372 COSMOS. 



desire to visit the land of the tropics, I should name George 

 Forster's Delineations of the South Sea Islands, the pictures of 

 Hodge, which represented the shores of the Ganges, and 

 which I first saw at the house of Warren Hastings, in Lon- 

 don, and a colossal dragon tree in an old tower of the Bota- 

 nical garden at Berlin. These objects which I here instance 

 by way of illustration belong to the three classes of induce- 

 ments which we have already named, viz., the description of 

 nature when springing from an animated impression of terres- 

 trial forms; the delineative art of landscape painting; and, 

 lastly, the direct objective consideration of the characteristic 

 features of natural forms. The power exercised by these 

 incitements is, however, limited to the sphere embraced by 

 modern cultivation, and to those individuals whose minds 

 have been rendered more susceptible to such impressions by a 

 peculiar disposition fostered by some special direction in 

 the development of their mental activity. 



DESCRIPTION OF NATURE. THE DIFFERENCE OF FEEL- 

 ING EXCITED BY THE CONTEMPLATION OF NATURE AT 

 DIFFERENT EPOCHS, AND AMONGST DIFFERENT RACES 



OF MEN. 



IT has often been remarked that, although the enjoyment derived 

 from the contemplation of nature was not wholly unknown to 

 the ancients, the feeling was, nevertheless, much more rarely, 

 and less vividly expressed than in modern times. In his 

 considerations on the poetry of the sentiments, Schiller thus 

 expresses himself.* "If we bear in mind the beautiful 

 scenery with which the Greeks were surrounded, and remem- 

 ber the opportunities possessed by a people living in so genial 

 a climate, of entering into the free enjoyment of the contempla- 

 tion of nature, and observe how conformable were their mode 



* See Schiller's SammtlicJie Werke, 1826, bd. xviii. s. 231, 473, 480, 

 486; Gervinus, Neuere Gesch. der poet. National-Litteratur der Deui- 

 schen, 1840, bd. i. s. 135; Adolph Becker, in Charikles, th. i. s. 219. 

 Compare also Eduard Miiller, ueber Soplwkleische Naturanscliauung 

 und die tiefe Naturempfindung der Griechen,lMZ, s. 10, 26. 



