372 LITERARY ACTIVITY. 



interest by the purchasers. My brother began a con- 

 versation with one of them by praising the fine 

 appearance of the blocks. "Oh yes" was the reply 

 of the person addressed, a herculean butcher, "it 

 looks very well but it has not the English nature". 

 Even English ice must necessarily be colder than 

 foreign ice. This prepossession of every Englishman 

 in favour of native products, which always influences 

 his choice, strengthens the pride of the English artisan 

 and manufacturer in the excellence of their work 

 and thereby often causes the preconceived opinion to 

 become truth. 



Of my other popular publications I will here 

 only cite my lectures "Electricity in the service of 

 life" of the year 1879 and "The Age of Science" of 

 the year 1886. 



In the former lecture I descanted on the state 

 of electrical engineering and added some reflections 

 on the further progress, confidently to be expected, 

 which would result from the circumstance that elec- 

 tricity could now with the help of the dynamo-elec- 

 tric machine also perform heavy work, whereas hitherto 

 it had only been useful through the rapidity of its 

 action in mediating, directing and controlling intelli- 



O 7 o" o 



gence and signals, leaving the execution of the heavy 

 work itself to other natural forces. 



The lecture "On the Age of Science", which I 

 gave at Berlin at the opening meeting of the Society 

 of Naturalists and Physicians in the autumn of 1886, 

 dealt with the change of social conditions through the 



