What is technology? : an inaugural lecture delivered in the University of Edinburgh, on November 7, 1855 / by George Wilson.

Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: What is technology? : an inaugural lecture delivered in the University of Edinburgh, on November 7, 1855 / by George Wilson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    practical bearings, will remain for the discussion of Professor Forbes, wlio is so great an authority ujDon them. And so also with the largest part of the sciences of optics, electricity, magnetism, pneumatics, and many more, of which only certain portions come within my scope, and those only in so far as they are related to the useful arts. Again, the vegetable products, I shall take up at the point where Dr Balfour, Dr Gregory, and Professor John Wilson leave them, entering for example into no discussion regard- ing the botanical relations of the textile fibres, the paper-yielding pknts, or those producing oils, starch, sugar, or dye-stufifs; leaving their chemical relations to the professor of chemistry, and their modes of cultivation to the professor of agriculture. Animal and mineral products I shall accept in the same manner from the hands of Professor Allraan, and such ambiguous question, as What is coal?—I shall be content to answer in the most catholic and ex- pansive way, so that all the scientific sectaries whom it has called into existence, myself among the number, may sit together round tlie same hearth, and be warmed by it. In truth, my own domain is so vast, and so little explored, that I have no need, as I have no wish, to go foraying beyond it. Would only that, like Cowper's Selkirk, I could with a kingly con- sciousness of power to rule, declare that I am monarch of all I survey, even though I cannot add, My right there is none to dispute! My kingdom, however, is not an island washed by the uncoveted sea on every side, but part of a mighty continent, divided amongst great, though friendly potentates. On their territories I cast no wistful eyes : there is no scientific Turkey, or Hayti, or Cuba, which I desire to annex to my stately empire. If there be on all sides debateable Border-land, it shall at least be made neutral ground, and if any one of my brother monarchs thinks that use and wont entitle him to possess it, or that he can turn it to better account than I can, I will say to him as Abram did to Lot, Is not the whole land before thee ? .... If thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to- the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left. The term Technology'' which distinguishes this Chair, can only slowly grow into an acceptable word. The title is not of my ad- vising or selecting, but I can suggest no better. Industrial Art Science, even if it were explicit, which it is not, is far too long a word, and does not suit the genius of our language. Applied Science,
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