those presented in the regions of space, we embrace the limits of the
science of the 'Cosmos', and convert the physical history of the globe into
the physical history of the universe, the one term being modeled upon that
of the other. This science of the Cosmos is not, however, to be regarded as
a mere encyclopedic aggregation of the most important and general results
that have been collected together from special branches of knowledge. These
results are nothing more than the materials for a vast edifice, and their
combination can not constitute the physical history of the world, whose
exalted part it is to show the simultaneous action and the connecting links
of the forces which pervade the universe. The distribution of organic types
in different climates and at different elevations -- that is to say, the
geography of plants and animals -- differs as widely from botany and
descriptive zoology as geology does from mineralogy, properly so called.
The physical history of the universe must not, therefore, be confounded with
the 'Encyclopedias of the Natural Sciences', as they have hitherto been
compiled, and whose title is as vague as their limits are ill defined. In
the work before us, partial facts will be considered only in relation to the
whole.
p 56
The higher the point of view, the greater is the necessity for a systematic
mode of treating the subject in language at once animated and picturesque.
But thought and language have ever been most intimately allied. If
language, by its originality of structure and its native richness, can, in
its delineations, interpret thought with grace and clearness, and if, by its
happy flexibility, it can paint with vivid truthfulness the objects of the
external world, it reacts at the same time upon thought, and animates it, as
it were, with the breath of life. It is this mutual reaction which makes
words more than mere signs and forms of thought; and the beneficent
influence of a language is most strikingly manifested on its native soil,
where it has sprung spontaneously from the minds of the people, whose
character it embodies. Proud of a country that seeks to concentrate her
strength in intellectual unity, the writer recalls with delight the
advantages he has enjoyed in being permitted to express his thoughts in his
native language; and truly happy is he who, in attempting to give a lucid
exposition of the great phenomena of the universe, is able to draw from the
depths of a language, which, through the free exercise of thought, and by
the effusions of creative fancy, has for centuries past exercised so
powerful an influence over the destinies of man.
This material taken from pages 56 to 78
COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1
by Alexander von Humboldt
Translated by E C Otte
from the 1858 Harper & Brothers edition of Cosmos, volume 1
--------------------------------------------------
p 56
LIMITS AND METHOD OF EXPOSITION OF THE PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE UNIVERSE.
I HAVE endeavored, in the preceding part of my work, to explain and
illustrate, by various examples, how the enjoyments presented by the aspect
of nature, varying as they do in the sources from when they flow, may be
multiplied and ennobled by an acquaintance with the connection of phenomena
and the laws by which they are regulated. It remains, then, for me to
examine the spirit of the method in which the exposition of the 'physical
description of the universe' should be conducted, and to indicate the limits
of this science in accordance with the views I have acquired in the course
of my studies and travels in various parts of the earth. I trust I may
flatter myself with a hope that a treatise of this nature will justify the
title I have ventured to adopt for my work, and exonerate me from the
reproach of a presumption that would be doubly reprehensible in a scientific
discussion.
Before entering upon the delineation of the partial phenomena
p 57
which are found to be distributed in various groups, I would consider a few
general questions intimately connected together, and bearing upon the nature
of our knowledge of the external world and its different relations, in all
epochs of history and in all phases of intellectual advancement. Under this
head will be comprised the following considerations:
1. The precise limits of the physical description of the universe,
considered as a distinct science.
2. A brief enumeration of the totality of natural phenomena, presented
under the form of a 'general delineation of nature.'
3. The influence of the external world on the imagination and feelings,
which has acted in modern times as a powerful impulse toward the study of
natural science, by giving animation to the description of distant regions
and to the delineation of natural scenery, as far as it is characterized by
vegetable physiognomy and by the cultivation of exotic plants, and their
arrangement in well-contrasted groups.
4. The history of the contemplation of nature, or the progressive
development of the idea of the Cosmos, considered with reference to the
historical and geographical facts that have led to the discovery of the
connection of phenomena.
The higher the point of view from which natural phenomena may be considered,
the more necessary it is to circumscribe the science within its just limits,
and to distinguish it from all other analogous or auxiliary studies.
Physical cosmography is founded on the contemplation of all created things
-- all that exists in space, whether as substances or forces -- that is, all
the material beings that constitute the universe. The science which I would
attempt to define presents itself, therefore, to man, as the inhabitant of
the earth, under a two-fold form -- as the earth itself and the regions of
space. It is with a view of showing the actual character and the
independence of the study of physical cosmography, and at the same time
indicating the nature of its relations to 'general physics, descriptive
natural history, geology, and comparative geography', that I will pause for
a few moments to consider that portion of the science of the Cosmos which
concerns the earth. As the history of philosophy does not consist of a mere
material enumeration of the philosophical views entertained in different
ages, neither should the physical description of the universe be a simple
encyclopedic compilation of the sciences we have enumerated. The difficulty
of defining the limits of intimately-connected studies has been increased,
because for centuries it has been customary to designate various branches
p 58
of empirical knowledge by terms which admit either of too wide or too
limited a definition of the ideas which they were intended to convey, and
are, besides, objectionable from having had a different signification in
those classical languages of antiquity from thish chey have been borrowed.
