_York Street, January, 1850._
AUTHOR’S PREFACE,
TO THE FIRST EDITION.
With some diffidence, I here present to the public a series of papers
which originated in the presence of the noblest objects of nature,—on
the Ocean,—in the forests of the Orinoco,—in the Savannahs of
Venezuela,—and in the solitudes of the Peruvian and Mexican Mountains.
Several detached fragments, written on the spot, have since been wrought
into a whole. A survey of nature at large,—proofs of the co-operation of
forces,—and a renewal of the enjoyment which the immediate aspect of the
tropical countries affords to the susceptible beholder,—are the objects
at which I aim. Each Essay was designed to be complete in itself; and
one and the same tendency pervades the whole. This æsthetic mode of
treating subjects of Natural History is fraught with great difficulties
in the execution, notwithstanding the marvellous vigour and flexibility
of my native language. The wonderful luxuriance of nature presents an
accumulation of separate images, and accumulation disturbs the harmony
and effect of a picture. When the feelings and the imagination are
excited, the style is apt to stray into poetical prose. But these ideas
require no amplification here, for the following pages afford but too
abundant examples of such deviations and of such want of unity.
Notwithstanding these defects, which I can more easily perceive than
amend, let me hope that these “Views” may afford the reader, at least
some portion of that enjoyment which a sensitive mind receives from the
immediate contemplation of nature. As this enjoyment is heightened by an
insight into the connection of the occult forces, I have subjoined to
each treatise scientific illustrations and additions.
Everywhere the reader’s attention is directed to the perpetual influence
which physical nature exercises on the moral condition and on the
destiny of man. It is to minds oppressed with care that these pages are
especially consecrated. He who has escaped from the stormy waves of life
will joyfully follow me into the depths of the forests, over the
boundless steppes and prairies, and to the lofty summits of the Andes.
To him are addressed the words of the chorus who preside over the
destinies of mankind:
On the mountains is freedom! the breath of decay
Never sullies the fresh flowing air;
Oh! nature is perfect wherever we stray;
’Tis man that deforms it with care.[B]
AUTHOR’S PREFACE,
TO THE SECOND AND THIRD EDITIONS.
The twofold object of this work,—an anxious endeavour to heighten the
enjoyment of nature by vivid representations, and at the same time to
increase, according to the present state of science, the reader’s
insight into the harmonious co-operation of forces,—was pointed out by
me in the preface to the first edition, nearly half a century ago. I
there alluded to the several obstacles which oppose themselves to the
æsthetic treatment of the grand scenes of nature. The combination of a
literary and a purely scientific aim, the desire to engage the
imagination, and at the same time to enrich life with new ideas by the
increase of knowledge, render the due arrangement of the separate parts,
and what is required as unity of composition, difficult of attainment.
Notwithstanding these disadvantages, however, the public have continued
to receive with indulgent partiality, my imperfect performance.
The second edition of the _Views of Nature_, was published by me in
Paris in 1826. Two papers were then added, one, “An inquiry into the
structure and mode of action of Volcanos in different regions of the
earth;” the other, “Vital Force, or The Rhodian Genius.” Schiller, in
remembrance of his youthful medical studies, loved to converse with me,
during my long stay at Jena, on physiological subjects. The inquiries in
which I was then engaged, in preparing my work “On the condition of the
fibres of muscles and nerves, when irritated by contact with substances
chemically opposed,” often imparted a more serious direction to our
conversation. It was at this period that I wrote the little allegory on
Vital Force, called The Rhodian Genius. The predilection which Schiller
entertained for this piece, and which he admitted into his periodical,
_Die Horen_, gave me courage to introduce it here. My brother, in a
letter which has recently been published (William von Humboldt’s Letters
to a Female Friend, vol. ii. p. 39), delicately alludes to the subject,
but at the same time very justly adds; “The development of a
physiological idea is exclusively the object of the essay. Such
semi-poetical clothings of grave truths were more in vogue at the time
this was written than they are at present.”
In my eightieth year I have still the gratification of completing a
third edition of my work, and entirely remoulding it to meet the demands
of the age. Almost all the scientific illustrations are either enlarged
or replaced by new and more comprehensive ones.
I have indulged a hope of stimulating the study of nature, by
compressing into the smallest possible compass, the numerous results of
careful investigation on a variety of interesting subjects, with a view
of shewing the importance of accurate numerical data, and the necessity
of comparing them with each other, as well as to check the dogmatic
smattering and fashionable scepticism which have too long prevailed in
the so-called higher circles of society.
My expedition into northern Asia (to the Ural, the Altai, and the shores
of the Caspian Sea) in the year 1829, with Ehrenberg and Gustavus Rose,
at the command of the Emperor of Russia, took place between the second
and third editions of my work. This expedition has essentially
contributed to the enlargement of my views in all that concerns the
formation of the earth’s surface, the direction of mountain-chains, the
connexion of the Steppes and Deserts, and the geographical distribution
of plants according to ascertained influences of temperature. The
ignorance which has so long existed respecting the two great
snow-covered mountain-chains, the Thian-schan and the Kuen-lün, situated
between the Altai and Himalaya, has (owing to the injudicious neglect of
Chinese sources of information) obscured the geography of Central Asia,
and propagated fancies instead of facts, in works of extensive
circulation. Within the last few months the hypsometric comparisons of
the culminating points of both continents have unexpectedly received
important and corrective illustration, of which I am the first to avail
myself in the following pages. The measurement (now divested of former
errors) of the altitude of the two mountains, Sorata and Illimani, in
the eastern chain of the Andes of Bolivia, has not yet, with certainty,
restored the Chimborazo to its ancient pre-eminence among the snowy
mountains of the new world. In the Himalaya the recent barometric
measurement of the Kinchinjinga (26,438 Parisian, or 28,178 English
feet) places it next in height to the Dhawalagiri, which has also been
trigonometrically measured with greater accuracy.
To preserve uniformity with the two former editions of the _Views of
Nature_, the calculations of temperature, unless where the contrary is
stated, are given according to the eighty degrees thermometer of Reamur.
The lineal measurement is the old French, in which the _toise_ is
equivalent to six Parisian feet. The miles are geographical, fifteen to
a degree of the equator. The longitudes are calculated from the first
meridian of the Parisian Observatory.
_Berlin, March, 1849._