Cosmos: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe Part 4

Relations of superposition of trachyte and of syenitic porphyry, of diorite and of serpentine, which remain in the rich platinum districts of the Oural, and on the south-western declivity of the Siberian Alti, are elucidated by the observations that have been made on the plateaux of Mexico and Antioquia, and in the unhealthy ravines of Choco. The most important facts on which the physical history of the world has been based in modern times, have not been acc.u.mulated by chance. It has at length been fully acknowledged, and the conviction is characteristic of the age, that the narratives of distant travels, too long occupied in the mere recital of hazardous adventures, can only be made a source of instruction where the traveler is acquainted with the condition of the science he would enlarge, and is guided by reason in his researches.

It is by this tendency to generalization, which is only dangerous in its abuse, that a great portion of the physical knowledge already acquired may be made the common property of all cla.s.ses of society; but, in order to render the instruction impaired by these means commensurate with the importance of the subject, it is desirable to deviate as widely as possible from the imperfect compilations designated, till the close of the eighteenth century, by the inappropriate term of 'popular p 52 knowledge.' I take pleasure in persuading myself that scientific subjects may be treated of in language at once dignified, grave, and animated, and that those who are restricted within the circ.u.mscribed limits of ordinary life, and have long remained strangers to an intimate communion with nature, may thus have opened to them one of the richest sources of enjoyment, by which the mind is invigorated by the acquisition of new ideas. Communion with nature awakens within us perceptive faculties that had long lain dormant; and we thus comprehend at a single glance the influence exercised by physical discoveries on the enlargement of the sphere of intellect, and perceive how a judicious application of mechanics, chemistry, and other sciences may be made conducive to national prosperity.

A more accurate knowledge of the connection of physical phenomena will also tend to remove the prevalent error that all branches of natural science are not equally important in relation to general cultivation and industrial progress. An arbitrary distinction is frequently made between the various degrees of importance appertaining to mathematical sciences, to the study of organized beings, the knowledge of electro-magnetism, and investigations of the general properties of matter in its different conditions of molecular aggregation; and it is not uncommon presumptuously to affix a supposed stigma upon researches of this nature, by terming them "purely theoretical,"

forgetting , although the fact has been long attested, that in the observation of a phenomenon, which at first sight appears to be wholly isolated, may be concealed the germ of a great discovery. When Aloysio Galvani first stimulated the nervous fiber by the accidental contact of two heterogeneous metals, his contemporaries could never have antic.i.p.ated that the action of the voltaic pile would discover to us, in the alkalies, metals of a silvery l.u.s.ter, so light as to swim on water, and eminently inflammable; or that it would become a powerful instrument of chemical a.n.a.lysis, and at the same time a thermoscope and a magnet. When Hygens first observed, in 1678, the phenomenon of the polarization of light, exhibited in the difference between the two rays into which a pencil of light divides itself in pa.s.sing through a doubly refracting crystal, it could not have been foreseen that, a century and a half later, the great philosopher Arago would, by his discovery of 'chromatic polarization', be led to discern, by means of a small fragment of Iceland spar, whether solar light emanates from a solid body or a gaseous covering, or p 53 whether comets transmit light directly or merely by reflection.*

[Footnote] *Arago's Discoveries in the year 1811. -- Delambro's 'Histoire de l'Ast.', p. 652. (Pa.s.sage already quoted.)

An equal appreciation of all branches of the mathematical, physical, and natural sciences is a special requirement of the present age, in which the material wealth and the growing prosperity of nations are princ.i.p.ally based upon a more enlightened employment of the products and forces of nature.

The most superficial glance at the present condition of Europe shows that a diminution, or even a total annihilation of national prosperity, must be the award of those states who shrink with slothful indifference from the great struggle of rival nations in the career of the industrial arts. It is with nations as with nature, which, according to a happy expression of G?the,*

"knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction."

[Footnote] *Gothe, in 'Die Aphorismen uber Naturwissenschaft.' -- 'Werke', bd. 1., s. 4

The propagation of an earnest and sound knowledge of science can therefore alone avert the dangers of which I have spoken. Man can not act upon nature, or appropriate her forces to his own use, without comprehending their full extent, and having an intimate acquaintance with the laws of the physical world. Bacon has said that, in human societies, knowledge is power. Both must rise and sink together. But the knowledge that results from the free action of thought is at once the delight and the indestructible prerogative of man; and in forming part of the wealth of mankind, it not unfrequently serves as a subst.i.tute for the natural riches, which are but sparingly scattered over the earth. Those states which take no active part in the general industrial movement, in the choice and preparation of natural substances, or in the application of mechanics and chemistry, and among whom this activity is not appreciated by all cla.s.ses of society, will infallibly see their prosperity diminish in proportion as neighboring countries become strengthened and invigorated under the genial influence of arts and sciences.

