Kitabı oku: «Invention: The Master-key to Progress», sayfa 16

In the following year, 1852, Channing and Farmer invented the fire-alarm telegraph, an important contribution to the safety of the Machine, though it did not come into general use for several years. In the same year, Fox Talbot made 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 basis of making paper, – and Faraday made three important discoveries. These were the laws of electro-magnetic induction, the relations of the dielectric to the conducting bodies in electro-static induction, and the laws of electrolysis.

These discoveries of Faraday were all inventions, in the sense in which the word invention is used in this book. Each one was the outcome of a series of careful and mathematically guided experiments, and the outgrowth of an idea. In the following year, Melhuish invented photographic roll films, and Herman invented the rock drill. The latter invention has been of the utmost practical value in blasting operations of all kinds, and must be regarded as a very distinct addition to the Machine.

In the same year, appeared the Smith & Wesson revolver; not a great invention, but an improvement in many ways over Colt's; Mr. A. B. Wilson brought out his four-motion feed for sewing-machines, and R. A. Tilghman invented his process for 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 fire each year, how the amount of possible destruction grows each year exactly as fast as the Machine grows, and realizes how large a fire many a small match has caused, he feels inclined to give a mental salute to Mr. Lundstrom of Sweden.

In the same year, iron-clad floating batteries were used in the Crimean War. This was not the first time that iron-clad vessels had been employed, for vessels protected 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 was the first time that such vessels had appeared in Europe. Cocaine was invented the same year, and one of the most valuable anæsthetics yet known was then produced.

But the most valuable contribution to the Machine in 1855 was Henry Bessemer's epochal invention of making steel by blowing air through molten cast iron, until enough of the carbon had been burnt off to leave a steel of whatever quality was desired. This invention reduced the cost of making steel, and the time required, in so great a degree as 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 the class with the gun; for it does things itself. It would be difficult to specify any invention (except one produced at a much earlier time) that has had more influence, and more good influence, on history than Bessemer's. No one can look out of his window in any town or city, without seeing some of the innumerable products of Bessemer's idea.

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Our record has now brought us to the middle of the nineteenth century. The conditions of living in 1850 were greatly different from those of 1800. In fifty years, the physical conditions of living and of carrying on business of all kinds, had improved more than in the century between 1700 and 1800, more than in the two centuries preceding 1700, and more than in the ten centuries from 500 and 1500. Rapid transportation over the land in railroad trains for both passengers and freight had largely replaced the slow transportation methods of 1800; and, in an almost equal degree, steam transportation at sea had replaced transportation by sails. The printing press had been developed from a crude and slow contrivance, worked by a hand, to a magnificent mechanism worked by steam: the electric battery had been improved into an appliance of the utmost reliability and usefulness; telegraph lines stretched over the continents, and messages were sent surely 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 disposal of ordnance officers, by the advances in chemistry, heat, light, electricity, magnetism and the various engineering arts. The introduction of illuminating gas, the improvements in forging, casting and turning metals, had made possible the building of edifices, and the fabrication of better and cheaper utensils of every kind: improvements in the means and methods of spinning, knitting and weaving had bettered the materials that people wore upon their persons: improvements in rubber manufacture had made possible the use of waterproof garments; crops could be gathered more quickly and surely: safety from fire had been increased: methods of heating houses had been vastly improved: and the discovery of anæsthetics had relieved civilized man in great degree from his most distressing single enemy. As a result, the people of every civilized country lived under conditions of comfort far greater than had ever been known before in similar climates.

The facts and conditions detailed above relate almost wholly to the material conditions of living, and show that, for most people, they had been enormously improved: though it is noteworthy that for the very poor, they had not improved in many 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 in the minority, however, as not to affect the main proposition that the advance in civilization from 1800 to 1850, caused by new inventions, had improved the material conditions of living for the great majority of the people affected by them.

That it was desirable that these conditions should be improved, some people may be disposed to deny; pointing out that the improvement tended to develop "luxury, thou 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 was so very small in the period from 1800 to 1850, and the degree of luxury attained then was so slight, that this question need hardly be discussed, at this point.

