218 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



no doubt Alexander fully sympathised. In seeking a cause for 

 his love of historical research, it may be remarked that it is a 

 characteristic of the German mind to seek to penetrate with 

 dauntless effrontery into the remotest depths of the past ; it 

 is a philosophic trait among German students of science to 

 seek, even when engaged in experiment, the relatively final 

 cause, although the .absolute final cause lies beyond the reach 

 of experiment. In Humboldt this bent of mind was strongly 

 developed : who is not familiar with the zeal he displayed in 

 tracing out the first germs of scientific inquiry, and bringing 

 to light the earliest presages of intuitive knowledge ? In this 

 mode of thought he was largely influenced by a variety of other 

 motives arising out of the noble qualities of his disposition. 

 He was imbued with a great respect for all that was original 

 and ingenious, especially for every intuition of the mind ; 

 while justly controverting in his review of the age of Columbus 

 the popular notion that grand discoveries are generally the 

 result of chance, casual manifestations of tike ' unknown,' and 

 boldly asserting that they are much more frequently the result 

 of well-directed effort, and the reward of oft-repeated and 

 carefully devised experiment, he yet maintained that they 

 were on this account the more deserving of admiration, since 

 they were to be attributed to qualities of great moral excel- 

 lence. His sense of justice prompted him to accord to every- 

 one his due, while it led him to withhold all to which there 

 was no claim. Frequent have been his sighs over the dull and 

 sometimes hated task of tracing out the early record of 

 scientific thought, in the untrustworthy and almost obliterated 

 pages of the literature of the past ; he may well speak of ' the 

 slippery ice of the history of discovery, a kind of history that 

 must have been overlooked by Cicero when he declared all 

 history to be entertaining ; ' the notes to ' Cosmos,' however, 

 afford such clear evidence of the time and energy he devoted 

 to this uninteresting branch of history, that there can be no 

 doubt that he was urged thereto by an uncontrollable impulse. 

 One of the charms, doubtless, of these investigations consisted 

 in being led back to the classic days of Greece, for which 

 perhaps he entertained a more than usual veneration, derived 

 probably from the enthusiasm evoked by the rise and develop- 



