I n thefollowing passage in the
introduction to his magnum
opus COSMOS Humboldt seems to anticipate
the conceot of Gaia.
The
object of this introductory notice is not, however, solely to draw
attention to the importance and greatness of the phys ical history of
the universe, for in the present day these are too well understood to
be contested, but likewise to prove how, without detriment to the
stability of special studies, we may be enabled to generalize our ideas
by concentrating them in one common focus, and thus arrive at a point
of view from which all the organisms and forces of nature may be seen
as one living, active whole, animated by one sole impulse. "Nature," as
Schelling remarks in his poetic discourse on art, "is Both an inert
mass; and to him who can comprehend her vast sublimity, she reveals
herself as the creative force of the universe—before all time,
eternal, ever active, she calls to life all things, whether perishable
or imperishable."
Alexander
von Humboldt. Cosmos
(trans. E, C, Otté, John Hopkins University Press, 1997) p. 55.
Humboldt's
accounts of his expeditions to South America sevved
to
inspire both Charles Darwin and John Muir with a desire to visit the
area.
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