But the mental condition of the people had changed as greatly as the physical conditions of their environment. The immediate cause of this change was, of course, the printing press, which disseminated the thoughts of thinking men broadcast, and told of events that were occurring not only in places near, but 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, or a large number of subjects to think about. Their lives were exceedingly monotonous, and would have been exceedingly dull, had it not been for the continuous necessity of combating the inconveniences of every-day life by continual toil of one kind or another. There were very few subjects of conversation.

But the printing-press told the people of other things besides the events that were taking place; it told them also of new discoveries and inventions that were being made, and of the effects they would produce. The news of a great discovery or invention must have created more excitement in 1831 when the discovery of chloroform was announced, than 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 possibilities reached no one could guess how far; second by stimulating the logical powers to reason out and understand the principles underlying each discovery or invention; third by stimulating the memory to engrave upon its tablets certain new and important facts; and fourth, by stimulating the inventive faculties, to carry inventions further.

Thus, the influence of new inventions was to change a man's environment, both physical and mental. Now every man is said to be the product of his environment and his heredity; so that the influence of these new inventions was to change men to a degree proportional to the degree by which they changed their environment. This does not mean that inventions have changed man biologically, or 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, a gentleman in civilized society will be a gentleman – courteous, refined, law-abiding and moral. It does not mean that he will be perfect, but that he will be very much more courteous, refined, law-abiding and moral than a savage; and it means, in consequence that the society of civilized people in general will possess these characteristics much more than any society of savages does.

Not only, however, have these inventions changed the environment of civilized man, they have changed his heredity also; because they had previously changed the environment of his parents, grandparents and other ancestors. The graduate of Oxford of 1850, the son of an Oxford graduate who was 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, passion or unlooked-for temptation he might act as badly as a savage: – in fact such men sometimes do. But nevertheless, the fact that in 99 % of the conditions under which he lives he acts as a gentleman and not as a savage makes him 99 % a gentleman, and only 1 % a savage, during his mortal life.

Thus inventions, while originating (or seeming to originate) in the minds of men, change the environment of men, and this changes the men. Of the two changes, it would be easy to say that the change made in the men is the more important; but would it be truthful to say so? We have already noted the curious fact that inventions have the faculty of self-improvement to a degree far greater than men have it; for the reason that 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 environments of civilization, and the very short time needed for men to adapt themselves to those environments, or to any changed conditions. The fact has often been noted (sometimes with chagrin) that highly refined gentlemen adapt themselves with extreme facility to the often primitive environments of hunting or campaigning, and history shows in many instances how quickly barbarians have adapted themselves to civilization.

This leads us to suspect that the Machine which inventions have built up may not be of so much permanence as we are prone to think, and makes us realize that it is not a natural production but one wholly artificial. Now nothing that is wholly artificial can reasonably be expected to be permanent, unless adequate and timely measures are taken to insure it.

CHAPTER XI
INVENTION AND GROWTH OF LIBERAL GOVERNMENT, AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

While the period from 1800 to 1850 was alive with inventions of many sorts, it was alive also with the economic changes which the inventions caused and with political changes also. It was in the United States of America that the greatest changes of all kinds came. This was to be expected from the fact that before 1800 the United States were considerably behind the countries of Europe from which their own civilization had been derived; whereas in 1850, they had been able to get abreast of them, by reason of the quickness of transportation and communication that ocean steamers gave, and the energy and enterprise of the new American nation. During the period from 1800 till 1850, the United States went through three successful wars; one with Great Britain, one with Algiers and one with Mexico. They expanded also over a considerably greater territory, acquired a much greater population, added new states, and showed such aptitude in scientific discovery and invention as to achieve a place in the first rank of nations in this particular.

The Constitution of the United States may be characterized as a great invention, in the meaning of the word which is used in this book; and until 1850, it had worked with a success that surprised many of the statesmen and scholars of Europe. The problems placed before the nation had been many, various and difficult; but all had been solved with a sufficient degree of success for practical purposes; and the resulting situations had, on the whole, been met with courage, energy and intelligence. The Monroe Doctrine had been treated with respect, if not with entire acquiescence; the conduct of the Navy in the War of 1812 had demonstrated to Europe the fighting ability of our people; our scientific men, such as Franklin and Henry, ranked as high as any who had ever lived in any country; certain of our statesmen such as Franklin, held equal rank with statesmen anywhere; and the invention and first use of the electric telegraph had put America ahead of every other country in inventions of a basic kind.

