It has frequently been regarded as a subject of discouraging consideration, that while purely literary products of intellectual activity are rooted in the depths of feeling, and interwoven with the creative force of imagination, all works treating of empirical knowledge, and of the connection of natural phenomena and physical laws, are subject to the most marked modifications of form in the lapse of short periods of time, both p 12 by the improvement in the instruments used, and by the consequent expansion of the field of view opened to rational observation, and that those scientific works which have, to use a common expression, become 'antiquated' by the acquisition of new funds of knowledge, are thus continually being consigned to oblivion as unreadable. However discouraging such a prospect must be, no one who is animated by a genuine love of nature, and by a sense of the dignity attached to its study, can view with regret any thing which promises future additions and a greater degree of perfection to general knowledge. Many important branches of knowledge have been based upon a solid foundation which will not easily be shaken, both as regards the phenomena in the regions of space and on the earth; while there are other portions of science in which general views will undoubtedly take the place of merely special; where new forces will be discovered and new substances will be made known, and where those which are now considered as simple will be decomposed. I would, therefore, venture to hope that an attempt to delineate nature in all its vivid animation and exalted grandeur, and to trace the 'stable' amid the vacillating, ever-recurring alternation of physical metamorphoses, will not be wholly disregarded even at a future age. 'Potsdam, Nov.', 1844. This material taken from pages 13-22 NB - The page numbers will be properly aligned in Courier 12 font. COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 by Alexander von Humboldt Translated by E C Otte from the 1858 Harper & Brothers edition of Cosmos, volume 1 -------------------------------------------------- p 13 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. ---------------------- Page The Translator's Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 The Author's Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15