'description' of the world. The former, conceived in the most general sense
of the word, ought, if materials for writing it existed, to trace the
variations experienced by the universe in the course of ages from the new
stars which have suddenly appeared and disappeared in the vault of heaven,
from nebulæ dissolving or condensing -- to the first stratum of cryptogamic
vegetation on the still imperfectly cooled surface of the earth, or on a
reef of coral uplifted from the depths of ocean. 'The physical description
of the world' presents a picture of all that exists in space -- of the
siimultaneous action of
p 72
natural forces, together with the phenomena which they produce.
But if we would correctly comprehend nature, we must not entirely or
absolutely separate the consideration of the present state of things from
that of the successive phases through which they have passed. We can not
form a just conception of their nature without looking back on the mode of
their formation. It is not organic matter alone that is continually
undergoing change, and being dissolved to form new combinations. The globe
itself reveals at every phase of its existence the mystery of its former
conditions.
We can not survey the crust of our planet without recognizing the traces of
the prior existence and destruction of an organic world. The sedimentary
rocks present a succession of organic forms, associated in groups, which
have successively displaced and succeeded each other. The different
super-imposed strata thus display to us the faunas and floras of different
epochs. In this sense the description of nature is intimately connected
with its history; and the geologist, who is guided by the connection
existing among the facts observed, can not form a conception of the present
without pursuing, through countless ages, the history of the past. In
tracing the physical delineation of the globe, we behold the present and the
past reciprocally incorporated, as it were, with one another; for the domain
of nature is like that of languages, in which etymological research reveals
a successive development, by showing us the primary condition of an idiom
reflected in the forms of speech in use at the present day. The study of
the material world renders this reflection of the past peculiarly manifest,
by displaying in the process of formation rocks of eruption and sedimentary
strata similar to those of former ages. If I may be allowed to borrow a
striking illustration from the geological relations by which the physiognomy
of a country is determined, I would say that domes of trachyte, cones of
basalt, lava streams ('coules')of amygdaloid with elongated and parallel
pores, and white deposits of pumice, intermixed with black scoriae, animate
the scenery by the associations of the past which they awaken, acting upon
the imagination of the enlightened observer like traditional records of an
earlier world. Their form is their history.
The sense in which the Greeks and Romans originally employed the word
'history' proves that they too were intimately convinced that, to form a
complete idea of the present state of the universe, it was necessary to
consider it in its successive
p 73
phases. It is not, however, in the definition given by Valerius Flaccus,*
but in the zoological writings of Aristotle, that the word 'history'
presents itself as an exposition of the results of experience and
observation.
[Footnote] *Aul. Gell., 'Nect. Att.', v., 18.
The physical description of the word by Pliny the elder bears the title of
'Natural History', while in the letters of his nephew it is designated by
the nobler term of 'History of Nature.' The earlier Greek historians did
not separate the description of countries from the narrative of events of
which they had been the theater. With these writers, physical geography and
history were long intimately associated, and remained simply but elegantly
blended until the period of the development of political interests, when the
agitation in which the lives of men were passed caused the geographical
portion to be banished from the history of nations, and raised into an
independent science.
It remains to be considered whether by the operation of thought, we may hope
to reduce the immense diversity of phenomena comprised by the Cosmos to the
unity of a principle, and the evidence afforded by rational truths. In the
present state of empirical knowledge, we can scarcely flatter ourselves with
such a hope. Experimental sciences, based on the observation of the
external world, can not aspire to completeness; the nature of things, and
the imperfection of our organs, are alike opposed to it. We shall never
succeed in exhausting the immeasurable riches of nature; and no generation
of men will ever have cause to boast of having comprehended the total
aggregation of phenomena. It is only by distributing them into groups that
we have been able, in the case of a few, to discover the empire of certain
natural laws, grand and simple as nature itself. The extent of this empire
will no doubt increase in proportion as physical sciences are more perfectly
developed. Striking proofs of this advancement have been made manifest in
our own day, in the phenomena of electro-magnetism, the propagation of
luminous waves and radiating heat. In the same manner, the fruitful
doctrine of evolution shows us how, in organic development, all that is
formed is sketched out beforehand, and how the tissues of vegetable and
animal matter uniformly arise from the multiplication and transformation of
cells.
