favorable view of past changes projected optimistically
into an indefinite future. The accumulation of scien
tific knowledge implied future progress in scientific
thought and there appeared good reason to believe that
such knowledge was capable of indefinite advancement.
The application of scientific knowledge in the form of
12
applied technology to the problems of physical
existence could yield progress for the whole of mankind.
Belief in the operation of fortune and the
intervention of Providence came to be supplanted by the
belief that man might determine his own destiny, or
even that he might be acting only as a role-player in
a deterministic system that would of its very nature
yield constant progress. A rational, mechanical,
technical view of man and his surroundings appeared
and flourished even as the wonder of science laid bare
the secrets of the physical world and as its counterpart,
technology, improved the material lot of man.
It is CtheJ dynamic character of technology that
makes it so significant for the idea of progress.
The latter assumes that mankind has been slowly
advancing from a crude stage of primitive civili
zation; the former demonstrates what can be
accomplished by exhibiting its achievements and
disclosing its working methods. What was once
Utopian becomes actuality. What appears to be
impossible may be surmounted. The ancient theory
Our purposes will be served by defining
technology as the "state of the arts" as they exist at
any one time, including both ideas and methods as well
as applied inventions.