The insight that scientific theories are “practice‐laden” has animated scholarship in the history of science for nearly three decades. This article examines a style of geographical thought that was, I argue, movement‐laden. The thought‐style in question has been described as a “vertical consciousness that engulfed science in the early nineteenth century,” and is closely associated with the geographical vision of Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859). Humboldt’s science spanned nature’s horizontal and vertical axes, from Saxon mines to Andean summits, and from the currents of the ocean to those of the aerial ocean. In probing the origins of Humboldt’s vertical thinking, this article opens up a broader history about the industrial practices and travel cultures that originally animated it. Humboldt’s “global physics” first emerged within a context of vertical travel, up mountains and into mines and caverns. Rhythms of the body—lethal for some, “sublime” for others—became rhythms of the mind. A view of nature as set of vertically complementary spaces rippled through mining culture, Romantic art, and the geographical sciences. To trace the earliest routes of Humboldt’s science is to acknowledge the many actors—some celebrated, most unsung—who took part in the making of a vertical consciousness.

中文翻译：

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矿山，山脉和德国的垂直意识的形成 1800

科学理论是“实践重载”的见解在近三十年的科学史中引起了学术界的热议。本文探讨了一种充满动感的地理思想风格。有问题的思维方式被描述为“一种在19世纪初吞噬科学的垂直意识”，并且与亚历山大·冯·洪堡（Alexander von Humboldt，1769–1859年）的地理视野密切相关。洪堡的科学涵盖了自然界的水平和垂直轴，从撒克逊矿山到安第斯山顶，从洋流到空中洋流。在探究洪堡垂直思维的起源时，本文开辟了更广阔的历史，涉及最初使之蓬勃发展的工业实践和旅行文化。洪堡的“全球物理学”首先出现在垂直旅行的背景下，从山上到矿山和洞穴。身体的节奏（对某些人致命，对另一些人“崇高”）成为心灵的节奏。通过采矿文化，浪漫主义艺术和地理科学在垂直互补空间中形成的自然观。追溯洪堡科学的最早路线，就是要承认参与了垂直意识形成的许多演员，其中一些是著名的，大多数是无名的。