FKOM ACCESSION OF FKEDERICK WILLIAM IV. TO 1848. 317 



The leading ideas of the general plan, as pointed out in 

 the above sketch, are not only explanatory of that portion of 

 'Cosmos' published during the years 1845-7, but formed a 

 guide to the author, both with respect to the character and 

 compass of the entire work. In writing to Varnhagen in 1834, 

 Humboldt states : ] ' A book upon Nature should arouse im- 

 pressions similar to those she herself awakens ; ' that is to 

 say, should yield at the same time aesthetic pleasure and 

 intellectual gratification, should appeal to the imagination and 

 awaken thought, should be in fact as truly a work of art as a 

 production of science. That Humboldt's meaning is thus to 

 be interpreted, appears from the following passage in a subse- 

 quent letter to Varnhagen, dated April 28, 1841 : 2 ' With the 

 simplest statements of scientific facts there must ever mingle a 

 certain eloquence. Nature herself is sublimely eloquent. The 

 stars as they sparkle in the firmament fill us with delight and 

 ecstacy, and yet they all move in orbits marked out with 

 mathematical precision.' With the trifling exception of some 

 corrections in style, effected by his friends Varnhagen and 

 Bockh, the aesthetic portion of the work is entirely to be 

 ascribed to Humboldt, especially in everything relating to the 

 composition. He bestowed no less pains upon the diction and 

 composition of the work than upon the collection, sifting, and 

 verification of the scientific material in which he found so 

 many willing and able coadjutors. We propose directing our 

 attention, in the first place, to the work in its literary aspect. 



In the ' Aspects of Nature ' 3 Humboldt had experienced ' the 

 difficulty of combining literary excellence with the highest re- 

 quirements of science, of pleasing the imagination while com- 

 municating knowledge, and of arranging subordinate parts so 

 as not to destroy unity.' Of the 'Examen critique,' a work 

 almost exclusively scientific, and on that account perhaps to 

 be ranked as his best, Humboldt wrote the following severe 

 criticism upon its literary merits to Letronne on December 

 26, 1837: 4 'You might have stated with greater emphasis 



1 l Briefe an Varnhagen/ No. 16. 



2 Ibid. No. 54. 



* Preface to the second and third editions. 

 4 De la Roquette, vol. i. p. 153. 



