Alexander von Humboldt, Humboldtian Science and the Origins of the Study of Vegetation

History of Science

Volumn 25, Issue 2, 1987, Pages 167-194

  Nicolson, Malcolm ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 84965710889     PISSN: 00732753     EISSN: 17538564     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/007327538702500203     Document Type: Article

References (99)

1. Nordenskiöld E., The history of biology (New York, 1928), 560–1. This book was first published in Swedish in 1920–24.
2. Cannon S. F., “Humboldtian science”, in Cannon S. F., Science in culture: The early Victorian period (New York, 1978), 73–110.
3. Foucault M., The order of things (London, 1970).
4. See Egler F. E., “Vegetation as an object of study”, Philosophy of science, ix (1942), 245–60 for an elucidation of the distinction between the study of flora and of vegetation.
5. Morton A. G., History of botanical science (London, 1981), ch. 7, provides a good description of the taxonomic interests of eighteenth century botanists; see also Allen D. E., The naturalist in Britain: A social history (London, 1976), 26–51, and Stafleu F. A., Linnaeus and the Linneans: The spreading of their ideas in systematic botany (Utrecht, 1971).
6. Moss C. E., “The fundamental units of vegetation”, New phytologist, ix (1910), 18–51, p. 27.
7. See Du Rietz G. E., “Linnaeus as a phytogeographer”, Vegetatio, v (1957), 161–8.
8. For an elucidation of the “Economy of Nature” concept as it is relevant to the present discussion see Limoges C., “Introduction” in Linnaeus C., L’équilibre de la Nature, trans. by Jasmin B. (Paris, 1972), 7–25; see also Worster D., Nature's economy: The roots of ecology (San Francisco, 1977), 1–55.
9. Linnaeus C., “The economy of Nature”, in Miscellaneous tracts relating to natural history, husbandry and physick, trans. by Stillingfleet B. J. (London, 1762), 39–129.
10. See Egerton F. E., “Changing concepts of the balance of nature”, Quarterly review of biology, xlviii (1973), 322–50; Worster, op. cit. (ref. 8), 31–55.
11. This argument has been elaborated in Nicolson M., “Was there a Linnean ecology?”, unpublished mimeograph, copies available from author.
12. von Humboldt A., Personal narrative of travels to the equinoctial regions of the New Continent, 1799–1804, trans. by Williams H. M. (6 vols, London, 1821–1825), i, p. iii.
13. Foucault, op. cit. (ref. 3), 132. Foucault's views on classificatory practice in the eighteenth century have been clarified by Pratt V., “Foucault and the history of classification theory”, Studies in the history and philosophy of science, viii (1977), 163–71.
14. Linnaeus C., Systema naturae (1735), trans. by Engel-Ledeboer M. S. J. and Engel H. (Nieuwkoop, 1962), 19.
15. Foucault, op. cit. (ref. 3), 162. Foucault uses the term episteme to refer to the totality of rules and frameworks upon which discourse is based in any given historical period. His use of this term is elucidated in Sheridan A., Michel Foucault: The will to truth (London, 1980), 53 et passim.
16. Kant's lectures on physical geography are contained in Kant I., Gesammelte Schriften (Berlin, 1902-), x, 151–436. An English translation of Kant's introduction to the lectures is provided in May J. A., Kant's concept of geography (Toronto, 1970), 255–64. Although an official edition of the lectures was not published until 1801, manuscript notes were widely circulated and discussed in the 1770s and ’80s, Bowen M. J., Empiricism and geographical thought: From Francis Bacon to Alexander von Humboldt (Cambridge, 1981), 206. For further accounts of Kant's interest in geography, see Hartshorne R., “The nature of geography”, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, xxix (1939), 171–658, and Bowen, op. cit.
17. Trans. in May, op. cit. (ref. 16), 260.
18. Quoted in Hartshorne, op. cit. (ref. 16), 44. See also Hartshorne R., “The concept of geography as a science of space, from Kant and Humboldt to Hettner”, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, xlviii (1958), 97–108.
19. Regional emphasis is identified as one of the central traditions of early nineteenth century German geography by Macpherson A. M., “The human geography of Alexander von Humboldt” (Ph.D. thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1972).
