as born, and
there he was educated after the method suggested by Rousseau--Campe,
the philologist and critic, and the intellectual Kunth being his
tutors. There he received the impressions that determined his career;
there the great idea that the universe is governed by law took
possession of his mind, and there he dedicated his life to the
demonstration of this sublime truth.

He came to the conclusion that the source of man's unhappiness is his
ignorance of nature.

He longed to give a physical description of the universe--a grand
picture of nature; to account for all phenomena; to discover the laws
governing the world; to do away with that splendid delusion called
special-providence, and to establish the fact that the universe is
governed by law.

To establish this truth was, and is, of infinite importance to mankind.
That fact is the death-knell of superstition; it gives liberty to every
soul, annihilates fear, and ushers in the Age of Reason.

The object of this illustrious man was to comprehend the phenomena of
physical objects in their general connection, and to represent nature
as one great whole, moved and animated by internal forces.

For this purpose he turned his attention to descriptive botany,
traversing distant lands and mountain ranges to ascertain with
certainty the geographical distribution of plants. He investigated the
laws regulating the differences of temperature and climate, and the
changes of the atmosphere. He studied the formation of the earth's
crust, explored the deepest mines, ascended the highest mountains, and
wandered through the craters of extinct volcanoes.

He became thoroughly acquainted with chemistry, with astronomy, with
terrestrial magnetism; and as the investigation of one subject leads to
all others, for the reason that there is a mutual dependence and a
necessary connection between all facts, so Humboldt became acquainted
with all the known sciences.

His fame does not depend so much upon his discoveries (although he
discovered enough to make hundreds of reputations) as upon his vast and
splendid generalizations.

He was to science what Shakespeare was to the drama.

He found, so to speak, the world full of unconnected facts, all
portions of a vast system--parts of a great machine; he discovered the
connection that each bears to all, put them together, and demonstrated
beyond all contradiction that the earth is governed by law.

He knew that to discover the conne