---
title: "Cosmos (Humboldt book)"
chunk: 1/3
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos_(Humboldt_book)"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:31:29.205896+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe (in German Kosmos – Entwurf einer physischen Weltbeschreibung) is an influential treatise on science and nature written by the German scientist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt. It began as a lecture series delivered by Humboldt at the University of Berlin, and was published in five volumes between 1845 and 1862 (the fifth was posthumous and completed based on Humboldt's notes). In the first volume, Humboldt paints a general "portrait of nature", describing the physical nature of outer space and the Earth. In the second volume he describes the history of science. 
Widely read by academics and laymen, Cosmos applies the ancient Greek view of the orderliness of the cosmos (the harmony of the universe) to the Earth, suggesting that universal laws apply as well to the apparent chaos of the terrestrial world and that contemplation of nature can yield an awareness of its wholeness and coherence. Humboldt embraced the subjectivity of the observer and "thus ran exactly counter to the developing ideology of science, the objectivity which sought to purify science by removing subjectivity altogether".
Cosmos was influenced by Humboldt's travels and studies, but mainly by his journey throughout the Americas. As he wrote, “it was the discovery of America that planted the seed of the Cosmos.” Due to all of his experience in the field, Humboldt was preeminently qualified for the task to represent the universe in a single work. He had extensive knowledge of many fields of learning, varied experiences as a traveler, and the resources of the scientific and literary world at his disposal.
Cosmos was highly popular when it was released, with the first volume selling out in two months, and the work translated into most European languages. Humboldt wrote in his journal further sketches of volumes of Cosmos titled as Cosmos 1 through 9. These volumes were left with only their draft titles and half-written till Humboldt's death in 1859. Although the natural sciences have diverged from the romantic perspective Humboldt presented in Cosmos, the work is still considered a substantial scientific and literary achievement, having influenced subsequent scientific progress and imparted a unifying perspective to the studies of science, nature and mankind.

== Background and influences ==
Since the early years of the nineteenth century, Humboldt had been a world-famous figure, second in renown only to Napoleon. As the son of an aristocratic family in Prussia, he received the best education available at the time in Europe, studying under famous thinkers at the universities of Frankfurt and Göttingen. By the time he wrote Cosmos, Humboldt was an esteemed explorer, cosmographer, biologist, diplomat, engineer, and citizen of the world. While considered a geographer, he is accredited with contributing to most of the sciences of the natural world environment found today.

=== Humboldt in the Americas ===
Probably more than any other factor, Humboldt's career was shaped by his travels in South and Central America in the five years from 1799 to 1804. Humboldt said that his Cosmos was born on the slopes of the Andes. Beginning in Venezuela, he explored the Orinoco and upper Amazon valleys, climbed the volcanic mountain Chimborazo in Ecuador — then believed to be the world's highest mountain — investigated changing vegetation from the tropical jungles to the top of the Andes, collected thousands of plant specimens, and accumulated a vast collection of animals, insects, and geological fragments. From the notes he gathered on this journey, Humboldt was able to produce at least thirty volumes based on his observations. His studies related to many scientific fields, including botany, zoology, geology, and geography, as well as narratives of popular travel and discussions of political, economic, and social conditions.

=== Humboldt in Asia ===
Twenty-five years after his exploration of the Americas, at the age of sixty, Humboldt undertook an extended tour, subsidized by the Tsar of Russia, into the interior of Asia. Between May and November 1829, Humboldt and his two subordinates, C. G. Ehrenberg and Gustav Rose, traveled across the vast expanse of the Russian Empire. Upon his return, Humboldt left the publication of the scientific results to Ehrenberg and Rose, while his own work — a three-volume descriptive geography entitled Asie Centrale — did not appear until many years later. This work was very modest in comparison to Humboldt's South American publications. Asie Centrale focused on the facts and figures of Central Asian geography, along with data to complete his isothermal world map. It was during his South American and Asian explorations that Humboldt made the observations crucial to forming his physical description of the universe in Cosmos.

=== Berlin lectures ===
In 1827, having spent himself into poverty publishing his scientific works, his king, Friedrich Wilhelm III, reminded Humboldt of his debt and recalled him to Berlin. When he arrived in Berlin, Humboldt announced that he would give a course of lectures on physical geography. From November 1827 to April 1828, he delivered a series of sixty-one lectures at the University of Berlin. The lectures were so well-attended that Humboldt soon announced a second series, which was held in a music hall before an audience of thousands, free to all comers. Beginning in 1828, Humboldt finally gave expression to his concept in his Berlin lectures, and from then on he labored to produce his physical description of the universe in book form. Collaborators pledged to his assistance included the greatest scientists of his generation, including leaders in chemistry, astronomy, anatomy, mathematics, mineralogy, botany, and other areas of study.