The Industrial Enlightenment is widely thought to have been a period when “science” and “technology” became intimately intertwined. In his 1791 book on the building of the Eddystone lighthouse (completed in 1759), the English engineer John Smeaton praised the Royal Society for being more than a group of abstract theoreticians. This article looks at the fellows of Smeaton's Royal Society network who contributed knowledge, reports, specimens, and inventions solicited by Smeaton when he was working on this lighthouse project. I show, in line with other recent research on this topic, that the “artisans” of the 18th century did not confine themselves to practical know-how, and that “scholars” were not merely interested in abstract philosophising; instead, the figures I look at in this paper were hybrid knowers who possessed useful knowledge and book learning. I argue that the advice solicited by Smeaton during the building of the lighthouse was characterised not by exchanges between theory and practice, but by a combining of different types of knowledge from separate fields. A second feature of this intellectual co-operation is that it was not centred on a group of practical industrialists or engineers, but rather it was the Royal Society that served as the common denominator, bringing all of the characters in our story into contact with each other. This is reflected in the subject matter involved, which was characteristic of the research focus of the virtuoso tradition in the 18th-century Royal Society. Smeaton's contact with this tradition was influenced by his friendships, his social activities, and, indirectly, by the way that the dissensions that occupied the Royal Society during the early 1780s impacted his retrospective account of the project.

中文翻译：

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“聪明人的共同劳动”：约翰·斯米顿的皇家学会网络和埃迪斯通灯塔

人们普遍认为工业启蒙时期是“科学”和“技术”紧密交织在一起的时期。英国工程师约翰·斯米顿 (John Smeaton) 在他 1791 年关于建造埃迪斯通灯塔的书中（于 1759 年完成）中称赞皇家学会不仅仅是一群抽象理论家。本文着眼于 Smeaton 皇家学会网络的研究员，他们在 Smeaton 从事这个灯塔项目时提供了知识、报告、标本和发明。与最近关于这个主题的其他研究一致，我表明 18 世纪的“工匠”并不局限于实用的技术诀窍，“学者”不仅对抽象哲学感兴趣；反而，我在这篇论文中看到的人物是拥有有用知识和书本知识的混合知识分子。我认为，斯米顿在建造灯塔期间征求的建议的特点不是理论与实践的交流，而是来自不同领域的不同类型知识的结合。这种智力合作的第二个特点是，它不是以一群实际的实业家或工程师为中心，而是以皇家学会为共同点，让我们故事中的所有角色都与每个人接触。其他。这反映在所涉及的主题上，这是 18 世纪皇家学会艺术大师传统研究重点的特征。斯米顿与这一传统的接触受到了他的友谊的影响，