(1769-1859)
[Footnote 7: Written at the time of the death of Baron Von
Humboldt, and reprinted, by permission, from "Littell's Living
Age."]
[Illustration: Humboldt. [TN]]
Humboldt--Alexander Von Humboldt, as he always called himself, though he
was christened with the names of Frederick Heinrich Alexander--was born
in 1769, on September 14th, in that memorable year which gave to the
world those philosophers, warriors, and statesmen who have changed the
face of science and the condition of affairs in our century. It was in
that year that Cuvier also and Schiller were born; and among the
warriors and statesmen, Napoleon, the Duke of Wellington, and Canning
are children of 1769, and it is certainly a year of which we can say
that its children have revolutionized the world. Of the early life of
Humboldt I know nothing, and I find no records except that in his tenth
year he lost his father, who had been a major in the army during the
seven years' war, and afterward a chamberlain to the King of Prussia.
But his mother took excellent care of him, and watched over his early
education. The influence she had upon his life is evident from the fact
that, notwithstanding his yearning for the sight of foreign lands, he
did not begin to make active preparations for his travels during her
lifetime. In the winter of 1787-1788 he was sent to the University of
Frankfort on the Oder, to study finances. He was to be a statesman; he
was to enter high offices, for which there was a fair chance, owing to
his noble birth and the patronage he could expect at court. He remained,
however, but a short time there.
Not finding these studies to his taste, after a semestre's residence in
the university we find him again at Berlin, and there in intimate
friendship with Wildenow, then professor of botany, and who at that time
possessed the greatest herbarium in existence. Botany was the first
branch of natural science to which Humboldt paid especial attention. The
next year he went to Goettingen--being then a youth of twenty years; and
here he studied natural history with Blumenbach, and thus had an
opportunity of seeing the progress zooelogy was making in anticipation of
the great movement by which Cuvier placed zooelogy on a new foundation.
For it is an unquestionable fact that in first presenting a
classification of the animal kingdom based upon a knowledge of its
structure, Blumenbach in a measure anticipated Cuvier; though it is
only by an exaggeration of what Blumenbach did that an unfair writer of
later times has attempted to deprive Cuvier of the glory of having
accomplished this object upon the broadest possible basis. From
Goettingen he visited the Rhine, for the purpose of studying geology, and
in particular the basaltic formations of the Seven Mountains. At Mayence
he became acquainted with George Forster, who proposed to accompany him
on a journey to England. You may imagine what impression the
conversation of that active, impetuous and powerful man had upon the
youthful Humboldt. They went to Belgium and Holland, and thence to
England, where Forster introduced him to Sir Joseph Banks. Thus the
companions of Captain Cook in his first and second voyages round the
world, who were already venerable in years and eminent promoters of
physical science not yet established in the popular favor, were the
early guides of Humboldt in his aspirations for scientific distinction.
Yet Humboldt had a worldly career to accomplish. He was to be a
statesman, and this required that he should go to the Academy of
Commerce at Hamburg. He remained there five months, but could endure it
no longer, and he begged so hard that his mother allowed him to go to
Freyberg and study geology with Werner, with a view of obtaining a
situation in the Administration of Mines. See what combinations of
circumstances prepare him for his great career, as no other young man
ever was prepared. At Freyberg he received the private instruction of
Werner, the founder of modern geology, and he had as his fellow-student
no less a man than Leopold Von Buch, then a youth, to whom, at a later
period, Humboldt himself dedicated one of his works, inscribing it "to
the greatest geologist," as he was till the day of his recent death.