When we realize the rapid growth of the United States in the half century 1800–1850, and realize also that it was a growth almost ab initio, and note that the engineering materials of all kinds and all the knowledge of science in the country had come from Europe, we must admit that it is to the influence of invention, more than to any other one thing, that we owe the rapid progress of our country. As is the case with individuals, nations are prone to extol their own successes, and to take the entire credit for them. Americans are apt to thank themselves only for their amazing progress; but, in fairness, they should admit that without the inventions made in Europe and by Europeans, they would have had no means for even starting. The first locomotive used in the United States was brought from England.

In Great Britain, the wars with France were under full headway in 1800, and her statesmen knew that she was faced with a danger so great that only the most strenuous exertions, and the utmost naval and military skill could overcome it. This danger was not overcome till the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. Thereafter, the progress of the nation was fairly quiet and assured, the main difficulties centering in the deplorable condition of the working classes, serious disturbances in Ireland and the mutiny in India.

In few matters has the influence of invention been greater than in the relations between Great Britain and India. In 1564 a company called the Merchant Adventurers had been formed for competing with the merchants of Spain, Venice, Holland and other countries. A company coming into existence shortly afterward was the East India Company, formed for trading with India, Persia, Arabia and the islands in the Indian Ocean. The company was chartered by the Crown and had a monopoly of a certain territory. The object was that the company should not only make money for itself, but promote the welfare of Great Britain and her subjects, by taking out manufactured goods, and bringing back raw materials and coin. During the seventeenth century, naval wars took place with Holland, and in the eighteenth century with France; both originating in commercial and colonial rivalry – especially in regard to India. Both wars were won by Great Britain. The Seven Years' War in particular ended to the advantage of Great Britain, as regards India; for France was left with only a few trading stations. By 1773, the East India Company was in virtual control of India; but in 1784 William Pitt secured political control of it by the Government. Napoleon realized the importance of India and sent an army there to recover control, but without success. The Crimean War that began in 1853 between Russia and Turkey was joined by Great Britain in 1854 because she feared that Russia would flank the British route to India through the projected Suez Canal. This war ended to the advantage of Great Britain, and the danger to India was removed.

Now the whole area of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland is only about 121,000 square miles, while that of India is about 1,803,000, nearly fifteen times as great. The population of the United Kingdom in 1917 was about 45,370,000, while that of India was about 315,156,000, or nearly seven times as great. Yet Great Britain has secured the complete mastery of India! How has she been able to do it? The easiest answer would be that the British are a "superior" people. Even if they are, such an answer would explain nothing, unless the means be indicated by which the superiority was made effective in conquering India. The superiority evidently did not consist in courage or physical strength, which were obvious factors in achieving the victories in the field that were necessary, for those qualities were shown equally by the Indians. But if we should answer that the British succeeded for the reason that they could bring to bear superior weapons, equipments, means of transportation, means of communication, methods of organization and methods of operation, we evidently would explain what happened adequately and convincingly. Now all these facilities the British had available; they had been invented and were ready.

One of the important influences of invention on history therefore, has been to give Great Britain control of India.

In France, the changes in economic and political conditions rivaled the changes that one sees take place in Sir David Brewster's kaleidoscope. In 1800 Napoleon had been First Consul, in 1804 emperor, in 1814 an emperor and then an exile, in 1815 an emperor and then an exile. France was a kingdom from then until 1848, and then a republic till 1852, when she again became an empire, under Napoleon III. The virtual anarchy following the Revolution had been crushed out and replaced with order; and the menace to republican institutions had been removed by the genius of Napoleon I, who then established an autocracy of a kind that, though arbitrary, was so wise and broad-viewed as to be beneficent on the whole. The result of all was that in 1850, France was in a condition of civilization and prosperity that was amazing to one who remembered the conditions of 1800.

When we analyze the causes of the evolution of order and prosperity out of the conditions of 1793, and the later conditions of 1800, we can hardly fail to realize the greatest single cause was the same cause as that of Napoleon's victories. It was the mind that conceived and developed and brought forth; the mind that invented so amazingly.

