INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES. The act of inven tion, like many other human activities, is difficult to define pre cisely. The distinction often made between invention and dis covery is not logically justifiable. For example, the great advance which primitive man made in the first use of pottery may be viewed either as the discovery of certain properties of burnt clay or as an invention in forming and hardening clayey materials into valuable utensils. As in this instance, most cases of inventive progress include both an element of discovery and an element of invention.
Definitions of the process of invention set up in the patent laws of most countries involve three fundamental ideas; novelty, utility and the ability of the device to work. With regard to the third point, for example, the rules of the U.S. patent office require that an inventor prove, on demand, that his device is operable. This is why inventors of pretended "perpetual motion" machines are asked first to demonstrate a working model. But even in patent law, exactness of definition of invention is difficult as is witnessed by the continual stream of patent cases in the courts of most countries.
The history of invention begins before that of mankind. Many inventions have unquestionably been made by animals ; for example, nests, a crude use of tools, the beginnings of language. It is probable, furthermore, that no distinction of kind can be drawn between the most modern inventions of man and very ancient animal "inventions" which have been crystallized into instincts like those of the ants or bees or in bodily devices like the flexible backbone of vertebrates, the force-pump heart or the warm blood of birds and mammals. It is customary and justifiable for evolutionists to speak of the "invention" of the backbone by some species of primitive worm which developed the ability to stiffen itself against the flowing water of ancient streams.
In the history of mankind as distinct from that of his more ancient animal ancestors, the most fundamental and useful inven tions were made, undoubtedly, before recorded history. Many lists of the "world's greatest inventions" have been prepared, all widely different. The following list of seven has no unusual author ity but is perhaps defensible.
Most important of all human inventions is probably the inven tion-discovery of the function of the seeds of plants, resulting in agriculture and in freeing mankind from dependence on acci dental finds of food. Next in practical importance although perhaps first in time, was the discovery of how to control fire. Third was the invention of pottery. These three are prehistoric. Their combined effect was to free man in considerable degree from threats of immediate starvation. Fire made available (by cooking) some foods not previously edible. Pottery dishes made it possible to cook foods more successfully and to store them for hours or days; pottery may have been both the result and partially the cause of settled houses, for fragile dishes could not be carried on daily wanderings and pot-stored foods in cave or hut created an incentive to return to that same spot at nights. Two other inventions of great human importance seem to have been made in ancient Babylonia, or close by in Indo-Persia. One is the invention of writing; the other the invention of standards of measurement, weight, time and money.
Two other great inventions are modern ones: the germ theory of disease imagined by Pasteur and the invention of tinned food. The method of preserving food in tins or other containers is probably defensible as the greatest of all inventions in historic times. Its effect has been to relieve mankind of dependence upon the annual harvest, since food can be carried over from year to year, or upon the local food supply, since canned food can be imported. It has been said that modern canned food for his armies would have enabled Napoleon to conquer the world. It is impossible to date the invention of food preserving precisely or to ascribe it to any individual. Like many of the world's greatest inventions and discoveries, the art was developed gradually over many years and by many individuals. It is significant that of the seven inventions just suggested; seeds, fire, pottery, writing, standards, the germ theory and canning, all except Pasteur's dis covery are hopelessly anonymous.
Other lists of this kind often include speech, the domestication of animals, the concept of medical treatment, the invention of weapons, the development of a form of government, the erection of buildings, and others. In each instance there seem definite rea sons for assigning these to lesser rank. Whatever theory one ac cepts as to the origin of speech, there can be little doubt that it was a slow development, beginning even in animals and characterized by a long series of small inventions; a word here, a bit of gram mar there, rather than by any definite inventive act. The same is true of the ideas of leadership and government—devices also familiar, in some degree, to man's animal cousins and probably to his ancestors.
Man's first rude huts probably grew naturally out of shelters made accidentally by fallen branches or perhaps in imitation of animal nests and lairs, like the nests that orang-utans still make in trees. Weapons, in the form of sticks or hurled stones, were prob ably also ape possessions long before man. One human invention of real importance was, however, that of the chipping or grinding of flint to make a sharp edge—an invention probably made many times independently in prehistoric days. The bow and arrow, in comparably the cleverest invention of prehistoric weapon makers, is of unknown history. There is some reason to believe it Asiatic and perhaps as ancient as the post-Neanderthal type of man.