From Freyberg he made frequent excursions into the Hartz and
Fichtelgeberg and surrounding regions, and these excursions ended in the
publication of a small work upon the subterranean flora of Freyberg
("Flora Subterranea Fribergensis"), in which he described especially
those cryptogamous plants, or singular low and imperfect formations
which occur in the deep mines. But here ends his period of pupilage. In
1792 he was appointed an officer of the mines (Oberbergmeister). He went
to Beyreuth as director of the operations in those mines belonging to
the Frankish provinces of Prussia. Yet he was always wandering in every
direction, seeking for information and new subjects of study. He visited
Vienna, and there heard of the discoveries of Galvani, with which he
made himself familiar; went to Italy and Switzerland, where he became
acquainted with the then celebrated Professors Jurine and Pictet, and
with the illustrious Scarpa. He also went to Jena, formed an intimate
acquaintance with Schiller and Goethe, and also with Loder, with whom he
studied anatomy. From that time he began to make investigations of his
own, and these investigations were in a line which he has never
approached since, being experiments in physiology. He turned his
attention to the newly-discovered power by which he tested the activity
of organic substances; and it is plain, from his manner of treating the
subject, that he leaned to the idea that the chemical process going on
in the living body of animals furnished a clew to the phenomena of life,
if it was not life itself. This may be inferred from the title of the
book published in 1797--"Ueber die gereizte Muskel und Nervenfaser, mit
Vermuthungen ueber den chemischen Process des Lebens, in Thieren und
Pflanzen."
In these explanations of the phenomena we have the sources of the first
impulses in a direction which has been so beneficial in advancing the
true explanation of the secondary phenomena of life; but which, at the
same time, in its exaggeration as it prevails now has degenerated into
the materialism of modern investigators.
In that period of all-embracing activity, he began to study astronomy.
His attention was called to it by Baron Von Zach, who was a prominent
astronomer of the time, and who at that time was actively engaged upon
astronomical investigations in Germany. He showed Humboldt to what
extent astronomy would be useful to him, in his travels, in determining
the position of places, the altitude of mountains, etc.
So prepared, Humboldt now broods over his plans of foreign travel. He
has published his work on the muscular and nervous fibre at the age of
twenty-eight. He has lost his mother; and his mind is now inflamed with
an ungovernable passion for the sight of foreign and especially tropical
lands. He goes to Paris to make preparation by securing the best
astronomical, meteorological and surveying instruments. Evidently he
does not care where he shall go, for on a proposition of Lord Bristol to
visit Egypt he agrees to it. The war prevents the execution of this
plan, and he enters into negotiations to accompany the projected
expedition of Captain Baudin to Australia; but when Bonaparte, bent on
the conquest of Egypt, started with a scientific expedition, Humboldt
wishes to join it. He expects to be one of the scientific party, and to
reach Egypt by way of Barbary.
But all these plans failing, he goes to Spain with the view of exploring
that country, and finding perhaps some means of joining the French
expedition in Egypt from Spain. While in Madrid he is so well received
at the court--a young nobleman so well instructed has access
everywhere--and he receives such encouragement from persons in high
positions, that he turns his thoughts to an exploration of the Spanish
provinces of America. He receives permission not only to visit them, but
instructions are given to the officers of the colonies to receive him
everywhere and give him all facilities, to permit him to transport his
instruments, to make astronomical and other observations, and to collect
whatever he chooses; and all that only in consequence of the good
impression he has made when he appeared there, with no other
recommendation than that of a friend who happened to be at that time
Danish minister to the court of Madrid. But with these facilities
offered to him, he sails in June, 1799, from Corunna, whence he reaches
Teneriffe, makes short explorations of that island, ascending the peak,
and sailing straightway to America, where he lands in Cumana in the
month of July, and employs the first year and a half in the exploration
of the basin of the Orinoco and its connection with the Amazon. This was
a journey of itself, and completed a work of scientific importance,
establishing the fact that the two rivers were connected by an
uninterrupted course of water. He established for the first time the
fact that there was an extensive low plain, connected by water, which
circled the high table-land of Guiana. It was an important discovery in
physical geography, because it changed the ideas about water-courses and
about the distributions of mountains and plains in a manner which has
had the most extensive influence upon the progress of physical
geography. It may well be said that after this exploration of the
Orinoco, physical geography begins to appear as a part of science. From
Cumana he makes a short excursion to Havana, and hearing there of the
probable arrival of Baudin on the west coast of America, starts with the
intention of crossing at Panama. He arrives at Carthagena, but was
prevented by the advance of the season from crossing the Isthmus, and
changed his determination from want of precise information respecting
Baudin's locality. He determines to ascend the Magdalena River and visit
Santa Fe de Bogota, where, for several months, he explores the
construction of the mountains, and collects plants and animals; and, in
connection with his friend, Bonpland, who accompanied him from Paris, he
makes those immense botanical collections, which were afterward
published by Bonpland himself, and by Kunth after Bonpland had
determined on an expedition to South America. In the beginning of 1802
he reaches Quito, where, during four months, he turns his attention to
everything worth investigating, ascends the Chimborazo, to a height to
which no human foot had reached, anywhere; and, having completed this
survey and repeatedly crossed the Andes, he descends the southern slope
of the continent to the shore of the Pacific at Truxillo, and following
the arid coast of Peru, he visits finally Lima.
