German - English translation of a quote?

Hello.



I have received a message containing the quote

"脺berall geht ein fr眉hes Ahnen dem sp盲ten Wissen voraus."

by Alexander von Humboldt.

It is from his work "Kosmos" translated into the english language in 1860.

Unfortunately i am unable to find the exact english translation.

So i wondered how anyone on here would translate this.German - English translation of a quote?
I assume that you want answers that best convey the precise sense of the quote, without necessarily attempting to reproduce the grammatical structure. I shall try to come up with such a translation:



"Knowledge is always preceded by vague instinctive feelings."



Strictly, the word "眉berall" means "everywhere", but in the present context "always" is preferable. I have also inverted the order of the sentence. The German original first refers to the feelings, then to the knowledge. It renders it as "later knowledge", but in my English version the "later" is logically superfluous. Finally, regardless of any dictionary translations, I have endeavored to render the meaning of "Ahnen" as precisely as possible (given the context). This contributes three words to the translation, namely "vague instinctive feelings."



More literally, the passage would have to be rendered as "Everywhere an early suspecting precedes a later knowing." I don't think that this translation does justice to the intended sense.German - English translation of a quote?
special thanks to liv for her efforts!

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German - English translation of a quote?
Do you know http://avhumboldt.net/ ???

You may ask this question in leo.org forum.

I think, it should be "...dem sp盲teren Wissen.." what means comparative.
Everywhere is an early ancestor of the late advance knowledge



edit: that was from a site of his in German with a tab saying English guests click here, but you are likely right they may have used a translator on their page. My father speaks fluent German, I will email him and ask. I will star your question and if you don't get a native speaker to help, I will come back and let you know if he gets back to me.



OK, I actually talked to my dad on the phone. My dad is familiar with him and said he was saying that science discovers and proves what our ancestors already knew, and he believes it was in reference to the medicinal value of some plants.



And no, I didn't find you rude, I just didn't want you to think I was one of those people who copy pasted onto Google translator to get my two points:)