Invention

t have been the conception of an extremely brilliant and original idea. After that, the difficulties of embodying the idea in a concrete form must have been very great; for it

not be performed without it, and will then multiply that amount by the number of typewriters in the world, he will come to a confused but startling realization of the amount of executive work that is being done in a single day through the agency of the typewriter, that otherwise would not be done. If he will then go a step further, and multiply the number of days that have gone by since the typewriter was first employed, by one-half, or even one-tenth, of the amount accomplished by means of all the typewriters in a si

that God wrought the wire along which the message ran, or the wooden poles that carried the wire, or the material zinc and copper of the battery. The only new thing evidenced in the telegraph so far as anyone could know, was the invention itself. God had wrought that through the agency of Morse. It is a known fact that no human mind, no matter how fine it may be, or how brilliant and correct its imagination, can have any images or ideas that are not based in some way on the evidence of the senses. We can imagine things, and even create things, that have n

orse with the conception of the electric telegraph, He inspired him according to the modern meaning of the word, which is not very different f

sults. It is not in the class with the fist-hammer, or the weaving machine, or the gun, or the steam engine, or the electric light, or chloroform, or the telescope, or the discovery of America. It owes its reputation largely to the spectacular way in which it first appeared, and to the seeming wonderfulness

ern civilization would not be even approximately what it is, if either had not been invented. And if by any combination

o or more men have invented the same thing at about the same time. It may be pointed out, however, that while this has often happened in regard to improvements on basic inventions, it has not happened very often in regard to the basic inventions themselves; and also that, even if we include all the inventors the world has ever heard of, we find that there have been surprisingly fe

uted a new and distinct part to the Machine, however, and certainly helped to ameliorate the conditions of living. Besides, it seems to be one of the lessons of history that most new and distinct creations, even if no use has been found for them for a long while, have ultima

uch in the invention as in the stage of civilization at the time. The world was not yet ready for the arc-light. In fact, it did not become ready, and it could not become ready, to use the arc-light in real service, until a cheaper means of producing electric current had been invented. This did not happen until the dynamo-electric machine had been invented and had been brought

be asked if there is any use in inventing appliances long before they are needed. So far as the inventor is then concerned-no: so far as the public is eventually concerned, yes. All inventions made and patented are described and illustrated in the Patent Office Gazette; and many of them are described and illu

This is usually spoken of as the sewing-machine; but the essence of the invention was not a machine, but merely an instrument; for it consisted of a needle in which the

unfavorable conditions. But what conditions were unfavorable to the utilization of Howe's sewing-machine, even as far back in history as the days when the pyramids were built? The Howe sewing-machine was not so complicated an apparatus as the ballista, or the chariot, used by the Assyrians and the other nations in the "fertile crescent," that curved from Alexandria to Babylon; and it was much easier and cheaper to make. Its construction requ

at it could not have been invented before some means of generating continuous electric currents had been invented. The printing-telegraph was not an invention of

$100,000,000. It seems to have passed through the three successive stages of conception, development and production. The idea of building a canal did not originate in 1846, or in the brain of De Lesseps; for the idea was very old, probably older than recorded history. But the only man who formed the mental picture in his mind and afterwards developed it into a concrete plan was De Lesseps. He did this; and his plan was so complete and coherent, and so

ne, except by means of that instrument. It has been done by that instrument ever since, and at an increasing rate. The canal was completed in 1869, and widened and deepened in 1886. It has shortened the water distance between England and India by about 7600 miles, and has had a tremend

d yet the French are more nearly allied by blood and language to the Romans than are the British. The Greeks and the French aimed to make life pleasant, by the aid of the fine arts and a general utilization of all that is delightful; while the Romans and the British, early in their careers, conceived the idea of dominion, embodied the idea in a concrete pl

out, however, that the Machine could not have been built, except under the stable conditions that large nations permit better than small nations do; and that it has been the endeavor to achieve dominion by aspiring tribes and nations, and th

hese inventions had a profound influence; but each was a new creation, and each formed a useful and d

the gunpowder of that day; but this does not mean that it possessed fifty times the energy. The action of gun-cotton is very much more sudden than that of gunpowder; and for that reason, it exerts a much greater force for an instant, and has much greater efficacy for such purposes as breaking into structures, bursting shells, etc. On the other hand, the very fact that its energy is developed with such suddenness, causes its force to fall to ze

s controlled by civilized nations (such as those in warships) would use torpedoes, and that therefore, whatever effect the torpedo might have on the Machine is neutralized by the fact that two civilized bodies use it against each other. True; but the fact that the torpedo and the gun-cotton in it require a high degree of civilization in the people who use it, gives civilized people an immediate and tremendous advantage over uncivilized people; and furthermore, the fact that the torpedo and the gun-cotton in it depend for their u

acid on glycerin (1847). The new explosive was more powerful than gun-cotton, but much more dangerous to handle. By reason

er, but against a myriad of small, secret, internal foes. The Machine is very expensive to maintain in operation, and so is every one of the little mechanisms of which it is composed. And each one of these little mechanisms, each bank, its business corporation, each company, each de

ions per hour. As it was a long step forward in the improvement of printing, this invention deserve

why twenty years elapsed between the invention of matches and the invention of a machine for making them. Inventing was not