The domestication of animals is another development probably slow, accidental and mutual; for the animals first domesticated must have gained much more than they lost by association with man. It is far more probable, for example, that dogs first adopted man than that man singled out the wild dog for a companion. The idea that mankind itself could cure its bodily ills—the central idea of medicine—is inextricably entangled historically with the ideas of religion and of magic ; indeed it can scarcely be said, even now, that any large percentage of mankind has real confidence in medical science as distinct from trusted, but mysterious, skill.
In addition to these items, prehistoric times must be credited with the beginnings of mechanics, hydraulics, metallurgy, naviga tion, chemistry and many other arts, including painting and sculp ture, well known from the caves of France. To prehistoric me chanics we owe the lever, the wedge, the saw and probably the pulley and rope. That remarkable invention, the wheel, was prob ably conceived in Europe or in Asia Minor relatively late in pre historic times, for the Asian migrants into North America who survived as the American Indians did not possess it. Among the most surprising facts in the history of invention is that this simple and useful idea seems never to have occurred to so large a frac tion of the human race.
The first known examples of practical hydraulics are the irri gation canals of Babylonia, but it is probable that both canals and wells were known to still earlier Asian peoples for the same purpose. Well drilling for water might be given rank, indeed, as one of man's really great inventions, were it not that it prob ably came about naturally and accidentally through the clean ing and deepening of springs as the water receded in times of drought. Drainage, sewerage and internal water supply to houses seem to have been arts begun in Babylonia and reasonably well understood by the time of the great Cretan civilization of nearly four thousand years ago. It is probable that man's first iron was obtained from meteorites found on the ground; perhaps acci dentally as a result of trying to chip flint weapons out of the hard, heavy mass. Copper holds rank as probably the first metal made by fire from its ores. Both the Egyptians and the Babylon ians evidently understood the metallurgy of this metal more than six thousand years ago.
Among the items of prehistoric chemistry are glazes for pot tery, fluxes for use in working gold and other metals, and some knowledge of opaque glass for beads; all of these were already highly developed at the time of the first recovered civilizations of Babylonia. Navigation, probably first discovered by the accident of floating on a log, seems to have developed independently and very differently at different places and times; as witness craft so diverse as the inflated skin boats of Asia, the American Indian canoe, the dug-out tree trunks of Africa and the Pacific Islands, and many others.
Last among great prehistoric inventions should be mentioned lamps and clothes, making man in some degree independent of darkness and cold. The adoption of clothing is so largely instinc tive that it seems to have happened over and over again with almost every conceivable material and with infinite variety of cus tom. The origin of lamps is still uncertain, although the first form was undoubtedly a crude wick floating in a dish of oil and was probably invented by those unknown forerunners of the Babylon ians to whom we also owe, it is believed, the knowledge of copper and of irrigation, the invention of writing and not improbably that of the wheel.
Within historic times, one interesting lost chapter of the his tory of invention is that of the beginnings of mechanism ; of things like treadmills and waterwheels and pumps. The first definite rec ords of such things go back to the Greek mechanicians of Alex andria, including Archimedes. However, the picture of mechanics and hydraulics in their day is already that of a well-developed science with a considerable history behind it. It is probable, too, that Greek miners were using stamping and grinding machines for ores several centuries earlier. Mechanical grist mills rotated by oxen, to replace the prehistoric mortar, devices to lift water for irrigation, primitive water clocks to measure time by the drip of fluid through a hole, are other candidates for the honour of the world's first mechanism. To decide between them is now impos sible.
