Note 10 — Chapter III

I may remind those who think that the hall of the Musical Academy is "desecrated" by my lectures, that it was in the very same place that Alexander von Humboldt delivered, seventy-seven years ago (1828), the remarkable lectures that afterwards made up his Cosmos. The great traveller, whose clear mind had recognised the unity of Nature, and had, with Goethe, discovered therein the real knowledge of God, endeavoured to convey his thoughts in popular form to the educated Berlin public, and to establish the universality of natural law. It was my aim to establish, as regards the organic world, precisely what Humboldt had proved to exist in inorganic nature. I wanted to show how the great advance of modern biology (since Darwin's time) enables us to solve the most difficult of all problems, the historical development of plants and animals in humanity. Humboldt in his day earned the most lively approval and gratitude of all free-thinking and truth-seeking men, and the displeasure and suspicion of the orthodox and conservative courtiers at Berlin.