The terms physiology, physics, natural history, geology and geography arose,
and were commonly used, long before clear ideas were entertained of the
diversity of objects embraced by these sciences, and consequently of their
reciprocal limitation. Such is the influence of long habit upon language,
that by one of the nations of Europe most advanced in civilization the word
"physic" is applied to medicine, while in a society of justly deserved
universal reputation, technical chemistry, geology and astronomy (purely
experimental sciences) are comprised under the head of "Philosophical
Transactions."
An attempt has often been made, and almost always in vain, to substitute new
and more appropriate terms for these ancient designations, which,
notwithstanding their undoubted vagueness, are now generally understood.
These changes have been proposed, for the most part, by those who have
occupied themselves with the general classification of the various branches
of knowledge, from the first appearance of the great encyclopedia
('Margarita Philosophica') of Gregory Reisch,* prior of the Chartreuse at
Freiburg, toward the close of the fifteenth century, to Lord Bacon, and from
Bacon to D'Alembert; and in recent times to an eminent physicist, Andre
Marie Ampere.**
[footnote] *The 'Margarita Philosophica' of Gregory Reisch, prior of the
Chartreuse at Freiburg, first appeared under the following title: Aepitome
omnis Philosophiæ, alias Margarita Philosophica, tractans de omni generi
scibili. The Heidelberg edition (1486), and that of Strasburg (1504), both
bear this title, but the first part was suppressed in the Freiburg edition
of the same year, as well as in the twelve subsequent editions, which
succeeded one another, at short intervals, till 1535. This work exercised a
great influence on the diffusion of mathematical and physical sciences
toward the beginning of the sixteenth century, and Crasles, the learned
author of 'L'Aperçu Historique des Methodes en Géometrica' (1837) has
shown the great importance of Reisch's 'Encyclopedia' in the history of
mathematics in the Middle Ages. I have had recourse to a passage in the
'Margarita Philosophica', found only in the edition of 1513, to elucidate
the important question of the relations between the statements of the
geographer of Saint-Die, Hylacomilus (Martin Waldseemuller), the first who
gave the name of America to the New Continent, and those of Amerigo
Vespucci, Rene, King of Jerusalem and Duke of Lorraine, as also those
contained in the celebrated editions of Ptolemy of 1513 and 1522. See my
'Examen Critique de la Gegraphie du Nouveau Continent, et des Progres de
l'Astronomie Nautique aux 15e et 16e Siecles', t. iv., p. 99-125.
[footnote] II Ampère, 'Essai sur la Phil. des Sciences', 1834, p. 25.
Whewell, 'Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences', vol. ii., p. 277. Park,
'Pantology', p. 87.
p 59
The selection of an inappropriate Greek nomenclature has perhaps been even
more prejudicial to the last of these attempts than the injudicious use of
binary divisions and the excessive multiplication of groups.
The physical description of the world, considering the universe as an object
of the external senses, does undoubtedly require the aid of general physics
and of descriptive natural history, but thecontemplation of all created
things, which are linked together, and form one 'whole', animated by
internal forces, given to the science we are considering a peculiar
character. Phyical science considers only the general properties of bodies;
it is the product of abstraction -- a generalization of perceptible
phenomena; and even in the work in which were laid the first foundations of
general physics, in the eight books on physics of Aristotle,* all the
phenomena of nature are considered as depending upon the primitive and vital
action of one sole force, from which emaate all the movements of the
universe.
[footnote] * All changes in the physical world may be reduced to motion.
Aristot., 'Phys. Ausc.', iii., 1 and 4, p. 200, 201. Bekker, viii., 1, 8,
and 9, p. 250, 262, 265. 'De Genere et Corr.', ii., 10, p. 336.
Pseudo-Aristot., 'De Mundo.' cap. vi., p. 398.
