Invention

oved from us in time and character, that they seem to belong almost to another world. But we now are coming to a country which, though its history goes back many cent

ships. This civilization the ?gean islanders, especially the Cretans, had developed and improved, particularly in creations of beauty and works of art. The Greeks created a still higher civi

evidenced in every page of the early history of Greece, in the stirring stories of her heroes, and in the conception and development of her government. Compared with the stories of ancient Greece, the stories of the childhood of every other country seem unima

retan

ves, and were drawn within the walls of Troy by the Trojans themselves, who had been induced to do this by an ingenious story, invented to deceive them. Whether the l

erest and originality, that the Greek mythology is more read, even now, th

as it is also by children and women than by men. Imagination by itself, untrained and undirected, while it is unquestionably an attribute of the mind, is not one of reason, in the sense that it does not necessarily employ th

, the lover

gination a

on, it is only when conception has been followed by c

ory of Jason's Argonautic Expedition in search of the Golden Fleece cannot be surpassed in any of the elements that make a story good; Penelope is still the model of conjugal devotion, and Achilles the ideal warrior; Poseidon, or his Roman successor, Neptune,

siasm by poets and scholars for many centuries. They have been generally regarded as inventions, but nevertheless as quite different from such inventions as the steam-engine or the printing press.

proving the impressions made on his mind. The myths did this by making beautiful pictures for his mind to gaze at, and by using them to induce him to follow a certain (good) line of conduct, rather than the contrary. The

eam engine to be of a material thing. These two lines of effort, invention has followed since long be

posite effect; and while many mechanical inventions have contributed to our material ease and comfort, it is not clear that they have much increased our actual happiness. Men accommodate themselves easily to changes in their material surro

mselves affecting history greatly; but the material inventions have brought about most of the events that history describes; and without one material invention, that of writing, history

and then of polished stone, and later of copper and tin and bronze; that they lived on farms and in villages and cities, and were governed by monarchs who dwelt in palaces adorned with paintings and fine carvings, and fill

t that the Greeks had a conception of beauty that was wholly original with them, and that was not only finer than that which any other people had ever had before, but finer than any other people have had since. And not only did they have t

like the formulation of a myth or the writing of a poem. In this sense, the Greeks were inventors, inventors of works of beaut

may be said to form a class midway between inventions of material appliances and inventions of immaterial thoughts and fancies. A beautiful pain

et, the plumb-line, the axe, the wedge, the lever, masts and sails and even of flying;-for he is said to have escaped from Crete to Sicily with artificial wings. The story of D?dalus, like that of many other mythological personages, is both interesting and irritating f

rimeval people; especially since they were of a character somewhat different from those invented in Egypt and Asia which we have already noted. The invention of the gimlet seems the most brilliant and original of those just spoken of; and one marvels that it should have been invented at such a time; for the action of the gimlet was a little more complicated than that of even the balista or the catapult. It is true that

tives Brought

e first suggestion for the screw or gimlet. Of course, a gimlet is a kind of screw. The Greeks do not seem to have applied their inventiveness after the time of D?dalus to mechanical appliances, but to works of art and systems of religion and philosophy. One of their most important inventions may be said to be mid-way between: it consisted in adding vowels to the Ph?nician al

tion, their armor, their weapons and their discipline had been brought to a standard exceedingly high. All these advantages were needed; for the Persians were a warlike people,

g themselves up inside the protection of the walls of Athens. Had they done this, the Persians would have su

ion; for his mind conceived a plan as a purely mental picture, then developed into a workable project, and then presented it as a concrete proposition. Later, when the hostile forces met on the low plain of Marathon, Miltiades rejected the obvious plan that an uninventive mind would have adopted. Instead of it, he invented the plan of weakening his center, streng

tle in the obvious way, the great numerical superiority of the Persians could hardly have failed to gain the victory, despite a really considerable superiority of the Athenians

most decisive and one of the most important battles ever fought. If it had been decided contrariwise, Grecian civilization would have been stamped out, or so completely stifled that it would

helming force. By reason of a variety of circumstances, including the death of the king, the invasion did not take place until ten years

rsian forces was the line of communication across the ?gean Sea, because the ships of those days were fragile, and an invading army needed to get supplies continually from Persia, he pointe

