102 Prof. Agassiz’s Eulogy on Humboldt. 
China, were established which have led to such important results 
in our knowledge of terrestrial magnetism. Since 1848 he has 
lived uninterruptedly in Berlin, where he published on the 
anniversary of his 80th year a new edition of those charming 
first flowers of his pen, his Views of Nature, the first edition of 
which was published in Germany in 1808. This third edition 
appeared with a series of new and remodeled annotations and 
explanations; and that book in which he first eRe his 
views of nature, in which he drew those vivid pictures of the 
physiognomy of plants and of their geographical distribution, is 
now revived and brought to the present state of science. The 
“Views of Nature” is a work which Humboldt has always cher- 
ished, and to which in his Cosmos he refers more frequently aa 
to any other work. It is no doubt because there he had e 
pressed his deepest thoughts, bis most i serebesies views, sid 
even foreshadowed those intimate convictions which he never 
— _ which he desired to record in such a manner that 
those that can read between the line might find them there; 
and sabes cabeis we find them. His aspiration hasbeen to 
t to the world a picture of the physical world from which 
S would exclude everything that relates to the na of 
human moma and to the ambitions of individual m 
A life so full, so rich, is worth considering in ene respect, 
and it is ohaly instructive to see with what devotion he pursues 
s long as he is a student he is really a student and 
learns faithfully, and learns everything he can reach. d he 
continues so for twenty-three years. He is not one of those bee 
is impatient to show that he has something in him, and with 
mature eras utters his ideas, so that the become inatnods 
able barriers to his independent progress in later life. Slowly 
and vontidenbe of his sure progress, he advances, and while he 
learns he studies also ‘eddpatintt ly of those who teach him. 
He makes his experiments and to make them with more inde- 
pendence he seeks for an official position. During five years he 
is a business man, in a station which gives him leisure. He is 
Superintendent of the Mines, but a Superintendent of the Mines 
who can do much as he pleases; and while he is thus officially _ 
engaged journeying and ae he prepares himself for | 
his independent researches. And yet it will be seen he is thirty 
of age before he enters upon his American travels, those 
travels i. will be said to have been the nen per eiag : 
d the social soliton: of that land. “Heving re 
prone travels to Paris, there begins in his life a gow te of 
| : eritical studies. He works up his materials thea 