20. Browne J., The secular ark: Studies in the history of biogeography (New Haven, 1983), 27–38.
21. For a general account of Forster, see Hoare M., The tactless philosopher: Johann Reinhold Forster (Melbourne, 1976).
22. Forster J. R., Observations made during a voyage round the world (London, 1778), 174–6.
23. This point is made by Browne, op. cit. (ref. 20), 37.
24. Forster, op. cit. (ref. 22), 174.
25. For biographical details of Willdenow, see Bylebyl J., “Willdenow, Karl Ludwig”, Dictionary of scientific biography, xiv (1976), 386–8; König C., “Die historische Entwickelung der pflanzengeographischen Ideen Humboldts”, Naturwissenschaftliche Wochenschrift, x (1895), 77–81, 95–98, 117–24, pp. 95–98.
26. Willdenow K. L. (Berlin, 1792). I have quoted from both the first and second English editions, Willdenow K. L., Principles of botany (Edinburgh, 1805, 1811).
27. Willdenow, (1811), 186. The section on terminology occupies pp. 13–151 of this edition.
28. Willdenow, op. cit. (ref. 26, 1805), 371. Willdenow's usage of the term “history of plants” seems to be related to Kant's concept of a “history of nature”: “The history of nature, which we still almost wholly lack, would teach us the changes of the earth's form, and likewise those which the earth's creatures (plants and animals) have undergone through natural changes and their alterations which have thence taken place away from the original form of the stem genus. This would convert the presently greatly extended formal system of the description of nature into a physical system of the understanding.” Kant (ref. 16, 1902-), ii, 434, first published 1777, trans. in Lyon J. and Sloan P. R. (eds), From natural history to the history of Nature: Readings from Buffon and his critics (Notre Dame, 1981), 1.
29. Willdenow, op. cit. (ref. 26, 1811), 415–16.
30. See, for example, his discussion of vegetational succession, Willdenow, op. cit. (ref. 26, 1805), 392–4.
31. Willdenow, op. cit. (ref. 26, 1805), 383.
32. For a good account of Willdenow as a floristic plant geographer, see Browne, op. cit. (ref. 20), 38–41.
33. The best English account of Humboldt's life and work remains Bruhns K.,(ed.), Life of Alexander Humboldt, trans. by Lassell J. and Lassell C. (London, 1873); also Botting D., Humboldt and the Cosmos (New York, 1973).
34. For a characterization of “physique générale”, see Cannon, op. cit. (ref. 2); for an excellent discussion of the aims of Humboldt's “universal science” see Bowen M. J., “Mind and Nature: The physical geography of Alexander von Humboldt”, Scottish geographical magazine, lxxxvi (1970), 222–33.
35. Hein W. H., “Alexander von Humboldt und Karl Ludwig Willdenow”, Pharmazeutische Zeitung, civ (1959), 467–71; König, op. cit. (ref. 25), 117–24.
36. See Bruhns, op. cit. (ref. 35), i, 83–87. The younger Forster was an experienced scientific traveller and author, having been around the world with his father and having published a very successful account of the trip, Forster G., A voyage round the world in His Britannic Majesty's sloop, Resolution (London, 1777). In 1790, he and Humboldt made a journey from Germany to England. This was Humboldt's introduction to the art of scientific travelling. After his journey with Forster, Humboldt was continually making plans to undertake an important scientific expedition of his own, see Botting, op. cit. (ref. 35), 21. Forster published a description of the journey he and Humboldt had made, Ansichten vom Niederrhein von Brabant, Flandern, Holland, England and Frankreich (Berlin, 1790). The book was acclaimed in literary circles as a major aesthetic achievement, particularly by Goethe Schiller and Brother Alexander's von Humboldt Wilhelm (see Meyer-Abich A., Alexander von Humboldt (Bonn, 1969), 101).
37. The dispute between Georg Forster and Kant is discussed in Sloan P. R., “Buffon, German biology and the historical interpretation of biological species”, The British journal for the history of science, xii (1979), 109–53, pp. 131–4; see also May, op. cit. (ref. 16), 121–3.
