“In the absence of a guiding theory, problems of technology, like those of the most primitive fields of science, had to be solved empirically” (The new Cambridge modern history, concerning 1688–1751).
“The striking fact is not merely that mathematical aptitude was diffused amongst large numbers of dons, divines, physicians, antiquaries and gentry …; but that it had become with many of them a passion, a supposed key to the knowledge of man, society and the universe … in the unspecialized imagination of the seventeenth century, the key that unlocked the secrets of the universe was essentially the same as that which might unlock the vaults of social wealth” (C. Wilson on England's apprenticeship 1603–1763).
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References
1.
“Hegel called Napoleon ‘the world spirit on horseback’”, GombrichE. H., In search of cultural history (Oxford, 1969), 7.
2.
CrombieA. C. and HoskinM. A., “The scientific movement and the diffusion of scientific ideas, 688–1751”, in The new Cambridge modern history, vi (1970), 37–71, p. 68.
LiddellH. G. and ScottR., Greek-English lexicon (Oxford, 1940).
5.
HallA. R., “The scientific movement”, in The new Cambridge modern history, v (1961), 47–72, p. 47.
6.
“I shall certainly admit a system as empirical or scientific only if it is capable of being tested by experience”, PopperK., The logic of scientific discovery (London, 1959), 40.
7.
HortonR., “African traditional thought and western science”, in MarwickM. (ed.), Witchcraft and sorcery (Harmondsworth, 1970), 342–68, p. 343.
8.
WhiteheadA. N., Science and the modern world (Cambridge, 1926), 13. Page references are to the Fontana edition, 1975.
9.
From this point, all references to The new Cambridge modern history are given in the text in the form of (VII, 78) denoting page 78 of volume vii. Chapters of special concern are HallA. R., “Science”, in History, ii (1958); HallM. B., “Science”, in History, iii (1968); CrombieA. C. and HoskinM. A., “The scientific movement and its influence 1610–50”, History, iv (1970); HallA. R., op. cit. (ref. 5); Crombie and Hoskin, op. cit. (ref. 2); CobbanA., “The enlightenment”, in History, vii (1957); McKieD., “Science and technology”, in History, viii (1965); GillispieC. C., “Science and technology”, in History, ix (1965); HallA. R., “The scientific movement and its influence on thought and material development”, in History, x (1960); WilliamsT. I., “Science and technology”, in History, xi (1962); McKieD., “Science and technology”, in History, xii (1968). All volumes are published in Cambridge; vol. xii is the second edition.
10.
WestfallR. S., Never at rest (Cambridge, 1980), 16. The author admits however that: “The harmony may be more apparent than real”, ibid., 16. Mysticism can be considered as “a quest for a hidden truth or wisdom”, involving an attempt such as “to re-establish the harmony which originally belonged between him [Man] and the divinized state”. Encyclopaedia Britannica (15th edn, Chicago, 1979), xii, 786.
11.
WilliamsT. I., “Technology and the quality of life”, in A history of technology, vii, ed. by WilliamsT. I. (Oxford, 1978), 1467–82, p. 1471. Williams, the editor of the last two volumes of the Oxford History, was also the writer on “science and technology” in the Cambridge volume that covers the last three decades of the nineteenth century. See ref. 9 above.
12.
CipollaC. M., Before the industrial revolution (London, 1976), 228; NorthD. C., Structure and change in economic history (New York, 1981), 171; ToynbeeA. J., A study of history, i (Oxford, 1934), 2. Cf. BirdsallD. and CipollaC. M., The technology of man (London, 1980), 138, 156, 157, on how “the face of England was changed” with “industrial revolution”, and how “in 1850 the past was not merely past — it was dead”.
13.
ButterfieldH., The whig interpretation of history (London, 1931), 8; LaytonE., “Scientific technology, 1845–1900”, Technology and culture, xx (1979), 64–89.
14.
Cf. ForesM., “Science and the ‘neolithic paradox’”, History of science, xxi (1983), 141–63.
