S6 COSMOS. 



of Himalaya and the smaller range of the Vindhya. In less 

 ancient times the Sanscrit language and civilization advanced 

 toward the southeast, penetrating further within the torrid zone, 

 as my brother Wilhelm von Humboldt has shown in his great 

 work on the Kavi and other languages of analogous structure,* 



Notwithstanding the obstacles opposed in northern latitudes 

 to the discovery of the laws of nature, owing to the excessive 

 complication of phenomena, and the perpetual local variations 

 that, in these climates, affect the movements of the atmosphere 

 and the distribution of organic forms, it is to the inhabitants 

 of a small section of the temperate zone that the rest of man- 

 kind owe the earliest revelation of an intimate and rational 

 acquaintance with the forces governing the physical world. 

 Moreover, it is from the same zone (which is apparently more 

 favorable to the progress of reason, the softening of manners, 

 and the security of public liberty) that the germs of civiliza- 

 tion have been carried to the regions of the tropics, as much 

 by the migratory movement of races as by the establishment 

 of colonies, differing widely in their institution from those of 

 the PhoBnicians or Greeks. 



In speaking of the influence exercised by the succession of 

 phenomena on the greater or lesser facility of recognizing the 

 causes producing them, I have touched upon that important 

 stage of our communion with the external world, when the en- 

 joyment arising from a knowledge of the laws, and the mutual 

 connection of phenomena, associates itself with the charm of 

 a simple contemplation of nature. That which for a long 

 time remains merely an object of vague intuition, by degrees 

 acquires the certainty of positive truth ; and man, as an im- 

 mortal poet has said, in our own tongue — Amid ceaseless 

 change seeks the unchanging pole.f 



In order to trace to its primitive source the enjoyment de- 

 rived from the exercise of thought, it is sufficient to cast a 

 jfapid glance on the earliest dawnings of the philosophy of na- 

 ture, pr of the ancient doctrine of the Cosmos. We find even 



give the name qf Mo-kie-thi to the southern Bahar, situated to the 

 Bouth of the Ganges (seiC Foe-Koue-Ki, by Chy-Fa-Hian, 1836, p. 256). 

 Djambu-dwipa is the name given to the v^rhole of India; but the words 

 also indicate one of the four Buddhist continents. 



* Ueber die Kawi Spracke auf der Insel Java, nebst einer Einleitvng 

 uber die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Spray.hbaues und ihren Ein 

 fiuss auf die geistige Entwickelung de$ Menschengeschlechfs, von Wil 

 helm V. Humboldt, 1836, bd. i., s. S-SIQ. 



t This verse occurs in a poem of ^chiller, entitled Ver Spaziergatg 

 which first appeared in 1795, in tl^ie Horpi. 