As in n.o.bler spheres of thought and sentiment, in philosophy, poetry, and the fine arts, the object at which we aim ought to be an inward one -- an enn.o.blement of the intellect -- so ought we likewise in our pursuit of science, to strive after a knowledge of the laws and the principles of unity that pervade the vital forces of the universe; and it is by such a course that p 54 physical studies may be made subservient to the progress of industry, which is a conquest of mind over matter. By a happy connection of causes and effects, we often see the useful linked to the beautiful and the exalted.

The improvement of agriculture in the hands of freemen, and on properties of a moderate extent -- the flourishing state of the mechanical arts freed from the trammels of munic.i.p.al restrictions -- the increased impetus imparted to commerce by the multiplied means of the intellectual progress of mankind, and of the amelioration of political inst.i.tutions, in which this progress is reflected. The picture presented by modern history ought to convince those who are tardy in awakening to the truth of the lesson it teaches.

Nor let it be feared that the marked predilection for the study of nature, and for industrial progress, which is so characteristic of the present age, should necessarily have a tendency to r.e.t.a.r.d the n.o.ble exertions of the intellect in the domains of philosophy, cla.s.sical history, and antiquity, or to deprive the arts by which life is embellished of the vivifying breath of imagination. Where all the germs of civilization are developed beneath the aegis of free inst.i.tutions and wise legislation, there is no cause for apprehending that any one branch of knowledge should be cultivated to the prejudice of others. All afford the state precious fruits, whether they yield nourishment to man and const.i.tute his physical wealth, or whether, more permanent in their nature, they transmit in the works of mind the glory of nations to remotest posterity. The Spartans, notwithstanding their Doric austerity, prayed the G.o.ds to grant them "the beautiful with the good."*

[Footnote] *Pseudo-Plato, -- 'Alcib.', xi., p. 184, ed. Steph.; Plut., 'Inst.i.tuta Laconica', p. 253, ed. Hatten.

I will no longer dwell upon the considerations of the influence exercised by the mathematical and physical sciences on all that appertains to the material wants of social life, for the vast extent of the course on which I am entering forbids me to insist further upon the utility of these applications. Accustomed to distant excursions, I may, perhaps, have erred in describing the path before us as more smooth and pleasant than it really is, for such is wont to be the practice of those who delight in guiding others to the summits of lofty mountains: they praise the view even when great part of the distant plains lie hidden by clouds, knowing that this half-transparent vapory vail imparts to the scene a certain charm from p 55 the power exercised by the imagination over the domain of the senses. In like manner, from the height occupied by the physical history of the world, all parts of the horizon will not appear equally clear and well defined.

This indistinctness will not, however, be wholly owing to the present imperfect state of some of the sciences, but in part, likewise, to the unskillfulness of the guide who has imprudently ventured to ascend these lofty summits.

The object of this introductory notice is not, however, solely to draw attention to the importance and greatness of the physical history of the universe, for in the present day these are too well understood to be contested, but likewise to prove how, without detriment to the stability of special studies, we may be enabled to generalize our ideas by concentrating them in one common focus, and thus arrive at a point of view from which all the organisms and forces of nature may be seen as one living active whole, animated by one sole impulse. "Nature," as Sch.e.l.ling remarks in his poetic discourse on art, "is not an inert ma.s.s; and to him who can comprehend her vast sublimity, she reveals herself as the creative force of the universe -- before all time, eternal, ever active, she calls to life all things, whether perishable or imperishable."

By uniting, under one point of view, both the phenomena of our own globe and those presented in the regions of s.p.a.ce, 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 const.i.tute 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 t.i.tle 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 ill.u.s.trate, 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 enn.o.bled 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 t.i.tle 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 circ.u.mscribe the science within its just limits, and to distinguish it from all other a.n.a.logous or auxiliary studies.

Physical cosmography is founded on the contemplation of all created things -- all that exists in s.p.a.ce, whether as substances or forces -- that is, all the material beings that const.i.tute 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 s.p.a.ce. 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 cla.s.sical 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 subst.i.tute 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 cla.s.sification 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 t.i.tle: Aepitome omnis Philosophi, alias Margarita Philosophica, tractans de omni generi scibili. The Heidelberg edition (1486), and that of Strasburg (1504), both bear this t.i.tle, 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'Aperu Historique des Methodes en G?ometrica' (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 pa.s.sage 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 Ampre, '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 ma.s.ses 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, const.i.tute 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-sh.o.r.e. 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 const.i.tution generally. The specialties both of inorganic and organized matter, cla.s.sed according to a.n.a.logy of form and composition, undoubtedly const.i.tute 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 const.i.tute 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 lat.i.tude 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 n.o.bler 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 ma.s.s. The catalogues of organized beings to which was formerly given the pompous t.i.tle of 'Systems of Nature', present us with an admirably connected arrangement by a.n.a.logies 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 cla.s.sification may be, do not show us organic beings as they are distributed in groups throughout our planet, according to their different relations of lat.i.tude 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 cla.s.sification by natural families, a.n.a.logy 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 mult.i.tude 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 const.i.tute 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.