ABSTRACT
TECHNOLOGICAL knowledge is of the nature of a com mon stock, held and carried forward collectively by the community, which is i n this relation to be conceived as a going concern. The state of the industrial arts is a fact of group life, not of individual or private in i t ia t ive or innovation. I t is an affair of the collectivity, not a creative achievement of individuals working self-sufficiently i n severalty or i n isolation. I n the main, the state of the industrial arts is always a heritage out of the past; i t is always i n process of change, perhaps, bu t the sub stantial body of i t is knowledge that has come down from earlier generations. New elements of insight and pro ficiency are continually being added and worked in to this common stock by the experience and ini t ia t ive of the current generation, bu t such novel elements are always and everywhere slight and inconsequential i n comparison w i t h the body of technology that has been carried over from the past.