The terrestrial portion of physical cosmography, for which I would willingly
retain the expressive designation of 'physical geography', treats of the
distribution of magnetism in our planet with relation to its intensity and
direction, but does not enter into a consideration of the laws of attraction
or repulsion of the poles, or the means of eliciting either permanent or
transitory electro-magnetic currents. Physical geography depicts in broad
outlines the even or irregular configuration of continents, the relations of
superficial area, and the distribution of continental masses in the two
hemispheres, a distribution which exercises a powerful influence on the
diversity of climate and the meteorological modifications of the atmosphere;
this science defines the character of mountain chains, which, having been
elevated at different epochs, constitute distinct systems, whether they run
in parallel lines or intersect one another; determines the mean height of
continents above the level of the sea, the position of the center of gravity
of their volume, and the relation of the highest summits of mountain chains
to the mean elevation of their crests, or to their proximity with the
sea-shore. It depicts the eruptive rocks as principles of movement, acting
upon the sedimentary rocks by traversing, uplifting, and inclining them at
various angles; it
p 60
considers volcanoes either as isolated, or ranged in single or in double
series, and extending their sphere of action to various distances, either by
raising long and narrow lines of rocks, or by means of circles of commotion,
which expand or diminish in diameter in the course of ages. This
terrestrial portion of the science of the Cosmos describes the strife of the
liquid element with the solid land; it indicates the features possessed in
common by all great rivers in the upper and lower portion of their course,
and in their mode of bifurcation when their basins are unclosed; and shows
us rivers breaking through the highest mountain chains, or following for a
long time a course parallel to them, either at their base, or at a
considerable distance, where the elevation of the strata of the mountain
system and the direction of their inclination correspond to the
configuration of the table-land. It is only the general results of
comparative orography and hydrography that belong to the science whose true
limits I am desirous of determining, and not the special enumeration of the
greatest elevations of our globe, of active volcanoes, of rivers, and the
number of their tributaries, these details falliing rather within the domain
of geography, properly so called. We would here only consider phenomena in
their mutual connection, and in their relations to different zones of our
planet, and to its physical constitution generally. The specialties both of
inorganic and organized matter, classed according to analogy of form and
composition, undoubtedly constitute a most interesting branch of study, but
they appertain to a sphere of ideas having no affinity with the subject of
this work.
The description of different countries certainly furnishes us with the most
important materials for the composition of a physical geography; but the
combination of these different descriptions, ranged in series, would as
little give us a true image of the general conformation of the irregular
surface of our globe, as a succession of all the floras of different regions
would constitute that which I designate as a 'Geography of Plants.' It is
by subjecting isolated observations to the process of thought, and by
combining and comparing them, that we are enabled to discover the relations
existing in common between the climatic distribution of beings and the
individuality of organic forms (in the morphology or descriptive natural
history of plants and animals); and it is by induction that we are led to
comprehend numerical laws, the proportion of natural families to the whole
number of species, and to designate the latitude or geographical position of
the zones in whose
p 61
plains each organic form attains the maximum of its development.
Considerations of this nature, by their tendency to generalization, impress
a nobler character on the physical description of the globe, and enable us
to understand how the aspect of the scenery, that is to say, the impression
produced upon the mind by the physiognomy of the vegetation, depends upon
the local distribution, the number, and the luxuriance of growth of the
vegetable forms predominating in the general mass. The catalogues of
organized beings to which was formerly given the pompous title of 'Systems
of Nature', present us with an admirably connected arrangement by analogies
of structure, either in the perfected development of these beings, or in the
different phases which, in accordance with the views of a spiral evolution,
affect in vegetables the leaves, bracts, calyx, corolla and fructifying
organs; and in animals, with more or less symmetrical regularity, the
cellular and fibrous tissues, and their perfect or but obscurely developed
articulations. But these pretended systems of nature, however ingenious
their mode of classification may be, do not show us organic beings as they
are distributed in groups throughout our planet, according to their
different relations of latitude and elevation above the level of the sea,
and to climatic influences, which are owing to general and often very remote
causes. The ultimate aim of physical geography is, however, as we have
already said, to recognise unity in the vast diversity of phenomena, and by
the exercise of thought and the combination of observations, to discern the
constancy of phenomena in the midst of apparent changes. In the exposition
of the terrestrial portion of the Cosmos, it will occasionally be necessary
to descend to very special facts; but this will only be in order to recall
the connection existing between the actual distribution of organic beings
over the globe, and the laws of the ideal classification by natural
families, analogy of internal organization and progressive evolution.
It follows from these discussions on the limits of the various sciences, and
more particularly from the distinction which must necessarily be made
between descriptive botany (morphology of vegetables) and the geography of
plants, that in the physical history of the globe, the innumerable multitude
of organized bodies which embellish creation are considered rather according
to 'zones of habitation' or 'stations', and to differently inflected
'isothermal bands', than with reference to the principles of gradation in
the development of internal organism. Notwithstanding this, botany and
zoology, which constitute
p 62
the descriptive natural history of all organized beings, are the fruitful
sources whence we draw the materials necessary to give a solid basis to the
study of the mutual relations and connection of phenomena.
