New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1860-08-06
BONAPARTTSTS AGAINST HUMBOLDT

Alexander Won Humb0ldts Correspondence Win
yarnhagen Won Ense contained, as you will recOl-
lect, some severe structures on the second French
Empire, on Louis Bonaparte, the son of Admiral
Verhuel, on his brother Morny, the son Of Gen.
Flahault, and on that slow wretch" called Fialin
de Persigny 81 have always been Of opinion"
auoth Humboldt, "that the widest republic can
"never infct so great and lasting damage on the
intellectual progress of mankind, its conscience
"and its honor, as my uncle's system of govern
"ment that enlightened, dogmatic, and honied
despo.ism which employs all the arts of civilization
in order to make the will and the caprice Of sim
gle individual domineer Humboldt called this
humiliation threatening to catch like the pesti-
Silence" New, on the outbreak of the Italian war,
with view to hatter the Prussians, Louis Bona
parte had published decree ordering statue to
be erected in honor of Humboldt This decree is
now said TO hHRe been quashed; but, not content
with this pu~Hs exhibition of impOtent spite, the
man of December has let loose his literary ZOuaves,
who for the last few weeks have rvaled each other
in scurrilous attempts at laying the ghost Of the
great naturalist Why should Louis Napoleon just
about to raise at his mighty fiat dilapidated SPAN
into one of the great Powers OF Europe prove him
self unable to strike Humboldt off the list of the
great Powers of the intellectual wOrld2 Not to
speak of minor hbels, the decisive blow was to be
dealt in the Pays, Journal dc PEmpire, BY one
Bambey d'Aureyily. The world, as Aureyilly
states, has labOred for about fifty years under the
strange deusion that Humboldt was one
of the first, if not the first man OF CO.
tempOraneOus science when monsieur DC
There were different reasons, and among them some
dishonorable ones which AureviIly, In his mag
nanimity, viii forbear touching upon, that con-
trbuted to bloat HumbOldts name to q size alto
pether out of proportion to his real deserts In the
first place, there is something hghsOunding in the
very word % Humboldt" something that catches
the ear and imposes upon the imagination. But
quite apart from the euphony OF the name, how
came it to happen that Humboldt lorded it over the
French trumvirate composed of Ampere, Saint
Hilaire, and Cuvierl Being great inventors and
demonstrators they could not but be speeiastes in
their glory as :" they in their studies, lncOm-
prehensible to the dull mass of mankind, while
Humboldt, whose exclusive task it was to generaze
and pOpuarize science, attained, OF course, more
general, because more vulgar glory. Such, ex.
Claims AureviIy, IS the sad law Of glory. 1t must
descend in order % expand and lose in quality
what it gains in quantity. Hence one may safely
infer what sterling stuff Aurevilly's glory, that
never extended beyond the Office of the Pays, must
be made of In one word: Humboldt engrOssed
uublic attention because, instead of being true
man of science, in the profound sense of the word
be was nothing else but fine talker Of science Gun
beau porleur scientifqne). Yes !" a tne taHser q
Aurevilly, in triumphant tones. " Nature had
" certainly endowed him with attraction to and
"aptitude for scientific purposes" and, more
" oyer, had bestowed upon him AN iron c0nstl-
" tuition not to be broken by fangues.' But
fortune had done still more for him than
1,ottp ahad
people: his education was encyclopaedia. He
was the son of Chamberlain, and him
self a grand seigneur; he was a man of fortune;
he eniOyed the favor of princes and the blind admit
ration of ladies. Well, and with all that what did
he make of HIMSELF A traoeler. g In his Central
" Asia, in his Voyage to the EquinOctal Regions,
" in his Geographical and Physical Atlas, In his
I" Critical Inquiry into the History OF the Geogra,
"pby of the New Continent in the Fifteenth and
" the Sixteenth Centuries, in his Views Of the Cor
"deras and his Equinoctial Plants, in his POliti-
" cal Essay on Cuba and In his strictly bOtan
" ical works, he was never anything beyond trav-
" eler speaking passiOnately of his journeys, and
lone may ask himself what Humboldt would have
chad to say if he had not Travelled Whether he
'was even able to think without having scent" In
point of fact, Mr.. Aureyilly nfers from HumbOldts
travelling propenstes that he was devoid of philos
ophy, without which one is never great genius"
Humboldt after ALL was of a skeptical cast of
" mind and only born in too late period OF the
" eighteenth century TO become backbOned mate
"riaist-a good atheist of the stamp of Diderot or
" Lalande. He was not only skeptic, but weak
skeptic, self-cOntradictOry skephc. lie was a
=" great scientific reporter, always at work, we'll
" informed, and very careful In drawing up his re-
" ports, which were his passion"
Having thus lifted the vail Overhanging the mys-
tery of Humboldt's worldwide fame, and satisfied
himself that Humboldt's name became great name
because il was an euphOnic name, that he got
large glory because he addressed himself to low
public and that he rOamed over the earth because
he found no ideas in his head, Mr. Aureyiy sets out
in real good earnest to cut up the Cosmos. WHAT
is the secret of the immense success OF this work
1.-The Cosmos, after ALL is but description, vast
" memorandum of physics, protocoized by Aexan-
{" der Won Humboldt" Descriptive poetry, it is
known, is very low sort of poetry, and 80 Is de-
" scriptiye science" M. AureviIy. If ne seems
not very well read in Cosmos, has hit upon pas
sage in Humbodts letters to Varnhagen which
leaves him no doubt as TO the real character OF
that work. "The true aim of my book, says
Humboldt, sis to see from high standpoint tho
"whole Of cOntemporaneOus science" There
YOU have il, exclaims Mr.. Aureviny. hum
bOdt himself cOnfesses that " his Cosmos Is no ldea
"nor system of IDEAS" but simply "a picture
show" and the public is fond of such exhibitions
as proved by the success Of the late Albert Smith.
But this is not all Humboldt Prides himself upon
writing style telling not only upon the under
standing but also upon the heart and the magma.
ton. Consequently it is the style and not the SCI
ence is the writer and not the naturalist that has
imposed upon the public. BY bis cOnfouHded Phra-
seolopy by his poetico-scientifc ways of speaking
he flafters the men of science with the delusl0n
that they are poets the poets that they are men OF
science, and the vulgar mob Of mankind, which
lacks science as well as imagination, that they are
poets and men Of science at the same time. LIS
Ala zaocIliar sfye NOT sufcent 70 account Tor the