AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 287 



As regards the thanks which you consider you owe 

 me, I should be unjust if I said that the good of 

 humanity appeared to me, from the outset, as the 

 conscious object of my labours. It was, in fact, the 

 special form of my desire for knowledge which im- 

 pelled me and determined me, to employ in scientific 

 research all the time which was not required by my 

 official duties and by the care for my family. These 

 two restrictions did not, indeed, require any essential 

 deviation from the aims I was striving for. My office 

 required me to make myself capable of delivering 

 lectures in the University ; my family, that I should 

 establish and maintain my reputation as an investi- 

 gator. The State, which provided my maintenance, 

 scientific appliances, and a great share of my free 

 time, had, in my opinion, acquired thereby the right 

 that I should communicate faithfully and completely 

 to my fellow-citizens, and in a suitable form, that 

 which I had discovered by its help. 



The writing out of scientific investigations is 

 usually a troublesome affair ; at any rate it has been so 

 to me. Many parts of my memoirs I have rewritten 

 five or six times, and have changed the order about 

 until I was fairly satisfied. But the author has a great 

 advantage in such a careful wording of his work. It 

 compels him to make the severest criticism of each 

 sentence and each conclusion, more thoroughly even 



