284 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



my suggestion. You owe it also to your family, for your 

 children, belonging to this generation, will know nothing of 

 the simplicity of view prevalent among men of science when 

 their father commenced his career.' 1 There was doubtless 

 some truth in this remark upon the increasing value set upon 

 such marks of distinction during the first half of this century, 

 especially by men of science in Germany. Scientific investi- 

 gators had gradually assumed the position in public opinion 

 formerly only accorded to the leaders in poetry and literature, 

 and at the same time naturally arose the desire to testify this 

 rank by some outward sign ; orders and titles so rarely sought 

 by the recipients became at last to be received by them as 

 something inevitable a matter of course. During a long 

 residence at court, Humboldt always lent his assistance towards 

 this result, and numerous were the instances in which marks 

 of distinction of this kind were given at his instigation. His 

 chief aim in these exertions was to give a more elevated 

 direction to the king's views ; while stimulating him to the 

 bestowment of these rewards for intellectual service, which in 

 themselves were of little value, he hoped to excite in him an 

 appreciation of men of science, and to lead him to extend to 

 them his liberal support. With these views he could not fail to 

 be pleased when, in the spring of 1 842, Frederick William IV., 

 in worthy emulation of the spirit of his ancestor Frederick the 

 Great, instituted the Order of Merit, to be conferred on any 

 6 who throughout Europe had won for themselves a name either 

 in the arts or sciences.' 2 



Humboldt was nominated chancellor of the new order for 

 life, which occasioned him at first frequent annoyance, partly 

 through the transactions in which such an office necessarily in- 

 volved him, and partly through the need of absolving himself 

 from the imputation of being responsible for the first nomina- 

 tions. The duty of making out the first list of knights was 



1 l Briefwechsel mit Berghaus,' vol. iii. p. 313. 



2 For the history of the Order see l Briefe an Varnhagen,' pp. 120-22, 

 176, 207, 21 8 j Varnhagen's ' Tagebiicher/ vol. ii. pp. 295, 303, 358; 

 ' Briefe an Bunsen,' pp. 52, 55, 57, 58, 61, 145, 146, 154, 155, 157-60, 162. 

 No subject perhaps is more frequently alluded to than this in Humboldt's 

 unpublished correspondence. 



