COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 | Page 3

active life I offer to the German public a work, whose undefined
image has floated before my mind for almost half a century. I have frequently looked
upon its completion as impracticable, but as often as I have been disposed to relinquish
the undertaking, I have again -- although perhaps imprudently -- resumed the task. This
work I now present to my contemporaries with a diffidence inspired by a just mistrust of
my own powers, while I would willingly forget that writings long expected are usually
received with less indulgence.
Although the outward relations of life, and an irresistible impulse toward knowledge of
various kinds, have led me to occupy myself for many years -- and apparently exclusively
-- with separate branches of science, as, for instance, with descriptive botany, geognosy,
chemistry, astronomical determinations of position, and terrestrial magnetism, in order
that I might the better prepare myself for the extensive travels in which I was desirous of
engaging, the actual object of my studies has nevertheless been of a higher character. The
principal impulse by which I was directed was the earnest endeavor to comprehend the
phenomena of physical objects in their general connection, and to represent nature as one
great whole, moved and animated by internal forces. My intercourse with highly-gifted
men early led me to discover that, without an earnest striving to attain to a knowledge of
special branches of study, all attempts to give a grand and general view of the universe
would be nothing more than a vain illusion. These special departments in the great
domain of natural p 8 science are, moreover, capable of being reciprocally fructified by
means of the appropriative forces by which they are endowed. Descriptive botany, no
longer confined to the narrow circle of the determination of genera and species, leads the
observer who traverses distant lands and lofty mountains to the study of the geographical
distribution of plants of the earth's surface, according to distance from the equator and
vertical elevation above the sea. It is further necessary to investigate the laws which
regulate the differences of temperature and climate, and the meteorological processes of
the atmosphere, before we can hope to explain the involved causes of vegetable
distribution; and it is thus that the observer who earnestly pursues the path of knowledge
is led from one class of phenomena to another, by means of the mutual dependence and
connection existing between them.
I have enjoyed an advantage which few scientific travelers have shared to an equal extent,
viz., that of having seen not only littoral districts, such as are alone visited by the
majority of those who take part in voyages of circumnavigation, but also those portions
of the interior of two vast continents which present the most striking contrasts manifested
in the Alpine tropical landscapes of South America, and the dreary wastes of the steppes
in Northern Asia. Travels, undertaken in districts such as these, could not fail to
encourage the natural tendency of my mind toward a generalization of views, and to

encourage me to attempt, in a special work, to treat of the knowledge which we at present
possess, regarding the sidereal and terrestrial phenomena of the Cosmos in their empirical
relations. The hitherto undefined idea of a physical geography has thus, by an extended
and perhaps too boldly imagined a plan, been comprehended under the idea of a physical
description of the universe, embracing all created things in the regions of space and in the
earth.
The very abundance of the materials which are presented to the mind for arrangement and
definition, necessarily impart no inconsiderable difficulties in the choice of the form
under p 9 which such a work must be presented, if it would aspire to the honor of being
regarded as a literary composition. Descriptions of nature ought not to be deficient in a
tone of life-like truthfulness, while the mere enumeration of a series of general results is
productive of a no less wearying impression than the elaborate accumulation of the
individual data of observation. I scarcely venture to hope that I have succeeded in
satisfying these various requirements of composition, or that I have myself avoided the
shoals and breakers which I have known how to indicate to others. My faint hope of
success rests upon the special indulgence which the German public have bestowed upon a
small work bearing the title of 'Ansichten der Natur', which I published soon after my
return from Mexico. This work treats, under general points of view, of separate branches
of physical geography (such as the forms of vegetation, grassy plains, and deserts). The
effect produced by this small volume has doubtlessly been more powerfully manifested in
the influence it has exercised on the sensitive minds of the young, whose imaginative
faculties are so