15.
pp. 143–50; idem, “Constructed science and the seventeenth century ‘revolution’”, ibid., xxii (1984), 217–44, pp. 233–5.
16.
On “the idols of the theatre” which provide “sources of error” due to the use of inappropriate presuppositions for inquiry, see BaconF., Novum organum (London, 1620), Book I, aphorisms 61, 62.
17.
HeimpelH., “Characteristics of the late Middle Ages in Germany”, in StraussG. (ed.), Pre-Reformation Germany (London, 1972), 46, 50.
18.
Fores, “Science” (ref. 14), 146.
19.
For chapter titles, see refs 2, 5 and 9 above.
20.
In the chapter on “science and technology” from 1763–93, “science” gets some 24 pages and “technology” gets 3. In the chapter on the same topics from 1793–1830, the ratio is some 23 pages to 5.
21.
DerryT. K. and WilliamsT. I., A short history of technology (Oxford, 1960), vi, vii.
22.
HallA. R., The scientific revolution 1500–1800 (London, 1954), xi.
Cf. SnowC. P., The two cultures (Cambridge, 1959).
28.
WestfallR. S., op. cit. (ref. 10).
29.
See also Whitehead's general criticism of “mechanism”, op. cit. (ref. 8), 95–100.
30.
ButterfieldH., The origins of modern science (London, 1949), 103; HallA. R., The revolution in science 1500–1750 (London, 1983), 16.
31.
Butterfield, Origins (ref. 29), 84.
32.
Hall, Revolution (ref. 29), 355.
33.
Butterfield, Origins (ref. 29), 68, 72.
34.
Cf. ForesM., “Technical change and the ‘technology’ myth”, Scandinavian economic history review, xxx (1982), 167–88, pp. 186–8.
35.
Cf. Fores, “Science” (ref. 14), 150–1.
36.
See, for example, the papers in the special edition of this journal on “innovation and continuity in science”, History of science, xix (1981), 1–70.
37.
Quoted in WestJ. F., The great intellectual revolution (London, 1965), 113.
38.
HampsonN., The enlightenment (Harmondsworth, 1968), 77, 78.
39.
BaconNewtonHookeButterfieldWhiteheadSnowA. R. Hall and most of the editors and contributors concerned with the Cambridge History on ‘science’ and ‘technology’ are, or were, English, as are the author of this paper and the editor of the journal. All the History contributors listed at ref. 9 above wrote from a location in England, except Gillispie, who wrote, from the USA.
40.
Bacon, op. cit. (ref. 15), Book I, aphorisms 121, 70.
41.
FarringtonB., Francis Bacon: Philosopher of industrial science (New York, 1949), 3.
42.
Bacon, op. cit. (ref. 15), Book I, aphorism 119.
43.
ibid., Book I, aphorism 124.
44.
Cf. Fores, “Science” (ref. 14), 158–61.
45.
Whitehead, op. cit. (ref. 8), 31.
46.
For a critique of this idea used in this context, see ForesM., “The myth of a British industrial revolution”, History, lxvi (1981), 181–98.
47.
Gillispie discusses an expressly “rational technology” in this context (IX, 142).
48.
MussonA. E., “The British industrial revolution”, History, lxvii (1982), 252–8, pp. 257, 258; UbbelohdeA. R. J. P., “The beginnings of the change from craft mystery to science as a basis for technology”, in A history of technology, iv, ed. by SingerC. (Oxford, 1958), 663–81, p. 663; KuznetsS., Modern economic growth (New Haven, 1966), 15; CardwellD. S. L., Technology, science and history (London, 1972), 2; HindleB., “Technology through the 3D time warp”, Technology and culture, xxiv (1983), 450–64, p. 457; LandesD. S., “Technological change and development in Western Europe, 1750–1914”, in The Cambridge economic history of Europe, vi (1965), Pt I, 550, 552; LilleyS., “Technological progress and the industrial revolution, 1700–1914”, in The Fontana economic history of Europe, ed. by CipollaC. M., iii (London, 1973), 242; MathiasP., “Who unbound Prometheus?”, in Science and society, 1600–1900, ed. by MathiasP. (Cambridge, 1972), 54–80, p. 57.