I will pass lightly over all the details of his journey, for they are
only incidents in that laborious exploration of the country which is
best appreciated by a consideration of the works which were published in
consequence of that immense accumulation of materials gathered during
those explorations. From Lima, or rather from Callao, he sails in 1802
for Guayaquil and Acapulco, and reaches Mexico in 1803, where he makes
as extensive explorations as he had made in Venezuela and the Andes, and
after a stay of about a year, and having put all his collections and
manuscripts in order, revisits Cuba for a short time, comes to the
United States, makes a hurried excursion to Philadelphia and Washington,
where he is welcomed by Jefferson, and finally returns with his faithful
companion Bonpland to France, accompanied by a young Spanish nobleman,
Don Carlo de Montufar, who had shared his travels since his visits to
Quito.
At thirty-six years of age Humboldt is again in Europe with collections
made in foreign lands, such as had never been brought together before.
But here we meet with a singular circumstance. The German nobleman, the
friend of the Prussian and Spanish courts, chooses Paris for his
residence, and remains there twenty-two years to work out the result of
his scientific labor; for since his return, with the exception of short
journeys to Italy, England and Germany, sometimes accompanying the King
of Prussia, sometimes alone, or accompanied by scientific friends, he is
entirely occupied in scientific labors and studies. So passes the time
to the year 1827, and no doubt he was induced to make this choice of a
residence by the extraordinary concourse of distinguished men in all
branches of science with whom he thought he could best discuss the
results of his own observations. I shall presently have something to say
about the works he completed during that most laborious period of his
life. I will only add now, that in 1827 he returned to Berlin
permanently, having been urged of late by the King of Prussia again and
again to return to his native land. And there he delivered a series of
lectures preparatory to the publication of "Cosmos;" for in substance,
even in form and arrangement, these lectures, of which the papers of the
day gave short accounts, are a sort of prologue to the "Cosmos," and a
preparation for its publication. In 1829, when he was sixty years of
age, he undertakes another great journey. He accepts the invitation of
the Emperor Nicholas to visit the Ural Mountains, with a view of
examining the gold mines, and localities where platina and diamonds had
been found, to determine their geological relation. He accomplished the
journey with Ehrenberg and Gustavus Rose, who published the result of
their mineralogical and geological survey, in a work of which he is the
sole author; while Humboldt published under the title of "Asiatic
Fragments of Geology and Climatology," his observations of the physical
and geographical features made during that journey. But he had hardly
returned to Berlin when in consequence of the revolution of 1830, he was
sent by the King of Prussia as extraordinary ambassador to France, to
honor the elevation of Louis Philippe to the throne. Humboldt had long
been a personal friend of the Orleans family, and he was selected
ambassador on that occasion on account of these personal relations. From
1830 to 1848 he lived alternately in Berlin and in Paris, spending
nearly half the time in Paris and half the time in Berlin, with
occasional visits to England and Denmark; publishing the results of his
investigations in Asia, making original investigations upon various
things and especially pressing the establishment of observatories, and
connected magnetic observations all over the globe, for which he
obtained the co-operation of the Russian government and that of the
government of England; and at that time those observations in Australia
and in the Russian empire to the borders of 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 eightieth 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 remodelled annotations and
explanations; and that book in which he first presented 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 cherished, and
to which in his "Cosmos" he refers more frequently than to any other
work. It is no doubt because there he has expressed his deepest
thoughts, his most impressive views, and even foreshadowed those
intimate convictions which he never expressed, but which he desired to
record in such a manner that those that can read between the lines might
find them there; and certainly there we find them. His aspiration has
been to present to the world a picture of the physical world from which
he would exclude everything that relates to the turmoil of human
society, and to the ambitions of individual men. A life so full, so
rich, is worth explaining in every respect, and it is really instructive
