1850.] Discoveries of the Plan of Nature. 55 they are in fact. These forces originate in God and dwell in God. We cannot go beyond this origin, neither can we stop short of it. Physical science discusses, not so much the origin of these forces as the mysterious play of their effects. If the devotee of Science, amazed at her grand developments and exalted by her comprehensive generalizations, pauses to inquire in regard to the stability of this goodly edifice which human reason has constructed, he receives no satisfactory answer except in the idea of God. Those branches of science which are most mature, and are already redolent with their ripened fruits, are best understood when regarded as fragmentary sketches of the plan by which God acts. Whenever, in the course of observation or experiment, new discoveries are made, Science enlarges her ideas of the compass of this plan so as to include the strange facts. The plan of nature has not been infringed, but Science has caught another glimpse of the extent, the beauty, and the significance of this plan. The laws of motion are not violated, but new forces are betrayed to our astonished eyes, the conception of which is sufficient to remove the anomaly and reconcile apparent discrepancies. The human mind rests satisfied with this view of the problem of nature, because it always finds, after a closer scrutiny into the past, or the remote, or the obscure, that these forces, imagined for the present emergency, always existed and always acted, often in the most familiar processes, although their silent and unobtrusive, but irresistible, action was overlooked. Large subdivisions of science are built upon forces whose existence was not suspected half a century ago. These forces, and who shall say what others yet to be discov ered, lay concealed in the uncleared fields of science: as the planets Uranus and Neptune were buried in the old star-catalogues of Flamsteed and Lalande, though destined one day to burst on the scientific gaze of the astronomer in all their planetary beauty. Science gives no indications that a single new and permanent force has ever been introduced into the arena, where atom conflicts with atom, not, as man contends with man, to desolate the earth, but rather to fertilize and beautify it. Science does not suggest the suspicion that these curious forces which play such important parts before our eyes were not present, either free or in a latent state, on the first day of the completed creation. When Humboldt assures us that he has seen the copper-colored children of those Indians who live on the banks of the Orinoco, and who represent the lowest grade of humanity, amuse themselves with the electric pastime of rubbing the husks of certain trailing plants until they are excited sufficiently to attract threads of cotton and bits of bamboo-cane, who does not feel a doubt whether History, which transports us over the highways and through the crowded thoroughfares of science, ever conducts us back to the spot, the time, or the individual to whom belongs the earliest notice of any of her primitive facts? We may believe that God will adhere to his usual plan in the material universe, as interpreted by the light of science. At the same time, we cannot doubt that he might have chosen a different plan, which, nevertheless, would be in harmony with human conceptions and intelligible to the human reason. If this be true, how presumptuous and unsuccessful must all attempts prove to reproduce the plan of creation by human reason alone, unsustained by a careful study of the universe itself as manifested to the senses! The truths of geometry were reasoned out by the great geometers of antiquity, and the demonstrations of Euclid have survived for the admiration and imitation of all succeeding generations. This method of investigation is suited to the exact sciences, but physical truths cannot be built on such intellectual foundations; even the straightforward processes of the mathematics often mislead when applied to physical questions in which the conditions of the problem are imperfectly apprehended. Those writers who have begun with chaos, and constructed their various cosmogonies from this ancient point of departure, are doomed, as the penalty for their rashness, to encounter at the outset that most difficult of all physical inquiries, the existence of atoms. This, accordingly, was a favorite subject of discussion with the early philosophers. The great idea of the Cosmos was often obscured in their writings by the passion and confusion excited by this conflict in regard to the atomic hypothesis. Still more gloomy was the task of those who, like Epicurus and his poetical commentator Lucretius, recognized in their conceited system 1850.] Ancient and Modern Views of Nature. 57 no divine power. Whoever wishes to learn the superiority of the inductive over the speculative method of studying the universe may compare the cosmogony of Hesiod with Sir William Herschel's enlarged views upon the construction of the heavens, or the crude origin which Buffon has assigned to the planetary system with the nebular hypothesis of Laplace. And still more, if any one wish to know the value of faith even in intellectual pursuits, he may read the poem of Lucretius on the Nature of Things, and then turn to the hundred and fourth Psalm or the thirty-seventh chapter of the Book of Job. "We are astonished," says Humboldt in reference to the grand representation of the Cosmos contained in the hundred and fourth Psalm, "to find, in a lyrical poem of such a limited compass, the whole universe, the heavens and the earth, sketched with a few bold touches. The calm and toilsome labor of man, from the rising of the sun to the setting of the same, when his daily work is done, is here contrasted with the moving life of the elements of nature. This contrast and generalization in the conception of the mutual action of natural phenomena, and this retrospection of an omnipresent, invisible power, which can renew the earth or crumble it to dust, constitute a solemn and exalted rather than a glowing and gentle form of poetic creation."