Conservation is a ‘slippery’ concept that can be interpreted in many different ways. This essay reviews historical approaches to conservation and its romantic (even patriotic), initially equitable connotation of preservation, as proposed by 18th century North American philosophers and naturalists. The opposing view is presented as well, i.e., that the real world is not the same for eternity but dynamic, and the product of the interaction of society, industry and the state, as proposed by European philosophers around the same time.