The generalization of laws, which, being at first bounded by narrow limits,
had been applied solely to isolated groups of phenomena, acquires in time
more marked gradations, and gains in extent and certainty as long as the
process of reasoning
p 74
is applied strictly to analogous phenomena; but as soon as dynamical views
prove insufficient where the specific properties and heterogeneous nature of
matter come into play; it is to be feared that, by persisting in the pursuit
of laws, we may find our course suddenly arrested by an impassible chasm.
The principle of unity is lost sight of, and the guiding clew is rent
asunder whenever any specific and peculiar kind of action manifests itself
amid the active forces of nature. The law of equivalents and the numerical
proportions of composition, so happily recognized by modern chemists, and
proclaimed under the ancient form of atomic symbols, still remains isolated
and independent of mathematicl laws of motion and gravitation.
Those productions of nature which are objects of direct observation may be
logically distributed in classes, orders, and families. This form of
distribution undoubtedly sheds some light on descriptive natural history,
but the study of organized bodies, considered in their linear connection,
although it may impart a greater degree of unity and simplicity to the
distribution of groups, can not rise to the height of a classification based
on one sole principle of composition and internal organization. As
different gradations are presented by the laws of nature according to the
extent of the horizon, or the limits of the phenomena to be considered, so
there are likewise differently graduated phases in the investigation of the
external world. Empiricism originates in isolated views, which are
subsequently grouped according to their analogy or dissimilarity. To direct
observation succeeds, although long afterward, the wish to prosecute
experiments; that is to say, to evoke phenomena under different determined
conditions. The rational experimentalist does not proceed at hazard, but
acts under the guidance of hypotheses, founded on a half indistinct and more
or less just intuition of the connection existing among natural objects or
forces. That which has been conquered by observation or by means of
experiments, leads, by analysis and induction, to the discovery of empirical
laws. These are the phases in human intellect that have marked the
different epochs in the life of nations, and by means of which that great
mass of facts has been accumulated which constitutes at the present day the
solid basis of the natural sciences.
Two forms of abstraction conjointly regulate our knowledge, namely,
relations of 'quantity', comprising ideas of number and size, and relations
of 'quality', embracing the consideration of the specific properties and the
heterogeneous nature
p 75
of matter. The former, as being more accessible to the exercise of thought,
appertains to mathematics; the latter, from the apparent mysteries and
greater difficulties, falls under the domain of the chemical sciences. In
order to submit phenomena to calculation, recourse is had to a hypothetical
construction of matter by a combination of molecules and atoms, whose
number, form, position, and polarity determine, modify, or vary phenomena.
The mythical ideas long entertained of the imponderable substances and vital
forces peculiar to each mode of organization, have complicated our views
generally, and shed an uncertain light on the path we ought to pursue.
The most various forms of intuition have thus, age after age, aided in
augmenting the prodigious mass of empirical knowledge, which, in our own day
has been enlarged with ever-increasing rapidity. The investigating spirit
of man strives from time to time, with varying success, to break through
those ancient forms and symbols invented, to subject rebellious matter to
rules of mechanical construction.
We are still very far from the time when it will be possible for us to
reduce, by the operation of thought, all that we perceive by the senses, to
the unity of a rational principle. It may even be doubted if such a victory
could ever be achieved in the field of natural philosophy. The complication
of phenomena, and of the vast extent of the Cosmos, would seem to oppose
such a result; but even a partial solution of the problem -- the tendency
toward a comprehension of the phenomena of the universe -- will not the less
remain the eternal and sublime aim of every investigation of nature.
In conformity with the character of my former writings, as well as with the
labors in which I have been engaged during my scientific career, in
measurements, experiments, and the investigation of facts, I limit myself to
the domain of empirical ideas.
The exposition of mutually connected facts does not exclude the
classification of phenomena according to their rational connection, the
generalization of many specialities in the great mass of observations, or
the attempt to discover laws. Conceptions of the universe solely based upon
reason, and the principles of speculative philosophy, would no doubt assign
a still more exalted aim to the science of the Cosmos. I am far from
blaming the efforts of others solely because their success has hitherto
remained very doubtful. Contrary to the wishes and counsel of of those
profound and powerful thinkers who
p 76
have given new life to speculations which were already familiar to the
ancients, systems of natural philosophy have in our own country for some
time past turned aside the minds of men from the graver study of
mathematical and physical sciences. The abuse of better powers, which has
led many of our noble but ill-judging youth into the saturnalia of a purely
ideal science of nature, has been signalized by the intoxication of
pretended conquests, by a novel and fantastically symbolical phraseology,
and by a predilection for the formulae of a scholastic rationalism, more
contracted in its views than any known to the Middle Ages. I use the
expression "abuse of better powers," because superior intellects devoted to
philosophical pursuits and experimental sciences have remained strangers to
these saturnalia. The results yielded by an earnest investigation in the
path of experiment can not be at variance with a true philosophy of nature.