We will here subjoin one important observation by way of elucidating the
connection of which we have spoken. The first general glance over the
vegetation of a vast extent of a continent shows us forms the most
dissimilar -- Graminae and Orchideae, Coniferae and oaks, in local
approximation to one another; while natural families and genera, instead of
being locally associated, are dispersed as if by chance. This dispersion
is, however, only apparent. The physical description of the globe teaches
us that vegetation every where presents numerically constant relations in
the development of its forms and types; that in the same climates, the
species which are wanting in one country are replaced in a neighboring one
by other species of the same family; and that this 'law of substitution',
which seems to depend upon some inherent mysteries of the organism,
considered with reference to its origin, maintains in contiguous regions a
numerical relation between the species of various great families and the
general mass of the phanerogamic plants constituting the two floras. We
thus revealed in the multiplicity of the distinct organizations by which
these regions are occupied; and we also discover in each zone, and
diversified according to the families of plants, a slow but continuous
action on the aerial ocean, depending upon the influence of light -- the
primary condition of all organic vitality -- on the solid and liquid surface
of our planet. It might be said, in accordance with a beautiful expression
of Lavoisier, that the ancient marvel of the myth of Prometheus was
incessantly renewed before our eyes.
If we extend the course which we have proposed, following in the exposition
of the physical description of the earth to the sidereal part of the science
of the Cosmos, the delineation of the regions of space and the bodies by
which they are occupied, we shall find our task simplified in no common
degree. If, according to ancient but unphilosophical forms of nomenclature,
we would distinguish between 'physics', that is to say, general
considerations on the essence of matter, and the forces by which it is
actuated, and 'chemistry', which treats of the nature of substances, their
elementary composition, and those attractions that are not determined solely
by the relations of mass, we must admit that the description of the earth
comprises at
p 63
once 'physical' and 'chemical' actions. In addition to gravitation, which
must be considered as a primitive force in nature, we observe that
attractions of another kind are at work around us, both in the interior of
our planet and on its surface. These forces, to which we apply the term
'chemical affinity', act upon molecules in contact, or at infinitely minute
distances from one another,* and which, being differently modified by
electricity, heat, condensation in porous bodies, or by the contact of an
intermediate substance, animate equally the inorganic world and animal and
vegetable tissues.
[footnote] * On the question already discussed by Newton, regarding the
difference existing between the attraction of masses and molecular
attraction, see Laplace, 'Exposition du Systeme du Monde', p. 384, and
supplement to book x. of the 'Mecanique Celeste', p. 3, 4; Kant, 'Metaph.
Anfangegrunde der Naturwissenschaft, Säm. Werke', 1839, bd. v., s. 309
(Metaphysical Principles of the Natural Sciences); Pectet, 'Physique', 1838,
vol. i., p. 59-63.
If we except the small asteroids, which appear to us under the forms of
aerolites and shooting stars, the regions of space have hitherto presented
to our direct observation physical phenomena alone; and in the case of
these, we know only with certainty the effects depending upon the
quantitative relations of matter of the distribution of masses. The
phenomena of the regions of space may consequently be considered as
influenced by simple dynamical laws -- the laws of motion.
The effects that may arise from the specific difference and the
hererogeneous nature of matter have not hitherto entered into our
calculations of the mechanism of the heavens. The only means by which the
inhabitants of our planet can enter into relation with the matter contained
within the regions of space, whether existing in scattered forms or united
into large spheroids, is by the phenomena of light, the propagation of the
force of gravitation or the attraction of masses. The existence of a
periodical action of the sun and moon on the variations of terrestrial
magnetism is even at the present day extremely problematical. We have no
direct experimental knowledge regarding the properties and specific
qualities of the masses circulating in space, or of the matter of which they
are probably composed, if we except what may be derived from the fall of
aerolites or meteoric stones, which, as we have already observed, enter
within the limits of our terrestrial sphere. It will be sufficient here to
remark, that the direction and the excessive velocity of projection (a
velocity wholly planetary) manifested by these masses, render it more than
probable that
p 64
they are small celestial bodies, which, being attracted by our planet, are
made to deviate from their original course, and thus reach the earth
enveloped in vapors, and in a high state of actual incandescence. The
familiar aspect of these asteroids, and the analogies which they present
with the minerals composing the earth's crust, undoubtedly afford ample
grounds for surprise,* but, in my opinion, the only conclusion to be drawn
from these facts is that, in general, planets and other sidereal masses,
which by the influence of a central body, have been agglomerated into rings
of vapor, and subsequently into spheroids, being integrant parts of the same
system, and having one common origin, may likewise be composed of substances
chemically identical.