ON THE CONSEEVATION OF FOECE. 



INTKODTJCTION TO A SERIES OF LECTURES DELIVERED AT 

 CARLSRUHE LN THE WINTER OP 1862-1863. 



As I have undertaken to deliver here a series of lectures, 

 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 thoee 

 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 enjoy- 

 ment of life, of the preservation of health, of means of 

 industrial and of social intercourse, and even such in- 

 crease of political power, that every educated man who 

 tries to understand the forces at work in the world in 

 which he is living, even if be 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 

 characteristic 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 



