attendance 

 of ladies at the lectures of 1827 as a humorous mode of stating 

 that the good effects of a beneficial act would not always im- 

 mediately appear. How much he was at that time occupied 

 with science, as applied to education, appears from a letter to 



1 Eaumer, < Literarischer Nachlass,' vol. i. p. 22, Nos. 11 and 12. 