38. For the Kantianism of Flora Fribergensis Specimen, see Beck H., Gespräche Alexander von Humboldts (Berlin, 1956), 60.
39. Kant's usage of these terms is considered in detail by Sloan, op. cit. (ref. 39); see also ref. 29 above.
40. Quoted and trans. by Hartshorne, op. cit. (ref. 16), 100.
41. This change is characterized by Foucault, op. cit. (ref. 3), 125–65. The late eighteenth century transformation in the content and aims of natural history, with the subsequent proliferation of new disciplines, is also discussed, from a rather different point of view, by Lyon and Sloan, op. cit. (ref. 29), editors’ introduction; see also Coleman W., Biology in the nineteenth century (Cambridge, 1966), 1–8.
42. Albury W. R. and Oldroyd D. R., “From Renaissance mineral studies to historical geology, in the light of Michel Foucault's The order of things”, The British journal for the history of science, x (1977), 187–215.
43. For Humboldt's debt to Werner see Baumgärtel H., “Alexander von Humboldt: Remarks on the meaning of hypothesis in his geological researches”, in Schneer C. J.,(ed.), Toward a history of geology (Cambridge, Mass., 1969), 19–35.
44. Quoted and trans. by Hartshorne, op. cit. (ref. 16), 100.
45. von Humboldt A., Essai sur la géographie des plantes (Paris, 1807). All translations from this work are my own.
46. The making of journeys and the publishing of one's impressions was important as an aesthetic as well as a scientific enterprise, see Stafford B. M., “Towards Romantic landscape perception, illustrated travels and the use of ‘singularity’ as an aesthetic category”, Art quarterly, i (1977), 89–124; also Pointon M., “Geology and landscape painting in nineteenth century England”, in Jordanova L. J. and Porter R. S. (eds), Images of the earth: Essays in the history of the environmental sciences (Chalfont St Giles, 1979), 84–118. See also ref. 38 above.
47. Humboldt, op. cit. (ref. 47), p. vii.
48. The unities within landscape described by Humboldt and Forster are very similar to those postulated by contemporary Neo-classical theories of painting, see Smith B., European vision and the South Pacific 1768–1850 (Oxford, 1960), ch. 1 and 64–65.
49. Humboldt, op. cit. (ref. 47), 30–31.
50. See also von Humboldt A., “Ideas for a physiognomy of plants”, in Otté E. C. and Bohn H. G. (trans.), Views of Nature or contemplations on the sublime phenomena of Creation (London, 1850), 210–352, p. 217. A shorter version of this essay entitled “Ideen zu einer Physiognomik der Gewächse” was published in von Humboldt A., Ansichten der Natur (Tübingen, 1808).
51. Humboldt, op. cit. (ref. 47), 1.
52. For Humboldt's links with Goethe and Schiller, see Bruhns, op. cit. (ref. 35), i, 161–79.
53. von Humboldt A., Ideen zu eine Geographie der Pflanzen (Tübingen, 1807).
54. Bruhns, op. cit. (ref. 35), i, p. 176; for a recent account of Goethe's botany and a consideration of the relationship between Romanticism and botany, see Morton, op. cit. (ref. 5), 343–6.
55. Humboldt, op. cit. (ref. 54), 380–9; Bruhns, op. cit. (ref. 35), i, 357.
56. von Humboldt A., Cosmos: Sketch of a physical description of the Universe, trans. by Sabine E. (4 vols, London, 1846–1858).
57. Letter, 28 April 1841, in Assing L.,(ed.), Letters of Alexander von Humboldt to Varnhagan von Ense (London, 1860), 67–68.
58. “How interesting and instructive to the landscape painter would be a work that should present to the eye accurate delineation of the sixteen principal forms [of plants — see discussion of life-forms below] enumerated, both individually and in collective contrast! What can be more picturesque than the arborescent Ferns, which spread their tender foliage above the Mexican laurel-oak! What more charming than the aspect of bananagroves, shaded by those lofty grasses, the Guadua and Bamboo! It is particularly the privilege of the artist to separate these into groups, and thus the beautiful images of nature … resolve themselves beneath his touch, like the written works of man, into a few simple elements.” Humboldt, op. cit. (ref. 54), 229–30. See also ref. 52 above.
