SCIENCE

, a clear and certain knowledge of any thing, founded on demonstration, or on self-evident principles. — In this sense, doubting is opposed to science; and opinion is the middle between the two.

Science is more particularly used for a formed system of any branch of knowledge, comprehending the doctrine, reason, and theory of the thing, without any immediate application of it to any uses or offices of lise. And in this sense, the word is used in opposition to art.

Science may be divided into these three sorts: First, the knowledge of things, their constitutions, properties, and operations, whether material or immaterial. And this, in a little more enlarged sense of the word, may be called physics, or natural philosophy. Secondly, the skill of rightly applying our own powers and actions for the attainment of good and useful things, as Ethics. Thirdly, the doctrine of signs; as words, logic, &c.