The Invention of Nature

The rest of the book was composed of three parts: the first on celestial phenomena; the second on the earth which included geomagnetism, oceans, earthquakes, meteorology and geography; and the third on organic life which encompassed plants, animals and humans. Cosmos was an exploration of the ‘wide range of creation’, bringing together a far greater range of subjects than any previous book. But it was more than just a collection of facts and knowledge, such as Diderot’s famous Encyclopédie, for instance, because Humboldt was most interested in connections. Humboldt’s discussion of climate was just one example that revealed how different his approach was. Where other scientists focused only on meteorological data such as temperature and weather, Humboldt was the first to understand climate as a system of complex correlations between the atmosphere, oceans and landmasses. In Cosmos

he wrote of the ‘perpetual interrelationship’ between air, winds, ocean currents, elevation and the density of plant cover on land.

The breadth was incomparable to any other publication. And amazingly, Humboldt had written a book about the universe that never once mentioned the word ‘God’. Yes, Humboldt’s nature was ‘animated by one breath – from pole to pole, one life is poured on rocks, plants, animals, and even into the swelling breast of man’, but that breath came from the earth itself, and was not instigated by any divine agency. To those who knew him this was no surprise, because Humboldt had never been devout; quite the opposite. Throughout his life, he had highlighted the terrible consequences of religious fanaticism. He had criticized missionaries in South America, as well as the Church in Prussia. Instead of God, Humboldt spoke of a ‘wonderful web of organic life’.⁴

The world was electrified. ‘Were the republic of letters to alter its constitution,’ one reviewer of Cosmos wrote, ‘and choose a sovereign, the intellectual sceptre would be offered to Alexander von Humboldt.’ In the history of publishing, the book’s popularity was ‘epoch making’, Humboldt’s German publisher announced. He had never seen so many orders – not even when Goethe had published his masterpiece Faust

.

Students read Cosmos, as did scientists, artists and politicians. Prince von Metternich, the Austrian Chancellor of State, who had so disagreed with Humboldt about reforms and revolutions, now brushed politics aside and enthused that only Humboldt was capable of such great work. Poets admired it, as did musicians, with the French Romantic composer Hector Berlioz declaring Humboldt a ‘dazzling’ writer. The book was so popular among musicians, Berlioz said, that he knew one who had ‘read, re-read, pondered and understood’ Cosmos during his breaks at opera performances when his colleagues played on.

In England Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, requested a copy, while Darwin professed himself impatient for the English translation. Within weeks of the book’s publication in Germany and France, a pirated English language edition had begun to circulate – translated in such execrable prose that Humboldt worried it might ‘severely damage’ his reputation in Britain. His ‘poor Cosmos’ had been butchered and was unreadable in this version.

When Hooker got hold of a copy, he offered it to Darwin. ‘Are you really sure you can spare Cosmos’, Darwin wrote to Hooker in September 1845, ‘I am very anxious to read it.’ Less than two weeks later he had studied it but it was the pirated copy. Darwin despaired about the ‘wretched English’, but was still impressed as it was ‘an exact expression of ones own thoughts’, and was keen to discuss Cosmos with Hooker. He told Charles Lyell that he was astonished by the ‘vigour & information’. Some parts were a little disappointing, Darwin thought, because they just seemed repetitions from Personal Narrative, but others were ‘admirable’. He was also flattered that Humboldt had mentioned his Voyage of the Beagle

. A year later, when an authorized translation of Cosmos was published by John Murray, Darwin rushed out and bought it.

Despite the huge success, Humboldt remained insecure. He never forgot a bad review – and as before when Personal Narrative had been published it was the conservative British Quarterly Review that was critical. Hooker told Darwin that Humboldt was ‘very wroth at the Quarterly Review Article upon Cosmos’. When the second volume was published two years later, in 1847, Humboldt became so concerned about its reception that he begged his publisher to be honest with him. There was no reason to worry. People fought ‘real battles’ for copies, Humboldt’s publisher wrote, and their offices were ‘downright looted’. Bribes were offered and parcels of books destined for booksellers in St Petersburg and London were intercepted and diverted by agents intent on supplying their desperate customers in Hamburg and Vienna.