ON THE 



RELATION OF NATURAL SCIENCE 1 

 TO GENERAL SCIENCE. 



ACADEMICAL DISCOURSE DELIVERED AT HEIDELBERG, 

 NOVEMBER 22, 1862, 



Br DR. H. IIELMHOLTZ, SOMETIME PRORECTOR. 



TO-DAY we are met, according to annual custom, in 

 grateful commemoration of an enlightened sovereign of 

 this kingdom, Charles Frederick, who, in an age when 

 the ancient fabric of European society seemed tottering 

 to its fall, strove, with lofty purpose and untiring zeal, to 

 promote the welfare of his subjects, and, above all, their 

 moral and intellectual development. Eightly did he 

 judge that by no means could he more effectually realise 

 this beneficent intention than by the revival and the 

 encouragement of this University. Speaking, as I do, on 

 such an occasion, at once in the name and in the pre- 



1 The German word Nalurwissenschaft has no exact equivalent ill 

 modern English, including, as it does, both the Physical and the Natural 

 Sciences. Curiously enough, in the original charter of the Royal Society, 

 the phrase Natural Knowledge covers the same ground, but is there used in 

 opposition to supernatural knowledge. (Note in Buckle's Civilisation, 

 vol. ii. p. 341.) TB. 