49.
Ubbelohde, op. cit. (ref. 47), 671. The author sees this effect starting from the seventeenth century.
50.
A history of technology, v, ed. by SingerC. (Oxford, 1958), vi.
51.
Westfall, op. cit. (ref. 10), 18.
52.
MussonA. E. and RobinsonE., Science and technology in the industrial revolution (Manchester, 1969), 1, 65; MussonA. E., Science, technology and economic growth (London, 1972), 97. Musson and Robinson's eighteenth century “craftsmen” are given as “practical” actors, op. cit., 1.
53.
Short history (ref. 20), 42.
54.
MumfordL., Technics and civilization (London, 1934), 52. The author is quoting Leonardo da Vinci, and suggests that this assessment provides the norm.
55.
See also the next History volume, on the role of “Newton's masterpiece” in the self-confidence of the “new” people, and on the “triumph for the English empirical outlook” (VI, 37).
56.
Bacon, op. cit. (ref. 15), Book I, aphorisms 41–43, 61.
57.
On the different German idea of Technik, see SorgeA. and ForesM., “The fifth discontinuity”, International Institute of Management Discussion Paper 79–84 (Berlin, 1979).
58.
Cf. DickinsonL., The Greek view of life (London, 1896), ch. 4.
59.
ColemanD. C., “The new age of technology, 1750–1900”, Economica, xxvii (1960), 162–71, p. 163.
60.
‘Structure’ has become a ‘modern’ obsession. See the titles of North's book (ref. 12) and Kuhn'sT. S.The structure of scientific revolutions (Chicago, 1970). See also the discussions of “industrial structure” in Kuznets, op. cit. (ref. 47), ch. I, and of the “one actual structure of this real world” (IV, 143), referred to in Section II above.
61.
Colleges and universities put on courses in ‘practical criticism’ for students of literature. Most readers of this paper will have had to be ‘practical’ enough at school to have succeeded in ‘physics practicals’. ‘Artistic’ people such as pianists and dancers often claim that they have to ‘practise’ virtually daily. The History claims, not unreasonably, of the after-effects of ‘the scientific revolution’, that to “those who practised it, the new approach to natural science was …”(VI, 67; my stress). EltonG. R. has written The practice of history (London, 1967), in which historians are encouraged to be wissenschaftlich and ‘practical’ at the same time. LeanDavid claims that film-making is an “intensely practical” affair, “A life in film”, London Weekend Television, 17 February 1985.
In the volume of the Cambridge History which covers the end of the nineteenth century, the “electrical and chemical industries” are given respectively as “a completely new industry” and one that “underwent revolutionary change” at this time. “Both … had far-reaching consequences in other branches of technology” (XI, 93).
65.
Mumford, op. cit. (ref. 53), 217.
66.
SiemensW., Inventor and entrepreneur (London, 1966).
67.
Short history (ref. 20), 703.
68.
Regarding secular prophecy on this general topic, see also Fores, “Constructed science” (ref. 14), 233–41.
69.
Short History (ref. 20), 259. The general issue under discussion here is the authors' idea of a contrast between an “empirical” approach to work and “the purely scientific approach to industrial problems”, ibid., 280.
In a survey in one of the Oxford volumes covering the twentieth century, one author concludes that even in those more dramatic acts of technical change associated with “invention”, change has been less linked up with ‘science’ than the Cambridge authors have tended to claim. SawersD., “The sources of innovation”, in A history of technology, vi, ed. by WilliamsT. I. (Oxford, 1978), 27–47, pp. 34–36.
Heimpel discusses the thesis that “the old prerational era, of the ‘kingdom of God’ was followed by an ‘age of reason’ in the Gothic era”, op. cit. (ref. 16), 50.