59. See Lenoir T., “The Göttingen school and the development of transcendental Naturphilosophie in the Romantic era”, Studies in the history of biology, v (1981), 111–205, pp. 112–13.
60. Humboldt, op. cit. (ref. 54), 219.
61. Quoted in Bruhns, op. cit. (ref. 35), 188.
62. For empiricism and holism in Blumenbach's work, see Lenoir T., “Kant, Blumenbach and vital materialism in German biology”, Isis, lxxi (1980), 77–108. For other examples of harmony between commitments to Romanticism and to empirical science, see Knight D. M., “The physical sciences and the Romantic movement”, History of science, ix (1970), 54–75; Snelders H. A. M., “Romanticism and Naturphilosophie and the inorganic natural sciences, 1798–1840: An introductory survey”, Studies in Romanticism, ix (1970), 193–215; Culotta C. A., “German biophysics, objective knowledge and Romanticism”, Historical studies in the physical sciences, iv (1975), 3–38.
63. Humboldt, op. cit. (ref. 12), i, p. v. In the translator's preface, p. iii, this inelegant sentence is paraphrased as “… raising the mind to general ideas, without neglecting individual facts”.
64. See Cannon, op. cit. (ref. 2), 77.
65. “Goethe noted with satisfaction on receiving the first complimentary copy of the ‘Essai politique sur l’île de Cuba’ that the author [Humboldt] had not omitted ‘pointers to the Incommensurable’ in spite of the tremendous amounts of statistics”. Meyer-Abich, op. cit. (ref. 38), 106.
66. See Robinson A. H. and Wallis H. M., “Humboldt's map of isothermal lines: A milestone in thematic cartography”, Cartographic journal, v (1967), 119–23.
67. Harvey George, “Meteorology”, in the Encyclopaedia metropolitana, quoted by Cannon, op. cit. (ref. 2), 95.
68. Humboldt, op. cit. (ref. 47), 32.
69. See Humboldt, op. cit. (ref. 12), i, 158.
70. Humboldt, op. cit. (ref. 54), 218.
71. My identification of the distinctiveness of Humboldt's concern with vegetation should not be taken as a denial of the importance of his involvements in floristics and floristic plant geography. Humboldt saw floristic research as an essential prerequisite to the geography of plants, see op. cit. (ref. 12), i, p. iv. For an account of his work in floristic plant geography, see Browne, op. cit. (ref. 20), 59–64.
72. Humboldt, op. cit. (ref. 54), 214.
73. Humboldt, op. cit. (ref. 47), 31. See also ref. 63 above.
74. Humboldt, op. cit. (ref. 54), 217; see also Nisbet H. B., “Herder, Goethe and the natural type”, Publications of the English Goethe Society, papers, xxxvii (1967), 83–119.
75. For an analysis of the use of ideal typologies by the Göttingen school, see Lenoir, op. cit. (ref. 64), esp. 172–3.
76. Humboldt, op. cit. (ref. 54), 220–1.
77. Humboldt, op. cit. (ref. 12), i, 158.
78. For a description of this tradition, see Whittaker R. H., “Classification of natural communities”, Botanical gazette, xxviii (1962), 1–239, pp. 4–9.
79. Grisebach A. H. R., Die Vegetation der Erde nach ihrer klimatischen Anordnung (Leipzig, 1872).
80. Humboldt, op. cit. (ref. 47), 15.
81. Willdenow, op. cit. (ref. 26, 1805), 399.
82. Humboldt, op. cit. (ref. 47), 17.
83. See Lenoir, op. cit. (ref. 64), 170–3.
84. See Lenoir, op. cit. (ref. 67).
85. Bruhns, op. cit. (ref. 35), i, 69.
86. Lenoir, op. cit. (ref. 67), 170–4; for a lengthy discussion of links between Humboldt and Kant, see Macpherson, op. cit. (ref. 19), 34–152, esp. pp. 59–63.