If there be any contradiction, the fault must lie either in the unsoundness
of speculation, or in the exaggerated pretensions of empiricism, which
thinks that more is proved by experiment than is actually derivable from it.
External nature may be opposed to the intellectual world, as if the latter
were not comprised within the limits of the former, or nature may be opposed
to art when the latter is defined as a manifestation of the intellectual
power of man; but these contrasts, which we find reflected in the most
cultivated languages, must not lead us to separate the sphere of nature from
that of mind, since such a separation would reduce the physical science of
the world to a mere aggregation of empirical specialities. Science does not
present itself to man until mind conquers matter in striving to subject the
result of experimental investigation to rational combinations. Science is
the labor of mind applied to nature, but the external world has no real
existence for us beyond the image reflected within ourselves through the
medium of the senses. As intelligence and forms of speech, thought and its
verbal symbols, are united by secret and indissoluble links, so does the
external world blend almost unconsciously to ourselves with our ideas and
feelings. "External phenomena," says Hegel, in his 'Philosophy of History',
"are in some degree translated in our inner representations." The objective
world, conceived and reflected within us by thought, is subjected to the
eternal and necessary conditions of our intellectual being. The activity of
the mind exercises itself on the elements furnished to it by the perceptions
of the senses. Thus, in the
p 77
early ages of mankind, there manifests itself in the simple intuition of
natural facts, and in the efforts made to comprehend them, the germ of the
philosophy of nature. These ideal tendencies vary, and are more or less
powerful, according to the individual characteristics and moral dispositions
of nations, and to the degrees of their mental culture, whether attained
amid scenes of nature that excite or chill the imagination.
History has preserved the record of the numerous attempts that have been
made to form a rational conception of the whole world of phenomena, and to
recognize in the universe the action of one sole active force by which
matter is penetrated, transformed, and animated. These attempts are traced
in classical antiquity in those treatises on the principles of things which
emanated from the Ionian school, and in which all the phenomena of nature
were subjected to hazardous speculations, based upon a small number of
observations. By degrees, as the influence of great historical events has
favored the development of every branch of science supported by observation,
that ardor has cooled which formerly led men to seek the essential nature
and connection of things by ideal construction and in purely rational
principles. In recent times, the mathematical portion of natural philosophy
has been most remarkably and admirably enlarged. The method and the
instrument (analysis) have been simultaneously perfected. That which has
been acquired by means so different -- by the ingenious application of
atomic suppositions, by the more general and intimate study of phenomena,
and by the improved construction of new apparatus -- is the common property
of mankind, and shouldnot, in our opinion, now, more than in ancient times,
be withdrawn from the free exercise of speculative thought.
It can not be denied that in this process of thought, the results of
experience have had to contend with many disadvantages; we must not,
therefore, be surprised if, in the perpetual vicissitude of theoretical
views, as is ingeniously expressed by the author of 'Giordano Bruno', "most
men see nothing in philosophy but a succession of passing meteors, while
even the grander forms in which she has revealed herself share the fate of
comets, bodies that do not rank in popular opinion among the eternal and
permanent works of nature,
p 78
but are regarded as mere fugitive apparitions of igncor vapor."
[Footnote] *Schelling's Bruno, 'eber das Gottliche und Naturaliche Princip.
der Dinge', 181 (Bruno, on the 'Divine and Natural Principle of Things')
We would here remark that the abuse of thought, and the false track it too
often pursues, ought not to sanction an opinion derogatory to the intellect,
which would imply that the domain of mind is essentially a world of vague
fantastic illusions, and that the treasures accumulated by laborious
observations in philosophy are powers hostile to its own empire. It does
not become the spirit which characterizes the present age distrustfully to
reject every generalization of views and every attempt to examine into the
nature of things by the process of reason and induction. It would be a
denial of the dignity of human nature and the relative importance of the
faculties with which we are endowed, were we to condemn at one time austere
reason engaged in investigating causes and their natural connections, and at
another that exercise of the imagination which prompts and excites
discoveries by its creative powers.
This material taken from pages 79 to 111
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 79
COSMOS.
-------------------------
DELINEATION OF NATURE. GENERAL REVIEW OF NATURAL PHENOMENA.