ecause, if defeated, a safe retreat could be effected. But Themistocles opposed this plan with all the force and eloquence he could bring to bear; pointing out that the aim of the Athenians should not be to find a safe line of retreat, but to win a battle; and that the Bay of Salamis was the best place, for two reasons. One reason was that the Persians would have to enter the bay in column, because the entrance was narrow, and the Persian ships, as they successively passed into the bay, would therefore be a

followed by the most extraordinary intellectual movement in the history of the world. It lasted about a century and a half; and in

rchitecture, sculpture and poetry. Naturally these peaceful arts languished during the wars; but after the Persian invade

voted themselves mainly to warlike and allied arts, while the Athenians devoted themselves mainly to the beautification of Athens; though they were careful to gu

ickness, and developed into such important movements, during the century and a half that followed the Persian wars; especially as this has already been done by many schola

us channels which it followed, was originality. No such perception of beauty had

intellectual rise, or the intellectual rise was the cause of the government, may safely be left to scholars to debate; for th

5 to 431 B. C. Athens and her subject cities formed a virtual empire, small in extent, but powerful in influence; though in form it was a democracy. In some ways it was the most perfect democracy that

citizen was in the pay of the state. The perfect equality of all the citizens, and their community of interests and privileges, was recognized by supplying them at times with free tickets to places of amusement, and by banqueting the people on great occasions at the expense of the state. To distribute widely the powers and duties of citizenship, exceedingly large juries w

l influence also, which continued for a long while, but now has ceased, in supplying a precedent for slavery. For while the citizens of Athens were free, only the sons of Athenian fathers and Athenian mothers could be citizens; many thousand workers and merchants of all kinds could take no part in the government, and th

architecture; and that the encouragement met with ready and great success the most beautiful ruins in the world superbly testify. The directing genius in this work and in all the others was Pericles, who stimulated the Athenians with his conception and description of a city worthy to symbolize the power and

ill, and while the Parthenon and the statue of Apollo are models still, yet an integral part of the system of government (slavery) has been abjured by the civilized world, and the temples an

mind that enabled them to survey the road a little farther ahead than the others could, and to point out the paths to take, and the obstructions to avoid. Man's physical instincts guide him considerably as to the methods to preserve his physical existence

bject it is instructive for us to note that the main distinctive feature of the work of each was originality. It is true that it is the completed work in the case of each that meets our gaze; it is true that the superficial impression would be the same, even if each work had been a copy of some work that had gone befor

mastered by the Thebans in 371 B. C. The little jealous states of Greece were never able to agree together long, and no one state was ever able to unite them. But the half-barbarian people of Macedonia, unde

that had been used before. But, at the same time, it was an act, or a series of acts, betokening great initiative and originality, for a man ruling a weak collection of tribes such as dwelt in Macedon, to create out of such crude material as he began with, such an extraordinary army as he ultimately was able to lead to battle. To accomplish this it was n

ish it cost him years of continual effort of many kinds, but he did accomplish it. He did, as a result, produce a machine, as truly a machine as Stephenson ever

act of invention goes, whether a man uses animate or inanimate parts; the essential of invention is the creation of a new thing. If a man merely puts two pieces of wood and a piece of string into a pile, or if he merely collects a number of men together, no invention is made and

his phalanx assisted by the catapults, and hurling his cavalry against their flanks. Philip's army, as Philip used it, was a machine and a very powerful one:-each part independent of every other, yet dependent on every other-all the

enty-two centuries later. The two machines differed, it is true. Yet they did not differ so much as one might unthinkingly suppose; for each machine was made up of parts, of which some were animate a

s to this day. For after Philip's death, his son Alexander put it to work at

ious little states were by that means brought together; and because it illustrates the fact that without a machine, no great number of people can w

it on the Persian troops in Asia Minor. The machine worked so successfully at a battle on the Granicu

ould have great force and receive the approval of most people, for the reason that, in most histories, the main credit is given to the e

operated; that is, to the product of what the machine could do if it were used with perfect skill and the percentage of skill with which it was

part of the machine in the sense that it was a characteristic included in the original design of Philip. In other words, we should not fall into the error of dissociating the skill of A

