FEOM REVOLUTION OF JULY TO DEATH OF THE KING. 189 



by whom, though surrounded by mystery, the universe is 

 governed. To orthodox piety, both William and Alexander von 

 Humboldt, in common with most of our classic poets and 

 thoughtful philosophers, were entire strangers; the fact of 

 being brought up in the atmosphere of the new enlightenment 

 precluded any such influence. 1 To the other kind of religious 

 sentiment they were neither of them strangers, although the 

 man of science evinced a more speculative turn of mind than 

 the philosophic historian. When Alexander was searching on 

 behalf of the editor of his brother's works for the academic 

 treatise ' On the Province of the Historian,' for the concluding 

 passages of which he had a genuine admiration, he could not 

 withhold from Varnhagen the confession, that 'he had discussed, 

 if he might not say quarrelled ' with his brother over the fun- 

 damental thought of the essay, which he considered to be an 

 acknowledgment and exposition of a belief in 'the divine 

 government of the world.' The acceptance of these ' eternal and 

 mysterious decrees' then appeared to 'him as complete a delusion 

 as the physiological hypothesis of the principle of life, for the 

 truth of which he had once so warmly contended in the * Genius 

 of Ehodes.' 2 It is possible that William, in the course of 

 tete-a-tete conversations with his brother, may have expressed 

 his opinions with greater precision ; the views brought forward 

 in the treatise in which the course of history is represented 

 as the endeavour to embody an idea in action suggest nothing 

 more than that to men of thought a final cause is as inevitably 

 to be deduced from the events of history as from the pheno- 

 mena of nature, a necessity proved by Kant, and on this ques- 

 tion Alexander von Humboldt from his own point of view must 

 have been in agreement with his brother. His views on the 

 philosophy of nature will be discussed hereafter. 



The loving care testified by Alexander for the reputation of 

 his brother is nowhere more beautifully manifested than in his 

 critique of the admirable essays dedicated in 1837, by Varnhagen, 

 to the memory of his deceased friend. 3 While rejoicing in 'the 



1 The whole subject is admirably treated in Varnhagen's ' Wilhelm von 

 Humboldt, Vermischte Schriften' (2nd Edition), vol. ii. p. 118, &c. 



2 ' Briefe an Varnhagen,' p. 40. 



3 Ibid. No. 33. 



