Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/378

 powell] TECHNOLOGY, OR THE SCIENCE OF INDUSTRIES 327

(2) he produces pure water by purifying it ; (3) he produces vari- ous substances by mining and metallurgy and other chemic processes ; (4) he produces plants by plant culture, and (5) he produces animals by zooculture. Thus, the fundamental indus- tries, which we here call industries of substantiation, are industries for the production of kinds.

CONSTRUCTION

The next class of industries in which men engage are those which are designed to modify the forms of things for use. Here we must call attention to the distinction which we make between kind and form. In popular usage these terms are interchange- able, but in science we must use terms with single meanings ; this is a fundamental requirement. The failure to observe this law opens the door to idle and vain speculation. We may find an illustration of what is meant by kind in ordinary enumeration and in the devices which men have invented to represent num- bers. We have ten units as a sum ; the ten units constitute but one ten, twenty units constituting two tens, and a hundred units constituting ten tens. The ninety-ninth is but one of the units of a hundred ; it is but one in the last unit of the second order which constitutes the hundred. Counting is fundamentally de- termination of kind ; and counting, like classification, is first determining a kind and then seriating the kind to obtain the class. I wish to count the horses in the field, and I must first distinguish the horses from all other kinds in the field and then enumerate them. This is counting. But if I distinguish the kind of horse and include them all as horses, I thus include all of this kind in nature. The difference between counting and classi- fying exists solely in the nature of the series which we consider. I invariably use kind in this sense and in no other.

Form signifies figure and structure, and implies the relative position of the parts which make up the whole. This distinction which I make between kind and form must be held permanently.

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