When we read of the amazing victories that Alexander made over superior forces of highly trained warriors, we see that Philip of Macedon should not be given all the credit; that the geniu

r of many kinds, and on many occasions, but he was morally brave; he did not shirk responsibility; he did not fear to take enormous risks; he did not hesitate to reject advice

rained skill and the possession of an admirable machine-do they all toget

tach to a man who is able to do things that other men cannot do. But granting that the possession of "genius" is an explanation of Alexander's being able to accomp

at conqueror, he was (according to the legend) suddenly confronted with the untying of a knot, the successful accomplishment of which would make him master of Asia. He realized that he could not untie it. Any man but a man like Alexander would have tried it and acknowledged failure, or have declined to try it: placin

road up the steep side of the mountain, leading his army along that road, and suddenly threatening the Thessalians in their helpless rear. Shortly afterward in Thrace he reached a defile in the mountains which it was necessary for him to pass, but which he found defended by a force that had stationed a number of war-chariots at the top, to be rolled down on the Macedonians. Alexander imm

on the farther bank. This he saw he could not do by the use of any means available of an ordinary kind. Nothing daunted, he

such a place was no small undertaking for a man who had no ships. But Alexander conceived and executed a scheme that worked successfully. In accordance with that scheme, he built a causeway that extended from the shore out toward the island on which Tyre stood. Naturally, the Tyrians obstructed his efforts by sending fireshi

t and thickness of the walls, and because Alexander's galleys that he had equipped with war-engines could not get close enough, by reason of large boulders under water. Alexander then equipped certain galleys

of the world in those days, is a record of inventiveness, on the part of Alexander, so convincing

e fleet could not assist them, and as the walls were themselves very high and stood on a high hill, the walls could never be stormed. Things looked serious. They were serious; and failure would then have come to

narrow a defile. Alexander literally "circumvented" them by making a night march over a difficult mountain pass, and astonishing them by an attack on their rear the following morning. Shortly afterward a like situation presented itself, when an army opposed him in a narrow defile called the Persian Gates, that was fortified with a wall. Alexander soon realized that the position of his enemy w

ing an uninventive enemy illustrate in the simplest

this conception into an actual reality, became at once the object of his efforts. To develop it, he decided to adopt in some measure the characteristics and dress of the people in whatever province he might be, and to take such steps in organizing provinces, founding cities and establishing systems, as

multitude of elephants, Alexander was apparently confronted with a problem impossible of solution. It would have been impossible to anyone but a man like Alexander. He, however, by means of various feints and ingenious stratagems, managed to get across at night about sixteen miles up the river, using boats that he had constructed, and floats of skin stuffed with straw. Porus took up a position on the opposite shore and made ready to receive att

though it was composed mainly of barbarous and semi-barbarous people, was dominated by Greek thought. It is true that the empire fell apart almost immediately after Alexander died. But it did not fall into anarchy, or revert to its previous state: it was divided into four parts, eac

esented the finer civilization; for Alexandria, with its library and its wonderful museum, became the seat of learning

element that gave Greek civilization greater influence on history than any other civilization ever had-the creative element. The creative period of Greece ceased when her political liberty was lost. Furthermore, the immense amount of wealth that poured into the Grecian cities and the Gr?c

Harbor of Alexandria

en to this day. Aristarchus, the astronomer, announced the doctrine that the earth revolves around the sun and rotates on its own axis; and Hipparchus invented the plan of fixing the positions of places on the earth by their latitudes north and south of the Equator and their l

f mechanical appliances, he is the first man recognized as such in history. The invention with which his name is most frequently linked is that of the Archimedean screw. This consisted of a tube, wound spirally around an inclined axle, and so disposed that when the lower end of the tube was dipped into water an

lived; but the laws of its operation and the principle that the weight on each side of the fulcrum, multiplied by its distance from the fulcrum

at many mirrors in such a way that he concentrated so many rays of sunlight on some Roman ships that they took fire. Whether this is true or not is not d

of determining the quantity of gold and the quantity of silver in a certain gold coin, in making which the king suspected the workmen of stealing part of the gold and substituting silver. Pondering this subject later while lying in his bath, Archimedes suddenly r

alized the full purport and the never-ending result of his conception,

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ns and demonstrations that convince the mind, and considered that his chief single work wa

, both seem to have been inventions. Each made a definite creation and each caused something to exist, the like of which had never existed before. Furthermore, the mental processes followed resemble very closely the conception and fo

el of equality, simply because they are inventions. Evidently there