In 4–6 -cion. [ad. L. conservātiōn-em, n. of action f. conservāre to CONSERVE. So OF. conservacion, -tion (14th c.).]
1. The action of conserving; preservation from destructive influences, natural decay, or waste; preservation in being, life, health, perfection, etc.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Boeth., III. xi. 98. In conseruacioun of hyr beynge and endurynge.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XIX. xlvii. (1495), 890. Bytter thynges … haue those thre that nedyth to conseruacion and sauynge.
1526. Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 196 b. Of whome all creatures hath theyr beynge & conseruacion.
1542. Boorde, Dyetary, xxxviii. (1870), 299. For the conseruacion of helth.
1659. Pearson, Creed (1839), 37. Unto this act of creation is annexed that of conservation.
1710. Berkeley, Princ. Hum. Knowl., § 46. Matter … cannot subsist without the divine conservation.
1832. Lyell, Princ. Geol., II. III. xlvii. 256. There are circumstances accompanying a wreck which favour the conservation of skeletons.
1862. Lytton, Str. Story, II. 253. Capacities … designed by Providence for the distinct use and conservation of the species to which they are given.
b. Preservation of existing conditions, institutions, rights, peace, order, etc.
1460. Paston Lett., No. 353. I. 519. For the tendre love that we have to the concervacion of the Kyngs peas.
c. 1485. Digby Myst. (1882), i. 109. In conseruacion of my tytell of right.
1533. More, Debell. Salem, iv. Wks. 938/2. Zeale … to the conseruacion of the catholik faythe.
1538. Starkey, England, I. iv. 107. For the conseruatyon of polytyke ordur and just pollycy.
1581. Lambarde, Eiren., I. iii. (1588), 15. The Conestable Marshall of the Queenes house, may see to the Conseruation of the Peace within the same house.
1751. Johnson, Rambler, No. 99, ¶ 1. Ordained by providence for the conservation of order.
1864. Kirk, Chas. Bold, II. IV. iv. 449. For the conservation of existing territorial limits.
† c. Keeping of commandments, observance. Obs.
1544. Exhort., in Priv. Prayers (1851), 566. The true conservation of our heavenly Father’s … commandments.
† d. ‘Keeping’ of domestic animals, bees, etc.
1658. Rowland, Moufet’s Theat. Ins., 898. To the conservation or keeping of Bees.
1663. Cowley, Ess. Agric. (1687), 101. Rural Oeconomy … would contain the Government of Bees, Swine, Poultry … and the Domestical Conservation and Uses of all that is brought in by Industry abroad.
2. Official charge and care of rivers, sewers, forests, etc.; conservancy.
1490. Act 4 Hen. VII., c. 15. The Maior of the Citie of London … hauing the conseruation of the water and river of Thames.
1691. T. H[ale], Acc. New Invent., 66. The conservation of all the Royal Rivers of England.
1768. Blackstone, Comm., III. 74. The safe-guard and conservation of the sewers within their commission.
1800. Colquhoun, Comm. Thames, x. 289. Successive Sovereigns … granted the Conservation of the River Thames … to the Mayor and Commonalty of London.
1888. Pall Mall G., 4 April, 5/1 (French forests). There are thirty-five conservations. Over each there is a conservateur, who has generally an assistant.
3. Psychol. Faculty of conservation: memory proper, or the power of retaining knowledge, as distinguished from reproduction or reminiscence, the power of recalling it.
1836–7. Sir W. Hamilton, Metaph. (1877), II. xx. 13. Some have a strong faculty of conservation, and a feeble faculty of reproduction. Ibid., II. xxx. 206. Aristotle distinguishes Memory (μνήμη), as the faculty of Conservation, from Reminiscence (ἀνάμνησις), the faculty of Reproduction.
4. Nat. Philos. Conservation of energy or force: the doctrine that ‘the total energy of any body or system of bodies is a quantity which can neither be increased nor diminished by any mutual action of those bodies, though it may be transformed into any one of the forms of which energy is susceptible’; and that the universe is such a system, of which the total energy remains the same in amount, amid all the changing forms in which it may exhibit itself. So conservation of mass, etc.
App. the phrase originated with Leibnitz: see quot. Conservatio virium vivarum, in Fr. conservation des forces vives, was in common use in the 18th c.: cf. VIS VIVA. In 1807 Young introduced the term ENERGY. In 1847, Helmholtz published a treatise Über die Erhaltung der Kraft; in 1853, Rankine defined ‘conservation of energy’ as a technical phrase. See CORRELATION of forces.
[c. 1692. Leibnitz, Werke (ed. Pertz), Mathemat., VI. 217. Ce que je dis de la conservation de la Force absolue.]
1796. Hutton, Math. Dict., I. 495/2. Mr. Dan. Bernoulli … has assumed the preservation of the Vis Ascendens of Huygens, or, as others express it, the Conservatio Virium Vivarum.
1842–3. Penny Cycl., XXVI. 381. The preceding equation is sometimes used to express the principle of the conservation of vis viva, which is to be understood thus: the system never acquires nor loses any quantity of vis viva from the action of its parts upon each other, but only from the action of external forces.
1853. W. Rankine, Transform. Energy, in Sci. Papers (1881). Conservation of Energy [defined].
a. 1862. Buckle, Civiliz., III. v. 363. The modern doctrine of conservation of force.
1864. P. G. Tait, Philos. Mag., Oct., On Hist. Thermo-Dynamics, The old term ‘conservation of vis viva’ of which the conservation of Energy is only an extension.
1873. B. Stewart, Conserv. Force, Introd. 5. The modern doctrine of the Conservation of Energy or Correlation of Forces.
1884. trans. Lotze’s Metaph., 363. One of the simplest of these truths appears to be the invariability and the conservation of mass.
1885. P. G. Tait, Rec. Advances Phys. Sc. (ed. 3), 56. The true modern originators and experimental demonstrators of the conservation of energy in its generality were undoubtedly Colding of Copenhagen and Joule of Manchester. Ibid., 361. The only man who ever tried to discover experimentally what might be correctly called Conservation of Force was Faraday.
5. Astron. Conservation of areas: the describing of equal areas in equal times by the radius vector of a planet moving in its orbit.
1865. A. S. Herschel in Intell. Observ., No. 47. 338. The law of ‘conservation of areas.’
1867. Denison, Astron. without Math., 203. This is called the law of conservation of areas; and it is only the same thing in other words as saying that the angular velocity in any given orbit varies inversely as the square of the distance.
6. The ‘preserving’ of fruit or the like; the making of conserves.
1873. Hale, In His Name, iii. 12. Watching the conservation of some peaches.