to see with what devotion he pursues his work. As long as he is a
student he is really a student and learns faithfully, and learns
everything he can reach. And he continues so for twenty-three years. He
is not one of those who is impatient to show that he has something in
him, and with premature impatience utters his ideas, so that they become
insuperable barriers to his independent progress in later life. Slowly
and confident of his sure progress, he advances, and while he learns he
studies also independently of those who teach him. He makes his
experiments, and to make them with more independence 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 the
superintendent of the mines who can do much as he pleases; and while he
is thus officially engaged journeying and superintending, he prepares
himself for his independent researches. And yet it will be seen he is
thirty years of age before he enters upon his American travels--those
travels which will be said to have been the greatest undertaking ever
carried to a successful issue, if judged by the results; they have as
completely changed the basis of physical science as the revolution which
took place in France about the same time has changed the social
condition of that land. Having returned from these travels to Paris,
there begins in his life a period of concentrated critical studies. He
works his materials, and he works them with an ardor and devotion which
are untiring; and he is not anxious to appear to have done it all
himself. Oltmann is called to his aid to revise his astronomical
observations, and his barometrical measurements by which he has
determined the geographical position of seven hundred different points
and the altitude of more than four hundred and fifty of them.
The large collection of plants which Bonpland had begun to illustrate,
but of which his desire of seeing the tropics again has prevented the
completion he intrusts to Kunth. He has also brought home animals of
different classes, and distributes them among the most eminent
zooelogists of the day.
To Cuvier he intrusts the investigation of that remarkable batrachian,
the Aaeolotel, the mode of development of which is still unknown, but
which remains in its adult state in a condition similar to that of the
tadpole of the frog during the earlier period of its life. Latreille
describes the insects, and Valenciennes the shells and the fishes; but
yet to show that he might have done the work himself, he publishes a
memoir on the anatomical structure of the organs of breathing in the
animals he has preserved, and another upon the tropical monkeys of
America, and another upon the electric properties of the electric eel.
But he was chiefly occupied with investigations in physical geography
and climatology. The first work upon that subject is a dissertation on
the geographical distribution of plants, published in 1817. Many
botanist travellers had observed that in different parts of the world
there are plants not found in others, and that there is a certain
arrangement in that distribution; but Humboldt was the first to see that
this distribution is connected with the temperature of the air as well
as with the altitudes of the surface on which they grow, and he
systematized his researches into a general exposition of the laws by
which the distribution of plants is regulated. Connected with this
subject he made those extensive investigations into the mean temperature
of a large number of places on the surface of the globe, which led to
the drawing of those isothermal lines so important in their influence in
shaping physical geography, and giving accuracy to the mode of
representing natural phenomena. Before Humboldt we had no graphic
representation of complex natural phenomena which made them easily
comprehensible, even to minds of moderate cultivation. He has done that
in a way which has circulated information more extensively, and brought
it to the apprehension more clearly than it could have been done by any
other means.
It is not too much to say that this mode of representing natural
phenomena has made it possible to introduce in our most elementary works
the broad generalizations derived from the investigations of Humboldt in
South America; and that every child in our schools has his mind fed from
the labors of Humboldt's brain, wherever geography is no longer taught
in the old routine.
* * * * *
Humboldt was born near the court. He was brought up in connection with
courtiers and men in high positions of life. He was no doubt imbued with
the prejudices of his caste. He was a nobleman of high descent. And yet
the friend of kings was the bosom friend of Arago, and he was the man
who could, after his return from America, refuse the highest position at
the court of Berlin, that of the secretaryship of public instruction,
preferring to live in a modest way in Paris, in the society of all those
illustrious men, who then made Paris the centre of intellectual culture.
