RESIDENCE AT BERLIN TO THE REVOLUTION OF JULY. 139 



course among scientific fellow-labourers by means of stated 

 yearly meetings has been almost entirely superseded by the 

 greater facility of communication afforded in modern times. 



We should not have allowed ourselves to have alluded here 

 to the well-known history of this noted Association, had not 

 these facts been necessary in explaining the course subsequently 

 pursued by Humboldt with regard to the meetings. He re- 

 verted to the meeting held at Berlin with all the more pleasure 

 because, from the prominent position he had been accustomed 

 to occupy among the intellectual circles of Paris, he was by no 

 means insensible to the charm of being himself the centre of a 

 social gathering of this nature. He was exceedingly anxious 

 that his Parisian friends, who were members of the Institute 

 and to whose good opinion he was always keenly sensitive, 

 should fully comprehend the nature and importance of the 

 Association. ' Nothing can be more flattering to my country,' 

 he remarks, 1 in writing to GeofFroy Saint-Hilaire, on January 24, 

 1829, 'than the interest you have condescended to take in the 

 annual gathering of the scientific men of Germany. Allow 

 me in the first place to express to you my fervent gratitude. 

 We have not felt disposed to interpret the absence of the 

 scientific notables of La Belle France as any token of want of 

 sympathy with our undertaking; we know too well the obstacles 

 that are presented to a journey here, by the lateness of the 

 season, our remote position, and the difficulties of the language. 

 It is one of the characteristic traits of the age that the pre- 

 judices by which persons equally imbued with a desire for the 

 advancement of science have been hitherto kept apart are 

 being gradually dissipated. The scientific Association over 

 which I had the honour of presiding this year is in no sense 

 an academy, academic rules are even banished from its pro- 

 gramme. It grants that liberty in the expression of diverse 

 opinions which is often too much constrained by the monopoly 

 of an academy, but which is as indispensable to the progress of 

 intelligence as civil liberty is to the progress of industry and 

 the arts. ... It would be unfair to judge the Society either 

 by the number of members or the papers that are read before 



1 De la Eoquette, < Humboldt, Correspondance,' vol. i. p. 274, &c. 



