Kosmos - Entwurf einer physischen Weltbeschreibung

Aiming for the goal that I have envisioned as achievable within the limits of my abilities and the current state of the sciences, I have examined nature from a dual perspective in two already published volumes of the Cosmos. I have attempted to present it first in the pure objectivity of external appearances, and then in the reflection of an image received through the senses onto the inner self of man, touching upon his realm of ideas and feelings.

The external world of appearances has been depicted in the scientific form of a general natural painting in its two major spheres, the uranological and the telluric. It begins with the stars that glimmer in the farthest reaches of space among nebulae and ascends through our planetary system down to the earthly plant cover and the smallest organisms, often carried by the air and hidden from the naked eye. To make the existence of a common bond that encompasses the entire physical world, the operation of eternal laws, and the causal connection of entire groups of phenomena more vividly apparent, the accumulation of isolated facts had to be avoided.

The present book is an unchanged reprint of the third volume of the wonderful series on the Cosmos and the description of many experiences of the great German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt from the year 1850.