“Through a Country We Never Intended to See”. Revisiting the Humboldt Renaissance

Not only has an entire scientific era and new scientific endeavour been named after the German explorer-naturalist Alexander von Humboldt: even in the twenty-first century, his scientific legacy continues to flourish. At the 250th anniversary of his birth, it became evident that Humboldt is revered in almost hagiographic fashion and has undergone a renaissance to be considered a scientific hero beyond comparison. However, Humboldt hardly stands as a useful icon for the challenges of science and society in the new century, as has been erroneously proposed by the activists and adherents of this Humboldt renaissance. This essay looks into the legacy of Humboldt’s long-ignored scientific predecessors and the ancient roots and persistence of his thinking in a pre-Darwinian world. It argues that, as a naturalist, Humboldt’s perception of nature is retrograde in the theoretical concepts and regressive in perspective. Consequently, contrary to claims that he had allegedly helped to create the intellectual world Darwin inhabited, Humboldt failed to solve any of Darwin’s so-called mysteries of mysteries, such as the dimension of biodiversity (number of species) or its origin and evolution (nature of species and speciation).