SCIENCE AND LITEEATUEE 57 



"substance of things hoped for, the evidence of 

 things not seen ; " his love of truth so deep and 

 abiding; and his determination to see things, facts, 

 in their relations, and as they issue in principle, so 

 unsleepiag, — that both his poetic and religious emo- 

 tions, as well as his scientific proclivities, found 

 full scope, and his demonstration becomes almost a 

 song. It is easy to see how such a mind as Goethe's 

 would have followed him and supplemented him, 

 not from its wealth of scientific lore, but from its 

 poetic insight into the methods of nature. 



Again, it is the fine humanism of such a man as 

 Humboldt that gives his name and his teachings 

 currency. Men who have not this humanism, who 

 do not in any way relate their science to life or to 

 the needs of the spirit, but pile up mere technical, 

 desiccated knowledge, are for the most part a waste 

 or a weariness. Humboldt's humanism makes him 

 a stimulus and a support to all students of nature. 

 The noble character, the poetic soul, shines out in 

 all his works and gives them a value above and be- 

 yond their scientific worth, great as that undoubtedly 

 is. To his desire for universal knowledge he added 

 the love of beautiful forms, and his "Cosmos " is an 

 attempt at an artistic creation, a harmonious repre- 

 sentation of the universe that should satisfy the 

 sesthetic sense as well as the understanding. It is a 

 graphic description of nature, not a mechanical one. 

 Men of pure science look askant at it, or at Hum- 

 boldt, on this account. A sage of Berlin says he 

 failed to reach the utmost height of science because 



