Cosmos Volume V
The Cosmos Volume V is the 1862 published fifth volume of Alexander von Humboldt's work " Cosmos. Draft of a physical description of the world ”.
In terms of content, this posthumously published part of the great work is a continuation of the telluric phenomena and thus ties in directly with the fourth volume , with which it forms a “ rounded whole ”, “ what is usually called a physical description of the earth ”. The fifth volume should contain some geological topics, but above all the description of the organic life on earth, at the end of which the human race would have been considered.
Humboldt had often expressed his fear that he might die before completing his great work. Again and again he urged his publisher to hurry and promised full of optimism “to complete the whole cosmos [...] by the beginning of the winter of 1859. “On the morning of May 6, 1859, however, the almost 90-year-old Humboldt died without being able to keep this promise. Volume V of the cosmos remained a fragment. Humboldt's final remarks in his manuscript were about the red porphyry that adorned the St. Petersburg palaces. Below that, Humboldt's assistant Professor Buschmann put the following sentence:
“[The death of the great author cut the thread of this work. See the other words at the end of the notes on p. 99 EB] "
The fact that Kosmos Volume V, with its 1297 pages, was by far the widest of the Kosmos series, is due to the fact that, in addition to the fragment of Volume V and a longer note by Buschmann, it contains information about the missing sections (mountain types, continents, enveloping the body of the earth , Distribution of the organisms or geography of the plants and animals, the human races), also contains the detailed general register of the work.
content
introduction
Originally, as he states in the 16-page introduction written in July 1858, Humboldt wanted to publish the content of Volume V as the second part of Volume IV, “ as the counterpart of the third, uranological volume alone ; but the even more unpleasant delay in publication caused by the fulfillment of this wish was bound to act as an obstacle. “Looking back on his work on the cosmos over the past few decades, Humboldt admits that, whether due to the immense amount of material and content, the“ infinity of the sphere of observation ”and the“ incompleteness of knowledge ”, the self-imposed task of a general description of nature and declaration, has not fully done justice to the fact that so far no one has succeeded at all. He refers to Descartes , who was confronted with similar problems while working on the Traité de Monde . The main effort is to draw inductive conclusions from a large number of observed natural phenomena about general laws. Accordingly, in the author's own opinion, the attempt at a physical description of the world remained. He sees one reason for this in the large number of new scientific discoveries that had brought about half of the 19th century, a fact that he welcomed very much. At the same time, Humboldt appeals to subsequent generations of researchers not to be put off by the arduous task, as he sees the pursuit of knowledge of natural laws as immanent in the human mind:
- " When I described the task of a theoretical nature philosophy vividly the vagueness and difficulty, yet I am far from being discouraged by the attempts of the erstwhile Gelingens in this noble and important parts of the world of ideas [...] May a testimony of previous infertility all hope for destroy the future! for it is not fitting for the free spirit of our time to reject as a bottomless hypothesis every philosophical attempt, based at the same time on induction and analogies, to penetrate deeper into the chain of natural phenomena: and soon among the noble dispositions with which nature has endowed man reason pondering the causal connection; soon to condemn the lively imagination, necessary and stimulating for all discovery and creation. "
Furthermore, in the introduction Humboldt deals with the linguistic-etymological meaning of the word Kosmos - the title of which he was well aware, which could be viewed as presumptuous and immodest: “ I know that Kosmos is very elegant and not without it certain affair, but the title says heaven and earth with a catchphrase. […] My brother is also in favor of the title Kosmos, I hesitated for a long time, ”wrote Humboldt on October 27, 1834 to Varnhagen von Ense . With reference to the work of the linguist Dr. Leo Meyer indicates Humboldt that the word of Greek origin means division or division in the sense of order.
