IN'VALIDS, those soldiers or sailors who, either on account of wounds or length sf service, are admitted into hospitals, and there maintained at the public ex pense. The practice of making provision for soldiers worn out or disabled in the public service dates from high antiquity. The liberality of Pisistratus to the Athe nian soldiers is known to every scholar ; and the history of ancient Rome is re plete with instances of the veterans of the legions being rewarded with grants of laud. It must be admitted, however, that in ancient times such recompenses had not their origin in that high philanthropic feeling by which the moderns are actu ated in making provision for military and naval invalids; for they were granted only after victory, and emanated morn from individual power or favor titan from any general or established principles of benevolence. In modern times there is no civilized country without institutions for the maintenance of invalids ; but the most magnificent are, without question, the Greenwich and Chelsea hospitals in England, and to France the like' des In INVEN"f ION, the action or operation of finding out something new ; the con trivance of that which did not liefor6 ex ist ; as, the invention of logarithms ; the in vention of the art of printing ; the inven tion of the orrery. Invention differs from
discovery. Invention is applied to the contrivance and production of something that did not before exist. Discovery brings to light that which existed before, but which was not known. We are in debted to invention for the thermometer and barometer. We ore indebted to dis covery for the knowledge of the islands in the Pacific ocean, and for the knowl edge of galvanism, and many species of earth not formerly known. This distinc tion is important, though not always oh served.—That which is invented. The cotton gin is the invention of Whitney ; the steamboat is the invention of Fulton. The Dorie, Ionic. and Corinthian orders are said to be inventions of the Greeks; the Tuscan and Composite are inventions of the Latins.—In pointing, the finding or choice of the objects which are to enter into the composition of the piece.—In poetry, it is applied to whatever the poet adds to the history of the subject—In rhetoric, the finding and selecting of ar guments to prove and illustrate the point in view.