354 Humboldt's Letters. 



ise. 



VABNHAGEN TO HUMBOLDT. 



BERLIN, Feb. 9th, 1857. 



YOUR Excellency will receive, accompanying this, 

 with my most hearty thanks, the book so kindly lent 

 me. I have read it with varied emotions, I might say 

 with painful interest. True, the author makes conces- 

 sions, and opens up points of view, which I should not 

 have expected any more than the luxurious learning of 

 his manifold citations. But the pretty collection of 

 notes fails to mantle the kernel of the text, which is 

 extremely bitter; the apology of negro slavery, the 

 brutal praise of warfare and of standing armies, and the 

 beneficence of aristocratic revolutions, in spite of his 

 far-fetched compliments, which look like invitations to 

 be converted, the author really offers nothing but the 

 fare of the " Kreuz Zeitung," in a preparation somewhat 

 more delicate han that of Professor Leo, whose " mire of 

 cultivation " and " scrofulous rabble " are here cooked 

 up with spices. Latet anguis in herba! I must say 

 that I always take the alarm when philosophers under- 

 take to measure the course and the stage of human 

 development, and to combine the meagre dates of our 