It was there where he became one of that Societe d'Arceuil, composed of
all the great men of the day, to which the paper on "Isothermal Lines"
was presented, and by which it was printed, as all papers presented to
it were, for private distribution. But from his intimate relations,
especially to the court of Prussia, some insinuations have been made as
to the character of Humboldt. They are as unjust as they are severe in
expression. He was never a flatterer of those in power. He has shown it
by taking a prominent position, in 1848, at the head of those who
accompanied the victims of the revolution of that year to their last
place of rest. But while he expressed his independence in such a manner,
he had the kindliest feeling for all parties. He could not offend, even
by an expression, those with whom he had been associated in early life;
and I have no doubt that it is to that kindliness of feeling we must
ascribe his somewhat indiscriminate patronage of aspirants in science,
as well as men who were truly devoted to its highest aims. He may be
said to have been, especially in his latter years, the friend of every
cultivated man, wishing to lose no opportunity to do all the good of
which he was capable; for he had a degree of benevolence and generosity
which was unbounded. I can well say that there is not a man engaged in
scientific investigations in Europe, who has not received at his hands
marked tokens of his favor, and who is not under deep obligations to
him. May I be permitted to tell a circumstance which is personal to me
in that respect, and which shows what he was capable of doing while he
was forbidden an opportunity of telling it. I was only twenty-four years
of age when in Paris, whither I had gone with means given me by a
friend; but was at last about to resign my studies from want of ability
to meet my expenses. Professor Mitscherlich was then on a visit to
Paris, and I had seen him in the morning, when he asked me what was the
cause of my depressed feelings; and I told him that I had to go for I
had nothing left. The next morning as I was seated at breakfast in front
of the yard of the hotel where I lived, I saw the servant of Humboldt
approach. He handed me a note, saying there was no answer and
disappeared. I opened the note, and I see it now before me as distinctly
as if I held the paper in my hand. It said:--
"My friend, I hear that you intend leaving Paris in consequence of some
embarrassments. That shall not be. I wish you to remain here as long as
the object for which you came is not accomplished. I enclose you a check
of L50. It is a loan which you may repay when you can."
Some years afterward, when I could have repaid him, I wrote, asking for
the privilege of remaining forever in his debt, knowing that this
request would be more consonant to his feelings than the recovery of the
money, and I am now in his debt. What he has done for me, I know he has
done for many others; in silence and unknown to the world. I wish I
could go on to state something of his character, his conversational
powers, etc., but I feel that I am not in a condition to speak of them.
I would only say that his habits were very peculiar. He was an early
riser, and yet he was seen at late hours in the salons in different
parts of Paris. From the year 1830 to 1848, while in Paris, he had been
charged by the King of Prussia to send reports upon the condition of
things there. He had before prepared for the King of Prussia a report on
the political condition of the Spanish colonies in America, which no
doubt had its influence afterward upon the recognition of the
independence of those colonies. The importance of such reports to the
government of Prussia may be inferred from a perusal of his political
and statistical essays upon Mexico and Cuba. It is a circumstance worth
noticing, that above all great powers, Prussia has more distinguished,
scientific, and literary men among her diplomatists than any other
state. And so was Humboldt actually a diplomatist in Paris, though he
was placed in that position, not from choice, but in consequence of the
benevolence of the king, who wanted to give him an opportunity of being
in Paris as often and as long as he chose.
But from that time there were two men in him--the diplomatist, living in
the Hotel des Princes, and the naturalist who roomed in the Rue de la
Harpe, in a modest apartment in the second story; where his scientific
friends had access to him every day before seven. After that he was
frequently seen working in the library of the Institute, until the time
when the grand seigneur made his appearance at the court or in the
salons of Paris.
The influence he has exerted upon the progress of science is
incalculable. I need only allude to the fact that the "Cosmos," bringing
every branch of natural science down to the comprehension of every class
of students, has been translated into the language of every civilized
nation of the world, and gone through several editions. With him ends a
great period in the history of science, a period to which Cuvier,
Laplace, Arago, Gay-Lussac and De Candolle, and Robert Brown belonged.