OF BARON HUMBOLDT. 5 



tlie Linnasan system. He soon perceived, how- 

 ever, child as he was, that one science was but a 

 single door to the great temple of nature ; and 

 he was not satisfied without possessing the keys 

 to all; and his researches, commencing with 

 the blossoming of a nettle by the wayside, 

 finished their course among the beams of the 

 remotest star. 



A survey of the whole life of Humboldt, 

 enriched by the manifold conceptions of three 

 parts of the globe, manifests the ever clear and 

 calm mind, which, in the storms of the sea, 

 upon the cold glaciers, in the beautiful and 

 fertile valleys, the great forests, and the im- 

 measurable space of the heavens, calmly with an 

 observant eye, received the world into himself, 

 and reflected it again in the transfiguration of 

 higher comprehension, awakening in him feel- 

 ings of rapture for the beautiful and the sublime. 

 But these impressions, instead of distracting his 

 mind, did rather concentrate its powers ; they 

 conducted him to the depth of a phenomenon, 

 not to the mere surface only; they prompted 

 him to solve the part in its natural connection 

 with the whole, and to comprehend the all- 

 consolidating and mysterious forces of nature. 

 With these splendid results of his knowledge, 

 he appeared as a holy stream flowing over 



