Both Humboldt and Darwin had the rare ability to focus in on the smallest detail – from a fleck of lichen to a tiny beetle – and then to pull back and out to examine global and comparative patterns. This flexibility of perspective allowed them both to understand the world in a completely new way. It was telescopic and microscopic, sweepingly panoramic and down to cellular levels, and moving in time from the distant geological past to the future economy of native populations.
