He is like a fountain with many pipes, under which you need only hold a vessel, and from which refreshing and inexhaustible streams are ever flowing.ĭarwin asserted that Humboldt’s writings kindled in him a zeal without which he wouldn’t have boarded the Beagle or written On the Origin of Species. On whatever point you approach him, he is at home, and lavishes upon us his intellectual treasures. Then he has a many-sidedness such as I have found nowhere else. What a man he is! … He has not his equal in knowledge and living wisdom. Goethe, in his conversations with Eckermann, remarked that a single day with Humboldt enriched him more than years spent alone, enthusing: Alexander von Humboldt by Friedrich Georg Weitsch, 1806 His legacy isn’t so much any single discovery - although he did discover the magnetic equator, invented isotherms, and came up with climate zones - as it is a mindset, a worldview, a singular sensemaking sublimity. This radically new approach shapes our view of ecosystems today.No thinker has shaped our understanding of the astounding interconnectedness of the universe more profoundly than the great Prussian naturalist, explorer, and geographer Alexander von Humboldt (September 14, 1769–May 6, 1859), who pioneered the notion that the natural world is a web of intricately entwined elements, each in constant dynamic dialogue with every other - a concept a century ahead of its time. Prior to Humboldt no one had ever presented such data graphically. In this large diagram, he drew Chimborazo in cross-sections of increasing altitudes with heavily detailed data on corresponding species. that nature was a global force with corresponding climate zones across continents.), was supported by a three-foot by two-foot diagram carefully documenting precise data on altitude and species. Intellectually, Humboldt moved from the broad and theoretical to the narrow and the specific.
He wrote a seven volume Personal Narrative that Darwin took with him on the Beagle and a 34 volume Voyage to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent which contained extensive details on plants, animals, and stars. His unique combination of an extraordinary memory, high quality Western education, and unique explorations allowed him to form far reaching theories. On returning to Europe, he spent a lifetime writing, teaching, and mentoring younger scientists. Humboldt’s scientific contribution was enormous.
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