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
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p 13

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
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