Alexander von Humboldt
From Philosopedia
Self-portrait, 1815
Humboldt, Friedrich Heinrich Alexander von (Baron) (14 September 1769 - 6 May 1859)
Humboldt was a German naturalist who studied under Heyne and Blumenbach and who became director-general of mines. In 1799 he explored South America and Mexico, returning in 1804 with a rich collection of animals, plants, and minerals.
Becoming a resident of Paris, Humboldt was friends with Lalande, Delambre, Arago, and other distinguished scientists. At the age of seventy-four he composed Cosmos. To Varnhagen von Ense he wrote in 1841:
- Bruno Bauer has found me pre-adamatically converted. Many years ago I wrote, Toutes les réligions positive offrent trois parties distinctes: un traité de moeurs partout le même et très pur, un rêve géologique, et un mythe ou petit roman historique; le dernier élêment obtient le plus d’importance.
Later, he said that Strauss disposes of “the Christian myths.”
He was the younger brother of linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt
Joseph McCabe called Baron Humboldt a vague pantheist, adding that his brother, Baron Karl Wilhelm (1767-1835), the founder of Berlin University, was a deist.
The baron suffered an apoplectic stroke 24 February 1857, and that winter his strength began to decline, leading to his quiet death at the age of 89.
(The Wikipedia account of Humboldt's life includes information about his early life and education, his explorations in Russia and in Latin America, his experience as a diplomat, his many honors, his publications, and information about the Foundation named after him. According to Havelock Ellis's Sexual Inversion (1927), the baron destroyed his private letters but Magnus Hirschfeld gathered reminiscences of him from people who recalled his participation in the homosexual subculture of Berlin - his will transferred the absolute possession of his entire property to Seifert, an old and faithful servant who "held him in more than matrimonial bondage."
