Page:What is technology? (Wilson).djvu/8

4 "  Chemical Technology, or Chemistry applied to the Arts and Manufactures," having been translated into English in 1848, by Dr Richardson, an able practical chemist of Newcastle, and Dr Ronalds, the accomplished Professor of Chemistry, Queen's College, Galway. This work has just reached a second English edition, so that the word Technology may be supposed to have acquired a certain naturalization amongst us, and such seems to be the opinion of the editors of Knapp's work, who give no definition of it in the new issue, though they did (in translation from Knapp) in their first edition. In this, "Technology" was stated to comprise, "in its literal signification, the systematic definition λογος (logos) of the rational principles upon which all processes employed in the arts τεχνες (technes) are based." This definition is not very gracefully worded, but is sufficiently explicit. The word "Technology" literally signifies the Science of the Arts, or a Discourse or Dissertation on these. This latter meaning is the one given to the word in Dr Hyde Clarke's recent and admirable English Dictionary, the only one in which I have found it. He defines Technology as "a Treatise on the Arts," a description quite just, so far as it goes, but including only one-half of the full signification of the word, for it as much denotes, according to the meaning of its Greek roots, and the custom of our language, the science of the arts as a dissertation upon them.

In this respect, it agrees with all the similar composite words of Greek origin, such as "Theology," which is, with equal propriety, employed to denote the science of the attributes, the ways and works of God, and to denote a dissertation upon these: "Geology," which sometimes signifies the knowledge or existing learning regarding the Physical Earth, and sometimes a discourse upon it: "Conchology," which at one time stands for the doctrine of or about shells, and at another for a treatise upon them.

Technology, then, in the sense in which I have to deal with it, implies the Science, or Doctrine, or Philosophy, or Theory of the Arts. Its object is not Art itself, i.e., the practice of Art, but the principles which guide or underlie Art, and by conscious or unconscious obedience to which, the artist secures his ends.

Thus far, the meaning of the word Technology is not far to seek, but it must be taken with two important qualifications, to which I