Finally, in the introduction, Humboldt pays tribute to the services of his (and his brother) assistant Eduard Buschmann to the external form as well as the orthographical and grammatical correctness of all previous volumes: “ No sheet of the cosmos has appeared that is not in handwriting and printed to the sharp penetrating look of Professor Eduard Buschmann, librarian at the royal library and member of the Academy of Sciences, would be subject. "
Part I: Continuation in the field of telluric phenomena
Under the title “ Conclusion of the second section of telluric phenomena as they reveal themselves in the reaction of the interior of the earth against the surface by means of the activity of the volcanoes ”, Humboldt supplements his discussions of terrestrial phenomena begun in the fourth volume on 25 (with notes 32) pages. The section (1) of the water outlet and meteorological events associated with volcanic eruptions includes a listing of a series of eruptions from antiquity to the 19th century. The following section (2) bears the title “Ranking of the mountain types through which volcanic activity has had a destructive, forming and transforming effect and is still working”, comprises pages 57 to 85 (with notes 98) and deals with mineralogy . A table of contents in keywords precedes the section. From page 75 under the subheading " Formation types " begins the discussion of the various types of rock; Humboldt distinguishes between the four groups volcanic, sedimentary, metamorphosed and rubble rock. The examination of the granite that began on page 77 breaks off on page 85 due to the death of Humboldt; 13 pages of notes follow.
Part II: Afterword and Additions
Pages 99 to 105 include Eduard Buschmann's epilogue to the fifth volume of the cosmos, written on April 11, 1860. With the opening words “ Death tore the great author away from his work before it was completed. "Explains Humboldt's long-time assistant the abrupt breakdown of the explanations. With reference to various places in the cosmos and Humboldt's correspondence, Buschmann lists “ what was missing in the work of the cosmos at the end ”: further considerations about types of rock, then “ the shape of the continents; [...] the sea and the air; then [...] the geographical distribution of the organisms [...], and finally the human races ”. In view of his advanced age, according to Buschmann, Humboldt intended to deal with this subject in less detail than the previous one due to the “ necessity of a quick conclusion ”. In the author's estate there were no notes suitable to supplement the Kosmos manuscript, and " the close and devoted friends of the eternal [...] have unanimously decided that no stranger should lend a hand to supplement what is missing in the work." . "
So the work was published unfinished in terms of content. Only two supplements to volumes III and IV were added to the fifth volume, in accordance with Humboldt's instructions: two overview panels on comets and double stars from the hand of Karl Christian Bruhns , who has been the first observator at the Berlin observatory since 1854 , and a revision of the section “ The Variations of Magnetic Inclination ”by Edward Sabine .
Part III: Register of the Cosmos
on behalf of and according to the instructions of Alexander von Humboldt, prepared by Professor Dr. Eduard Buschmann
Most of the content of Volume V is taken up by Buschmann's 1,100-page register of the cosmos, which Buschmann created at the request and instructions of the author. Buschmann also published it claiming to be understood as a dictionary, not a simple directory. Humboldt himself described the register as the most important part of the work: “ The main thing, ” he wrote in a letter from Potsdam dated December 15, 1850 to Georg v. Cotta, " that which gives the cosmos its real value, [...] is the subject index [...] that only Prof. Buschmann knows how to make." “In his 43-page introduction to the register, Buschmann expresses his joy at the confidence he has so expressed, but also verbally articulates the effort associated with the extensive task, as he, like Humboldt himself, saw himself as an immense wealth of Material, without however, like the author, having the authoritative freedom of restriction.
The register of the cosmos goes far beyond a mere listing. Rather, it has the character of a lexicon. A keyword is followed by an alphabetical order of all related content as well as synonyms, derivatives and compounds. For example, the name of a city is followed by lists of famous sons and daughters of the same as well as the sights located there. The catchphrase “Egyptians” also refers to the phrase “residents of the Nile Valley”. Some keywords appear both within parent articles and as headings of their own articles. As an example of this, Buschmann gives in his introduction “the interior of the earth”, which occurs both as part of the section “Earth” and as a separate section.
The keywords are each provided with information about the volume and the page in which they appear and also with a lowercase letter a for the beginning, m for the middle and e for the end of the page. A catchphrase with the indication II 520 a could be found in the second volume on page 520 at the beginning.
literature
- Petra Gentz-Werner: Heaven and Earth. Alexander von Humboldt and his cosmos . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-05-004025-4 .
- Alexander von Humboldt: cosmos, Volume V . Cotta, Stuttgart 1862 (2 vol.).
- Hanno Beck, Alexander von Humboldt: Kosmos. Edited for the present . Brockhaus Verlag, Stuttgart 1978, ISBN 3-87103-018-X .