o that the screw could be pushed forward quickly without the slow process of continuously turning it around, yet so arranged that the screw could be turned when near the end of its travel, and the force-gaining power of the screw-thread thus secured, seems to have been entirely new. Certainly the idea was original and brilliant and useful. To develop the idea into a concrete plan was not difficult, and neither was it diffic

ption is, the less will be the difficulty of developing it. He refuses to declare it, however, realizing that it would not be wholly true; and yet he wishes to point out that if a conception be wholly erroneous, it cannot be developed into any concrete plan whatever; and that many of the most brilliant conceptions, such as the fist-hammer, the flute, the telescope, the telegraph and the telephone were very easily developed into forms sufficiently concrete to make them practically usable. An idea itself is an extremely simple

of the same object are put on one card, one picture showing the object as it would look to the left eye from a given distance, and the other picture showing the object as it would look to the right eye. The two eyes of an observer look at the two pictures through the two halves of two convex lenses, that are so shaped that the two pictures are seen as one picture, but so superposed as to

nvention was especially novel or brilliant, but both were highly practical and useful contributions to the improvement of the Machine. In the same year also came Worm's

invention made an important contribution to the growing art of photography, mainly by supplying a stepping stone for further advances. In the same year, an important improvement was made in watch-making by inventing a watch-making

spectacularity. But the idea of what we now call "quantity production" has spread to all the fields of the manufacturing world, and is the basis of much of the enormous industrial progress of the last half

stepping stone to further progress. In the same year, Seymour produced his self-rakers for harvesters, and Gorrie invented the ice-making machine. Two

through it, and the lens being placed conveniently by the physician near the eye of a patient. The mirror reflects light from the lamp towards the patient's eye, and the convex lens concentrates them on whatever is to be examined-usually the interior

r direction, currents are "induced" in the secondary coil; the strength of the two currents varying relatively according to the sizes and lengths of the wires in the two coils. This invention has an interest apart from its usefulness, in the fact that Ruhmkorff invented it for purposes of scientific study, and that no utilization

another of his epochal contributions to photography, by inventing a process by which photographic half-tones could be produced. In the following year, a process was invented for making from wood a pulp that was very valuable as the b

mathematically guided experiments, and the outgrowth of an idea. In the following year, Melhuish invented photographic roll films, and Herman invented the rock dri

decomposing fats by hot steam. In the following year (1855), Lundstrom made the highly important invention of safety matches. When one reflects (as every one must at times) how great and absolutely irretrievable are the losses caused by

cted on the sides with sheets of iron and copper had been used by the Coreans in their victorious war against the Japanese about three hundred years before; but it

s to place the manufacture of steel on a basis entirely new, and to extend its field of employment greatly. And, as with many previous great inventions, this one paved the way for still other inventions, by indicating the possibility of still wider fields. The Bessemer process is not in the class with the typewriter or the telegraph, but in t

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ly and instantaneously over hundreds of miles of land; and the science of chemistry had arisen from the ashes of alchemy. As a result of this, the science of photography had been born, and had already begun its work, so varied and so useful. Physics had grown so surely and so greatly, that it had been divided into the separate but allied sciences of heat, light and electricity-including magnetism: the science of engineering had expanded so widely, that it also had been divided into other sciences-civil engineering, mechanical engineering, hydraulic engineering and electrical engineering: the science of medicine, because of the advances in chemistry and physics, had advanced at an equal rate: the gun had been so greatly improved, and gunpowder also, that such a degree of precision and range had been attained as to make the gun of 1800 seem crude indeed; and the improvement had been inevitably caused by the greater knowledge placed at the disp

ny cases, and had been altered for the worse in other cases. The unfavorable changes were mainly those produced by "factory life" which in 1850 must have been worse than country life for the same class of people. These cases were so greatly

ou cursed of Heaven's decree." One of the effects of increasing material prosperity is undoubtedly a tendency toward luxury. But the number of people thus affected

ut also in places distant. This gave an enormous stimulation to the minds of the people by exciting their interest: and it also gave to their minds both "food for thought" and almost unlimited opportunity for exercise. Before this period, only a small part of the population had a wide range of knowledge,

n almost any discovery would now, because we are so accustomed to new discoveries as almost to be sated. We know what excitement the first successful railway trips created. The coming of these new discoveries and inventions gave mental exercise in four ways:-first by stimulating the imagination with a picture it had never seen before, and whose

r even changed him so much that he will act very differently from a savage, under abnormal conditions. It does mean, however, that they have caused men so to adapt themselves to the new environment which inventions have created, that, while in that environment, they will for all practical purposes, be very different from savages. It means that under nearly all the conditions of living

as also the son of an Oxford graduate, though he was biologically the same as his barbarian ancestors of ten thousand years before, was nevertheless a much more refined, intelligent and courteous gentleman. Under certain abnormal conditions, such as intense thirst, hunger, jealousy, passi

hat each new man must begin where his last ancestor began, whereas each new invention begins where his last ancestor finished. This suggests that the changes produced in environment are more profound than the changes produced in men; that in fact the changes in environment are very profound, and the changes in men quite superficial. That this is really the case is indicated by the very long time needed to build up the en

ne to think, and makes us realize that it is not a natural production but one wholly artificial. Now nothing that is wh