372 ALEXANDEK VON HUMBOLDT. 



I have long been accustomed to set small value on the kind of 

 learning likely to be acquired by the so-called upper classes, 

 through the reading of popular treatises or the attendance at 

 popular lectures. I am much more of the opinion that in scien- 

 tific subjects a satisfa6tory insight can be gained only by the 

 application of a certain amount of personal effort, in addition 

 to the exertion of the lecturer.' These remarks were not lost 

 upon Humboldt. In a letter to Dirichlet on May 16, he 

 \vrites : ' I hear from Bunsen that Brewster and Herschel are 

 quite unhappy about the insane infatuation which has seized 

 the fashionable world of London for animating bits of wood 

 by spiritualism, and making oracles of table-legs. Gauss tells 

 me the evil is to be ascribed to the weak dilution of science 

 contained in the popular books and lectures of the day, which, 

 remaining undigested in the public mind, give rise to this 

 form of disease. I am daily inundated with pamphlets, and 

 write indignant letters to no purpose to every quarter of the 

 globe. Gauss proposes to make Foucault's theory readily 

 apparent by means of an apparatus. Oela me touche peu ; in 

 Berlin, for four thalers, you may learn that the Bible does not 

 lie ! ' Again in November Humboldt writes to Dove : ' We 

 hear more than ever of the talking tables, which will soon be 

 taking the place of juries. Candle-snuffers, under the influence 

 of the spirits, will be composing sonnets and odes.' 



The whole of this sad yet ludicrous affair has an aspect of 

 greater seriousness than at first appears. It proves that the 

 world was not yet ripe for works which, like c Cosmos,' were of 

 a popular character in the highest sense of the term : the 

 ' public,' to whom it was addressed that is to say, the educated 

 classes and this not only in Germany were by no means pre- 

 pared for the due reception of such mental food. The public 

 by whom the ' popular character of " Cosmos " ' was warmly 

 greeted consisted almost exclusively of scientific men, who 

 hoped, as Gauss expressed himself with regard to geology, thus 

 to ' learn the progress of knowledge in branches of science out- 

 side their own restricted field of labour ; ' they all ' wished to 

 learn, and they had learnt from the book,' as Bessel and Arge- 

 lander both asserted, for they knew well how to profit by the 

 information they derived. For the 6 higher classes, as they are 