The present century is characterized by what is called tech nology; it is sometimes called the "machine age." This modern civilization, differing in many fundamentals from any previous period of world culture, may be said to depend upon five basic inventions and discoveries. First of these, both in time and in importance, is the discovery of the use of coal as fuel and the resulting invention of a practicable steam engine. The principle of the steam engine was known 17 centuries ago. What made it practicable was coal fuel. Second is the improvement of the metallurgy of iron and steel; the chief steps of this being the perfection of the blast furnace, of the Bessemer converter and of the modern rolling mill. Third is the development of electric power; beginning with the physical researches of Oersted, Ampere, Henry and Faraday and culminating in modern dynamos and motors. More recent developments of electricity promise to revolutionize this science and to make it much more useful to man, as a result of the perfection of vacuum-tube methods of handling electrons, such as are used in radio. The fourth basic invention which may be said to support modern technology is the internal combustion engine, with its application to automobiles, motor boats, aircraft and other vehicles. The fifth is cement. Some observers might add others to this list; for example, telephony, cheap aluminium, the aeroplane or printing. It may be objected, however, that these are adjuncts to modern technology and im provements produced by it in the advantages of life, rather than fundamentals which lie at modern civilization's roots.
One invention in a somewhat different field is defensible, how ever, as among the most fundamental and important of modern times. This is the invention of the joint-stock, limited-liability company, typified by the modern corporation. It would be possi ble to argue that no social device in human history has accom plished so successfully the divorce of business policies or industrial undertakings from the hazards of individual human lives. Another gain to be credited to the idea of corporate organization is per fected continuity of information and experience from one genera tion to another.
Calculations are often made of the percentage of modern wealth due to invention, discovery and technology, as distinct from the unaided efforts of man. The following table summarizes one such estimate, rough but perhaps approximately correct for the average annual earnings of the citizens of the United States.
It should be noted, however, that in no case are these earnings due solely to invention or to its results. The growing ability of men to work together with each other (as is typified by the corporation) has become, in this modern world, one essential of the production of any income.
It is probably significant that among the activities shown in the table on P. 547, the one with the lowest percentage use of mod em technology (fisheries) is the lowest in total earning capacity.
Since the beginning of the loth century there has developed, chiefly in the United States, a system of invention and discovery which promises revolutionary results. This is what has been called "organized research." Large American corporations have estab lish well-equipped laboratories staffed by engineers and scientific men of proved ability. The idea is that the co-operative effort of organized, well-equipped staffs of specialists will progress farther and faster in scientific research and in invention or dis covery than is possible to the so-called "garret inventor" working alone with limited equipment and meagre funds.
It is noteworthy that this idea of co-operative research has been tried twice before in human history; first by Aristotle under the patronage of Alexander; second by the Alexandrian school in Egypt under the auspices of the Ptolemies. Little of permanent value in the field can be credited to the efforts of Aristotle. The Alexandrian school has a better record, since it is probable that the discoveries of fundamental principles in geometry, mechanics, hydraulics and pneumatics together with significant advances in optics were accomplished by the Alexandrian group. It is still too soon to determine the value to the world of the renewal of co operative research. The danger of mere "organized mediocrity" has been suggested. It remains to be seen whether it can be avoided as co-operative research laboratories grow older and per haps lose inspiration. It is already certain, however, that such co-operative investigation is able to pay dividends of almost immediate utility and money to the individual corporations which use it. , The constituents of what might be called "inventive ability" have not yet been made clear by the psychologists. The mental processes of an inventor may be separated, perhaps into two superficially different methods. One is sometimes called the "Edi sonian" method, because of its supposed employment by Thomas Alva Edison. This consists in trying all conceivable possibilities more or less at random. For example, when Edison desired a suitable filament for his electric lamp his procedure, it is said, was to test every thread-like or wire-like material which could be obtained. Thus was it discovered that carbonized bamboo fibre was a suitable material.
The other manifestation of the inventive process is what is loosely called the flash of genius; a sudden inspiration, apparently accidental, which provides the germ of the invention. Although the psychology of such inspiration is quite unknown, it may per haps be suggested that, after all, the process does not differ so markedly from the first and seemingly more laborious method. It is conceivable that the conscious inspirational flash which solves the inventor's problem really results from long turning over in his mind of the characteristics of the desired invention.
In any inventive process, therefore, it is probable that the essen tial thing is the inventor's ability to put together, either actually or in imagination, facts the possible mutual relations of which are not obvious. If this be true, the mental processes of the inventor must be nearly the same as those of the author inventing fictional plots. In both cases there must be added, however, a saving salt of critical ability; enabling an author to select plot combinations which are reasonable and workable, and an inventor to select for physical trial the particular imagined combinations of ideas which are most apt to bring practical success. (E. E. F.)