112 Humboldt's Letters. 



eo. 



HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN. 



FRIDAY, 3d December, 1841. 



OF all that I have had to thank you for, dear friend, 

 I like Hormayr's manly letter best. Le style est tout 

 1'homme. He is not like the people who surround us, 

 the better ones of whom lose themselves in reticences, 

 temporizations, in trimming, excitements, and irresolu- 

 tion. His belief in Muenster's liberalism is perhaps only a 

 misconception of Muenster's motives. No doubt Count 

 Muenster has nobly contributed to the liberation of 

 Germany but assuredly he never did it in order to 

 open the path to " that light" which, even to-day, is 

 feared like a spectre. " Bruno" (Bauer) has found me 

 out to be a pra3adamite convert ! When I was a boy 

 the court preachers reasoned in this way : I was con- 

 firmed by one of them, who told me that the biogra- 

 phies of the Evangelists were finally manufactured out 

 of memoranda made by themselves during their lifetime. 

 Many years ago I wrote : All positive religions contain 

 three distinct parts First, a code of morals, very pure 

 and nearly the same in all next, a geological dream 



