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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 Excerpt: ...in him the equal of the greatest, admire his labor but do not unreservedly accept it. Besides, this work has never been made for the mass of readers, for the reason that in its progress it touches regions of which the masses know nothing. To them all knowledge which cannot be resolved into a palpable, common, and permanent utility, seems problematical, or under a shade of mysticism. It is not altogether false to say that the works of Humboldt appear, in part, of a questionable, or at least a restricted, utility. They reveal a man of mind and thought, worthy of being known rather than one to teach a science, resolve a problem or present in a popular manner a certain number of truths. They testify to a high aspiration for moral advancement; they offer the varied developments, difficult to follow, of a strong intelligence, showing its strength by magnificent essays, rather than by works which could be profitably enjoyed without thought of their author. His pages show the studies of the man, nothing more, because all his works show himself, what he was--a man one would not rate as a politician, although William von Humboldt has been a diplomat and a minister and has taken part in the important movements of his time; nor as a philosopher, though he has agitated the capital questions of the philosopher; nor as a linguist, though he has been placed in the front rank of this science. We would simply credit him with the sustained efforts he made to prevent the dulling of any of the powers which constituted the man: imagination, sentiment, reason, active energy. From this standpoint, Humboldt appears to me useful to study, for the methods of his work and for the extent to which he has succeeded. Let me ask that no one attribute to me the desire to make a statue...

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