The work presumes a standard of education
corresponding to that of a university matriculation examination, and,
despite the shortness of the book, a fair amount of patience and force
of will on the part of the reader. The author has spared himself no
pains in his endeavour to present the main ideas in the simplest and
most intelligible form, and on the whole, in the sequence and
connection in which they actually originated. In the interest of
clearness, it appeared to me inevitable that I should repeat myself
frequently, without paying the slightest attention to the elegance of
the presentation. I adhered scrupulously to the precept of that
brilliant theoretical physicist L. Boltzmann, according to whom
matters of elegance ought to be left to the tailor and to the cobbler.
I make no pretence of having withheld from the reader difficulties
which are inherent to the subject. On the other hand, I have purposely
treated the empirical physical foundations of the theory in a
"step-motherly" fashion, so that readers unfamiliar with physics may
not feel like the wanderer who was unable to see the forest for the
trees. May the book bring some one a few happy hours of suggestive
thought!
December, 1916
A.
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