GUSTAV MAGNUS. 13 



Then, in the second half of the last century, the 

 rejuvenescent intellectual life of the nation began to 

 cultivate its artistic flowers ; the clumsy language trans- 

 formed itself into one of the most expressive instru- 

 ments of the human mind ; out of what was still the 

 hard, poor, and wearisome condition of civil and political 

 life, the results of the religious war, in which the figure 

 of the Prussian hero-king only now cast the first hope 

 of a better future, to be again followed by the misery 

 of the Napoleonic war, out of this joyless existence, 

 all sensitive minds gladly fled into the flowery land 

 opened out by German poetry, rivalling as it did the 

 best poetry of all times and of all peoples ; or in the 

 sublime aspects of philosophy they endeavoured to 

 sink reality in oblivion. 



And the natural sciences were on the side of this 

 real world, so willingly overlooked. Astronomy alone 

 could at that time offer great and sublime prospects ; 

 in all other branches long and patient labour was still 

 necessary before great principles could be attained ; 

 before these subjects could have a voice in the great 

 questions of human life; or before they became the 

 powerful means of the authority of man over the 

 forces of nature which they have since become. The 

 labour of the natural philosopher seems narrow, low, 

 and insignificant compared with the great conceptions 

 of the philosopher and of the poet ; it was only those 



