138 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



lishmen there are always three who have quarrelled ! ' As the 

 c 400 nomadic friends ' gradually dispersed after a week's sojourn 

 at Berlin, the feeling arose that ' the meeting had been pro- 

 ductive of great mental stimulus, and that the most favourable 

 impressions had been both given and received.' 



In order to form at this distance of time a just estimate of 

 the importance of the meeting of 1828, it will be necessary to 

 follow the subsequent development of this Association as effected 

 by the revolutions of time. The splendour lent to the Associa- 

 tion from the fact of its being the only exposition of the ideal 

 unity of the nation gradually faded, as this idea became more 

 widely disseminated and the real unity of the country was 

 developed, until at length the endless multiplicity of societies 

 of all kinds culminated in the existence of a united Germany, 

 which in the grandeur of its political combinations cast the 

 preliminary Association, based merely on intellectual interests, 

 entirely into the shade. Although the scientific value of these 

 meetings was at first estimated so highly that other European 

 nations thought them worthy of imitation, it cannot be denied 

 that their importance in a purely scientific aspect gradually 

 fell in the estimation of the men of greatest distinction. The 

 principle of association, though justly employed in the present 

 day universally in matters of a practical nature, has never 

 proved itself of great value where theory alone is concerned. 

 Even the sectional meetings, owing to the want of plan and 

 the course of the discussion being left to the guidance of 

 chance, have but rarely been productive of important results ; 

 too frequently have they only served to bring into prominence 

 the views of those who have been justly denied a hearing 

 through the ordinary channels of scientific communication, 

 and who have been thus enabled to publish to the world, 

 with much assumption, their presumed discoveries and their 

 ill-devised schemes. The social influence, therefore, of these 

 meetings, regarded by Humboldt, even in 1828, as one of their , 

 most important aspects, has in consequence gradually acquired 

 an increasing value ; but even this advantage has been con- 

 siderably impaired, since it degenerated after the usual German, 

 fashion into the unintellectual form of feasting : while, on 

 the other hand, the necessity of maintaining personal inter- 



