A discussion on another board led me to this, and I thought it might be intriguing to look back upon, and discuss, the semantical evolution of so important a word. Musick, what say ye? And, tsuwm, whence the apostrophe?
From WEBSTER's 1828 DICTIONARY:
SCI'ENCE, n. [L. scientia, from scio, to know.]
1. In a general sense, knowledge, or certain knowledge; the comprehension or understanding of truth or facts by the mind. The science of God must be perfect.
2. In philosophy, a collection of the general principles or leading truths relating to any subject. Pure science, as the mathematics, is built on self-evident truths; but the term science is also applied to other subjects founded on generally acknowledged truths, as metaphysics; or on experiment and observation, as chimistry and natural philosophy; or even to an assemblage of the general principles of an art, as the science of agriculture; the science of navigation. Arts relate to practice, as painting and sculpture.
A principle in science is a rule in art.
3. Art derived from precepts or built on principles.
Science perfects genius.
4. Any art or species of knowledge.
No science doth make known the first principles on which it buildeth.
5. One of the seven liberal branches of knowledge, viz grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music.
[Note - Authors have not always been careful to use the terms art and science with due discrimination and precision. Music is an art as well as a science. In general, an art is that which depends on practice or performance, and science that which depends on abstract or speculative principles. The theory of music is a science; the practice of it an art.
