ON THE CONSERVATION 

 OF FORCE 



INTRODUCTION TO A SERIES OF LECTURES 



DELIVERED AT CARLSRUHE IN THE 



WINTER OF 1862-1863 



A S I have undertaken to deliver here a series of lec- 

 l\ tures, I think the best way in which I can discharge 

 -* - that duty will be to bring before you, by means of a 

 suitable example, some view of the special character of those 

 sciences to the study of which I have devoted myself. The 

 natural sciences, partly in consequence of their practical 

 applications, and partly from their intellectual influence on 

 the last four centuries, have so profoundly, and with such 

 increasing rapidity, transformed all the relations of the 

 life of civilised nations; they have given these nations such 

 increase of riches, of enjoyment of life, of the preservation 

 of health, of means of industrial and of social intercourse, 

 and even such increase of political power, that every edu- 

 cated man who tries to understand the forces at work in 

 the world in which he is living, even if he does not wish 

 to enter upon the study of a special science, must have some 

 interest in that peculiar kind of mental labour, which works 

 and acts in the sciences in question. 



On a former occasion I have already discussed the char- 

 acteristic differences which exist between the natural and 

 the mental sciences as regards the kind of scientific work. 

 I then endeavoured to show that it is more especially in the 

 thorough conformity with law which natural phenomena and 

 natural products exhibit, and in the comparative ease with 

 which laws can be stated, that this difference exists. Not 

 that I wish by any means to deny, that the mental life of 



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