312 HUMBOLDT'S COSMOS : 



Universe, which we must receive as the proper rendering of 

 Cosmos, is the object placed before us, we have some right 

 to expect that the grandeur of the design should be sustained 

 in the execution. 



In our former article we made some remarks on this sub- 

 ject; commenting upon a certain vagueness which pervades 

 the whole conception of the work ; and a tendency to repe- 

 tition and digression, injurious more or less to the harmony 

 of the scheme. These comments are confirmed and justified 

 by the volumes now before us. In adopting the title of 

 Cosmos, M. Humboldt has exposed himself to perplexities 

 which pursue him through every part of his work. He is 

 haunted, one may fairly say, by a spectre of his own creation. 

 He has invoked a vast and vague name, which sometimes he 

 seeks to curb and limit by definitions, at other times to en- 

 large and exalt. At the risk of appearing presumptuous we 

 must express our doubt whether he ever fully defined the 

 term of Cosmos to his own mind. A grand and spacious 

 idea had been long before him (in unbestimmten Umrissen, as 

 he himself expresses it), congenial to the temperament of 

 German thought, and according well with his own large 

 knowledge, and his desire to concentrate the labours of a life 

 in one great closing work. He sought to mark by the name 

 the magnitude of the conception.* But the conception itself 

 is beyond the power of adequate fulfilment, even by one 

 possessing the resources of our author. The Universe, as 

 expressing all the material phenomena of nature (and Hum- 

 boldt has superadded other topics having relation to the 

 human faculties and progress), is too vast a theme for a 

 single man or a single work. Treated upon one plan, it 



* Perhaps his tersest definition of the Cosmos is the phrase in the Preface, 

 in which he describes Nature as ' a whole, moved and vivified through inward 

 powers ' (ein durch innere Krcifte bewcgtes und belebtes Game). And yet it 

 will be felt how far this, even as an outline, falls short of conveying any clear 

 conception to the mind. 



