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Show 89 innovative currents running through all of the natural sciences. Trained by Friedrich Blumenbach, now considered a founder of modern anthropology, Maximilian moved in scientific circles that included such respected men as Alexander von Humboldt, C. F. P. von Martius, and Heinrich Schinz, all pioneers in the observational scientific method.12 Maximilian himself was remarkably objective in his descriptions of what he saw during his expedition to North America, and generally confined his speculations to observable facts. Seldom did cultural prejudice interfere with his interpretation of the material he included in his journal. In this respect, Maximilian was one of a group of men who might be considered pivotal in the development of modern science, which, as it matured in the later years of the nineteenth century, would become increasingly more detached, objective, and "scientific" in its approach. Although Maximilian's methodology was distinctly modern, his pursuit of knowledge was romantic in the extreme. His expedition to North America closely followed the framework of a well-established tradition of exploration, which had all the earmarks of a symbolic quest. The romantic vision that led Maximilian to explore the American wilderness was inspired by a powerful symbol and was inextricably intertwined in the historical European perception of America. Ever since its discovery, America had inspired a series of philosophical, literary, and artistic interpretations by which Europeans evaluated their own culture through comparisons with this "new world." Over the centuries these perceptions fluctuated between the extremes of America as idyllic Eden and as a continent of brutish degeneration, as Europe projected its own political, social, and religious virtues and vices upon the |