Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Elements of Technology: Taken Chiefly From a Course of Lectures Delivered at Cambridge, on the Application of the Sciences to the Useful Arts, Now Published for the Use of Seminaries and Students
Whenever we attempt to draw a dividing line between the sciences, usually so called, and the arts, it results in distinctions, which are comparative, rather than absolute. In many branch es Oi human knowledge, the two are so blended together, that it is impossible to make their separation complete. In common language we apply the name of sciences, to those departments of knowledge which are more speculative, or abstract, in their nature, and which are conversant with truths or with phenom ena, that are in existence at the time we contemplate them. The arts, on the contrary, are considered as departments of knowledge, which have their origin inhuman ingenuity, which depend on the active, or formative processes of the human mind, and which without these, would not have existed. Our knowledge may be said to have been found out originally by discovery and invention. Discovery is the process of science invention is the work Of art. SO common, however, is the connexion Of the two with each other, that we find both a science and an art involved in the same branch Of study. For exam ple, chemistry is a science depending on the immutable rela tions Of matter, which relations must have existed, had there never been minds to study them. Yet these laws of matter would not have become the subjects Of science, had not man kind invented the art Of separating their agents, and making them cognizable to the senses. To build a ship, to construct a watch.
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