87. Foucault, op. cit. (ref. 3), 137. See also Coleman W., Georges Cuvier: Zoologist (Cambridge, Mass., 1964); Szyfman L., Jean-Baptiste Lamarck et son époque (Paris, 1982); Laissus J., “La succession de Le Monnier au Jardin du Roi: Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu et René Louich-Desfontaines”, in Comptes rendus du 91e Congrès National des Sociétés Savantes, section des sciences, i (Paris, 1967), 137–52; Morton, op. cit. (ref. 5), 287–361; Stafleu, op. cit. (ref. 5), 321–36.
88. For Humboldt's activities in Paris, see Bruhns, op. cit. (ref. 35), ii, 3–47; see also Crosland M., The Society of Arcueil (London, 1967).
89. For other case studies of the impact of Romanticism on nineteenth century science, see Jacyna L. S., “Principles of general physiology: The comparative dimension to British neuroscience in the 1830s and 1840s”, Studies in history of biology, vii (1984), 47–92; Levere T. H., Affinity and matter: Elements of chemical philosophy, 1800–1865 (Oxford, 1971); idem, Poetry realized in Nature: Samuel Taylor Coleridge and early nineteenth century science (Cambridge, 1981); Lenoir T., “Teleology without regrets: The transformation of physiology in Germany, 1790–1847”, Studies in the history and philosophy of science, xii (1981), 293–354; see also ref. 67 above.
90. Humboldt, op. cit. (ref. 47), 32.
91. It should be noted that the best and most recent history of biogeography, Browne, op. cit. (ref. 20), concerns itself only with studies of the distribution of species. It is perhaps no coincidence that Browne also confines herself, in the latter portion of her book, to developments made by English-speaking investigations. She mentions no continental European biogeographer after Alphonse de Candolle. The insularity of British plant geography after 1840 has been noted by Nelson G., “From Candolle to Croizat: Comments on the history of biogeography”, Journal of the history of biology, xi (1978), 269–305. Nelson is, however, unable to specify precisely what British biogeography was isolated from. It may be worth investigating whether it was isolated from a distinct Continental tradition of Humboldtian biogeography.
92. Humboldt is frequently cited in histories of ecology written by practitioners as one of the earliest students of the plant community. See, for example, Whittaker, op. cit. (ref. 88). However, only Tobey R. C., Saving the prairies: The life cycle of the founding school of American plant ecology, 1895–1955 (Berkeley, 1981) has investigated more fully the significance of Humboldt's plant geography for the history of plant ecology. Tobey's account is, however, flawed by his imposition of a rigid, philosophical, and almost certainly ahistorical dichotomy between idealist and materialist forms of plant geography. Tobey does not therefore exploit the potential of Nordenskiöld's distinction between floristic and vegetational plant geography as different traditions of scientific practice.
93. Delaporte F., Nature's second kingdom: Explorations of vegetality in the eighteenth century, trans. by Goldhammer A. (Cambridge, Mass., 1982).
94. Albury and Oldroyd, op. cit. (ref. 44).
95. Albury W. R., “Experiment and explanation in the physiology of Bichat and Magendie”, Studies in history of biology, i (1977), 97–106.
96. Lesch J. E., Science and medicine in France: The emergence of experimental physiology, 1790–1885 (Cambridge, Mass., 1984). Lesch presents his account of Bichat as a refutation of Albury's. However, while the two accounts differ at many points, both stress the fact that the early nineteenth century saw rapid and comprehensive change in the means whereby the functioning of living bodies was investigated. Furthermore, both authors acknowledge the necessity of situating the dramatic changes in physiological practice within the context of a much larger cognitive transformation.
97. Figlio K. M., “The metaphor of organization: An historiographical perspective on the biomedical sciences of the early nineteenth century”, History of science, xiv (1976), 17–53.
98. This has been denied by Farber P. L., The emergence of ornithology as a scientific discipline, 1760–1850 (Dordrecht, 1982). However, Farber's study area is too narrow to support the general conclusions he offers.
99. Jacyna argues that the “current preoccupation with … ‘epistemic ruptures’ threatens to obscure the close relations between old and new bodies of knowledge”, op. cit. (ref. 95), 83. This may be true, but it is not necessarily true.