— p. 413. We quote the following passage from Humboldt, in regard to Hebrew poetry in general: "The Hebrew poet does not depict nature as a self-dependent object, glorious in its individual beauty, but always as in relation and subjection to a higher spiritual power. Nature is to him a work of creation and order, the living expression of the omnipresence of the Divinity in the visible world. Hence the lyrical poetry of the Hebrews, from the very nature of its subject, is grand and solemn, and when it treats of the earthly condition of mankind, is full of sad and pensive longing."- p. 412. After the disparaging statement we have made of the speculative opinions of the ancient philosophers on physical science, it must be admitted that occasionally they have anticipated some discovery or generalization of modern science. Nevertheless, we now regard the works of Strabo, Aristotle, Seneca, and Pliny (the conclusion of whose immense work was discovered in 1831, and first printed in 1836) with interest, not because we admire or adopt their speculations, but rather that we may ob tain possession of facts, to be incorporated into the framework of our own cosmogony. The tendency to speculate on natural science, rather than to study it, has not been confined to the ancient schools of philosophy. It is not surprising that, in all ages, ingenious and restless minds, impatient of the laborious and slow investigation of the laws of nature by tedious experiments and observations, and disheartened by the comparison of what was done with what remained to be achieved, have attempted to burst the barriers of the inductive method, and to anticipate the discoveries of a later age by a bold guess. The world, too, impatient of going to school so long to Nature, and advancing by gradual steps from her elemental teachings to those profound lessons which she is ever ready to give to the prepared mind, has applauded with sympathizing heart these deliverers from the ancient thraldom. A single happy surmise, which has afterwards been confirmed, is sufficient to outweigh their numerous failures, and to vindicate for them the title of nature's most gifted and prophetic seers. In allusion to such speculations, in which Kepler was fond of indulging, Humboldt makes the following just remarks: : "Presentient propositions of this nature, felicitous conjectures of that which was subsequently discovered, excited general interest, whilst none of Kepler's contemporaries, including Galileo, conferred any adequate praise on the discovery of the three laws, which, since Newton and the promulgation of the theory of gravitation, have immortalized the name of Kepler. Cosmical considerations, even when based merely on feeble analogies and not on actual observations, riveted the attention more powerfully then, as they still frequently do, than the most important results of calculating astronomy." - p. 711. Vast changes have taken place in the condition of the positive sciences during the last two centuries. The principle of a division of labor, so economical in industrial pursuits, has proved of eminent service, also, in the explorations of science. The ambition for universal knowlege is as rare as it is hopeless now. As the horizon enlarges, one subdivision after another is made, and if any one excel in a single department, however narrow, his usefulness no less than his fame exceeds those of any wandering star, be it ever so brilliant. Hence has come 1850.] Humboldt's Wide Researches. 59 the rapid accumulation of materials for a Cosmos, almost overwhelming from their number and variety. It has been estimated that the recent magnetic crusade, undertaken at the solicitation of Humboldt by many of the governments and scientific associations of the Old and New World, and which has been protracted to nine years, will alone furnish at the rate of 1,958,000 observations for every three years of its operation. Here is a chaos, but a totally different one from that which appalled the ancient philosophers. It is the chaos, not of ignorance, but of profuse knowledge. On the first announcement of the work under review, an extraordinary interest was felt by literary and scientific men to look upon a sketch of a physical description of the Universe, drawn by the masterly hand of one so profoundly conversant with all her changing features and so long enamoured with her unfading charms. No one could have approached the task with better preparation than Humboldt. A long life of study and travel, of meditation and experiment, from early dawn to a twilight of old age, had enriched the field of which he was now to reap the late harvest. Perhaps we should qualify some of the remarks already made, in favor of Humboldt. For his labors were expanded over a wide area, without being superficial or inaccurate. There is scarcely a department of natural or physical science on which he has not at some period of his life left his impression. There is hardly a region of the globe which he has not personally explored. The plants and animals of the tropics are no strangers to his eyes, and he is equally at home beneath the constellations of either hemisphere. No one before has surveyed this planet, its surface, its animal and vegetable productions, its contents, its solid and fluid portions, the aerial garment in which it is enveloped, and the heavens which bend over it from pole to pole, with so broad and penetrating a glance. An insatiable thirst for travel, originating, probably, in deeper instincts than those to which Humboldt ascribes it, did not let him rest till he had gazed with scientific curiosity on the wonderful phases of all the different zones. "In limiting myself," says Humboldt, "to the simple consideration of the incitements to a scientific study of nature, I would not, however, omit calling attention to the fact, that impressions |