WHEN the human mind first attempts to subject to its control the world of
physical phenomena, and strives by meditative contemplation to penetrate the
rich luxuriance of living nature, and the mingled web of free and restricted
natural forces, man feels himself raised to a height from whence, as he
embraces the vast horizon, individual things blend together in varied
groups, and appear as if shrouded in a vapory
vail. These figurative expressions are used in order to illustrate the
point of view from whence we would consider the universe both in its
celestial and terrestrial sphere. I am not insensible of the boldness of
such an undertaking. Among all the forms of exposition to which these pages
are devoted, there is none more difficult than the general delineation of
nature, which we purpose sketching, since we must not allow ourselves to be
overpowered by a sense of the stupendous richness and variety of the forms
presented to us, but must dwell only on the consideration of masses either
possessing actual magnitude, or borrowing its semblance from the
associations awakened within the subjective sphere of ideas. It is by a
separation and classification of phenomena by an intuitive insight into the
play of obscure forces, and by animated expressions, in which the
perceptible spectacle is reflected with vivid truthfulness, that we may hope
to comprehend and describe the 'universal all' [Greek words] in a manner
worthy of the dignity of the word 'Cosmos' in its signification of
'universe, order of the world', and 'adornment' of this universal order.
May the immeasurable diversity of phenomena which crowd into the picture of
nature in no way detract from that harmonious impression of rest and unity
which is the ultimate object of every literary or purely artistical
composition.
Beginning with the depths of space and the regions of remotest nebulae, we
will gradually descend through the starry zone to which our solar system
belongs, to our own terrestrial spheroid, circled by air and ocean, there to
direct our attention
p 80
to its form, temperature, and magnetic tension, and to consider the fullness
of organic life unfolding itself upon its surface beneath the vivifying
influence of light. In this manner a picture of the world may, with a few
strokes, be made to include the realms of infinity no less than the minute
microscopic animal and vegetable organisms which exist in standing waters
and on the weather-beaten surface of our rocks. All that can be perceived
by the senses, and all that has been accumulated up to the present day by an
attentive and variously directed study of nature, constitute the materials
from which this representation is to be drawn, whose character is an
evidence of its fidelity and truth. But the descriptive picture of nature
which we purpose drawing must not enter too fully into detail, since a
minute enumeration of all vital forms, natural objects, and processes is not
requisite to the completeness of the undertaking. The delineator of nature
must resist the tendency toward endless division, in order to avoid the
dangers presented by the very abundance of our empirical knowledge. A
considerable portion of the qualitative properties of matter -- or, to speak
more in accordance with the language of natural philosophy, of the
qualitative expression of forces -- is doubtlessly still unknown to us, and
the attempt perfectly to represent unity in diversity must therefore
necessarily prove unsuccessful. Thus, besides the pleasure derived and
tinged with a shade of sadness, an unsatisfied longing for something beyond
the present -- a striving toward regions yet unknown and unopened. Such a
sense of longing binds still faster the links which, in accordance with the
supreme laws of our being, connect the material with the ideal world, and
animates the mysterious relation existing between that which the mind
receives from without, and that which it reflects from its own depths to the
external world. If, then, nature (understanding by the term all natural
objects and phenomena) be illimitable in extent and contents, it likewise
presents itself to the human intellect as a problem which can not be
grasped, and whose solution is impossible, since it requires a knowledge of
the combined action of all natural forces. Such an acknowledgement is due
where the actual state and prospective development of phenomena constitute
the sole objects of direct investigation, which does not venture to depart
from the strict rules of induction. But, although the incessant effort to
embrace nature in its universality may remain unsatisfied, the history of
the contemplation of the universe (which
p 81
will be considered in another part of this work) will teach us how, in the
course of ages, mankind has gradually attained to a partial insight into the
relative dependence of phenomena. My duty is to depict the results of our
knowledge in all their bearings with reference to the present. In all that
is subject to motion and change in space, the ultimate aim, the very
expression of physical laws, depend upon 'mean numerical values', which show
us the constant amid change, and the stable amid apparent fluctuations of
phenomena. Thus the progress of modern physical science is especially
characterized by the attainment and the rectification of the mean values of
certain quantities by means of the processes of weighing and measuring; and
it may be said, that the only remaining and widely-diffused hieroglyphic
characters still in our writing -- 'numbers' -- appear to us again, as
powers of the Cosmos, although in a wider sense than that applied to them by
the Italian School.