Gespiegelte Fassung der elektronischen Zeitschrift auf dem Publikationsserver der Universität Potsdam, Stand: 18. August 2009
Originalfassung zugänglich unter http://www.hin-online.de

HiN - Humboldt im Netz

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Frank Baron

From Alexander von Humboldt to Frederic Edwin Church:
Voyages of Scientific Exploration and Artistic Creativity

1. Introduction

A history of Humboldt’s influence in the nineteenth century would have to delve into the lives and works of major figures in numerous disciplines. Perhaps the most remarkable evaluation of Humboldt’s significance came to light only recently. While Charles Darwin repeatedly accorded Humboldt credit for having inspired him with his Personal Narrative of Travels,[1] the lesser-known Alfred Russel Wallace, who was about to embark on his own pioneering discoveries about evolution, was also inspired, independently, by the same work. Darwin’s enthusiasm may be characteristic of the kind of reaction the Personal Narrative of Travels inspired.

Humboldt’s glorious descriptions are and will forever be unparalleled; but even he with his dark blue skies and the rare union of poetry with science which he so strongly displays when writing on tropical scenery, with all this falls short of the truth. The delight one experiences in such times bewilders the mind; if the eye attempts to follow the flight of a gaudy butterfly, it is arrested by some strange tree or fruit; if watching an insect one forgets it in the stranger flower it is crawling over; if turning to admire the splendor of the scenery, the individual character of the foreground fixes the attention. The mind is a chaos of delight, out of which a world of future and more quiet pleasure will arise. I am at present fit only to read Humboldt; he like another sun illumines everything I behold.[2]

In the constantly shifting perspectives of the Personal Narrative of Travels, both Darwin and Wallace found thought-provoking passages with insights about the way each new locality reflected unique modes of plant and animal adaptation to its environment. The concept of evolution owes much to Humboldt’s critical analyses of the environmental impact on plant and animal life. The fame of Darwin and Wallace soon displaced that of their “teacher.”

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Humboldt’s birth, naturalist and geologist Louis Agassiz, professor of zoology at Harvard University, spoke at length about Humboldt’s importance for the United States. Having been an avid student and personal friend of Humboldt’s, Agassiz, along with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Oliver Wendell Holmes, expressed great admiration for Humboldt. Agassiz’s words, underlined by Emerson and Holmes, reflect a broadly established reputation. Agassiz asserted: “All the fundamental facts of popular science, beyond the merest elementary education, we owe to him. We are reaping in every school throughout this broad land, where education is the heritage even of the poorest child, the intellectual harvest sown by him.”[3] For John Muir, one of the pioneers of the conservation movement, Humboldt was a model. He exclaimed: “How intensively I desire to become a Humboldt!” Like Darwin and Wallace before him, he read Humboldt's Personal Narrative. Sensitivity to and respect for the environment, which is evident in all of Humboldt’s works, characterized Muir’s career and legacy.[4] Humboldt’s outspoken views against slavery proved to be a force that gave momentum to the abolitionist movement in the United States.[5]



[1] “I formerly admired Humboldt, I now almost adore him; he alone gives any notion, of the feelings which are raised in the mind on first entering the Tropics.” R. D. Keynes, ed., The Beagle Record (Cambridge, England, 1979), p. 38. Darwin’s admiration for Humboldt survived for many decades. In August 1881 he wrote to J. D. Hooker: “I believe that you are fully right in calling Humboldt the greatest scientific traveller who ever lived[.] I have lately read two or three volumes again.” Francis Darwin, ed., The Letters of Charles Darwin, Including an Autobiographical Chapter, vol. 2 (New York: Basic Books, 1959), p. 422.

[2] The Beagle Record, p. 41. Also quoted by Gould in Franklin Kelly et al., Frederic Edwin Church (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery, 1989), p. 102, and Stephen Jay Gould, I Have Landed: The End of a Beginning in Natural History (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2002), p. 103.

[3] Louis Agassiz, Address Delivered on the Centennial Anniversary of the Birth of Alexander von Humboldt (Boston: Society of Natural History, 1863), p. 5.

[4] Linnie Marsh Wolfe, The Life of John Muir (New York: Knopf, 1945), p. 96. Frederick Turner, John Muir: Rediscovering America (Cambridge, MA: Merloyd Lawrence, 1958), pp. 65–66.

[5] Philip S. Foner (ed.), Alexander von Humboldt on Slavery in the United States, a dual-language text. Trans. Ingo Schwarz (Berlin: Humboldt-Universität, 1984).

 

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