That many other causes may be named need hardly be pointed out. In the complex affairs of human life, every result is the resultant of many causes; but in most of those affairs, most of those causes are always present; so that we have to find an unusual cause to explain an unusual condition or event. It would be easy to say that the cause of France's return to a condition of law and order was that the condition of anarchy was abnormal; and that France simply returned to her normal state, as a wave does after it has risen above or fallen below the level of the sea. But would this be true? Is the condition of anarchy more abnormal than the condition of law and order? Which was the condition of primitive man? Which is an artificial product of man's invention? Is it not logical to conclude from the record of invention's influence that it was man's inventions that brought into existence the artificial condition of law and order which existed in France prior to 1793, and that it was also man's inventions that restored it afterward? Three ideas were conceived in France and developed into the Revolution: these ideas were the principles of equality, of the sovereignty of the people and of nationality. After the overthrow of Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna met to readjust the affairs of Europe. The Congress seems to have conceived the idea of preventing the carrying out of those principles as their first starting point, and to have developed that idea with fixed determination. The Commissioners endeavored to restore everything to its condition before the Revolution, and to discredit the principles conceived and developed in France. They succeeded in accomplishing their intent, so far as remaking political boundaries, etc., was concerned; but they did not succeed in discrediting the principles. A great picture had been made in the minds of men, and the Commissioners could not wipe it out. As a result, three revolutions took place in 1820, 1830 and 1848, of which the second was more important than the first, and the third was more important than the second.

Shortly after the fall of Napoleon, the Czar Alexander, with the emperor of Austria and the king of Prussia, invented the Holy Alliance. It was in pretense an alliance to advance the cause of religion, and to reduce to practice in political affairs the teachings of Christ; but it was in intention a league against the spread of the ideas embodied in the French Revolution. The League was not successful in the end, for the picture of liberty made in the minds of men was too brilliant and too deeply printed to be wiped out. One of the results of the Holy Alliance was the invention by the United States of the Monroe Doctrine which was made to prevent that intervention in affairs on the American continent which the proceedings of the Alliance foreshadowed.

Italy was very harshly treated by the Congress of Vienna, two of her largest provinces in the north being given to Austria, who forthwith proceeded then to try to control the entire peninsula. In 1820, a revolution broke out in Italy, but it was soon suppressed. Another broke out in 1830, simultaneous with that in France; and this was also suppressed. The third, in 1848, met a similar fate. But the revolutions in France were successful; the one of 1848 resulting in the formation of a republic. At the same time, a sympathetic revolution in Germany was in a measure successful also.

In Germany, the formation of the German Confederation in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna was the formation of a kind of political body that has never lasted long; for no political body has ever lasted long, except an actual and definite nation. The various components of the German Confederation were too loosely bound together. This invention, like others of mechanical machines, was not a practical invention because the machine invented was too easily thrown out of adjustment. The Customs Union was invented in 1828 to supply the necessary element of coherency. It was hardly adequate for its task, at the time; but it made the people think of national union; an idea that was finally developed in 1871.

In Russia, considerable progress was made from 1800 to 1850, though not so much as in the countries farther west. An adequate reason would seem to be that there were too few minds, in proportion to the entire population, that were able to conceive and develop the ideas that are needed to make progress.

During this half-century, while the names of many men stand out as having done constructive work in invention and discovery, and while many great statesmen existed, the names of three statesmen stand out more brightly than the rest: Pitt, Talleyrand and Metternich. Each had the mind to conceive, develop and produce; and each did conceive, develop and produce. Of the three, William Pitt was, according to almost any accepted standard by far the greatest, and Talleyrand was second. Without the force and guidance of such a mind as Pitt possessed and utilized, it is hard to estimate what would have been the rôle of England in the Napoleonic wars, and what would have been her fate. In the actual course of events, it was England that announced the "mate in four moves" to Napoleon at Trafalgar, and that finally checkmated him at Waterloo. True, Pitt died long before Waterloo; but the policy which he conceived and developed was the policy which was followed; and the influence of his mind lived in almost unabated strength after his poor, frail body had ceased to live.

Talleyrand seems to have been what I have asked permission to call an "opportunistic inventor"; quick to conceive, develop and produce plans for meeting difficult situations as they arose, but without any ultimate objective, or any moral or other principles of any kind. Metternich, on the other hand, though lacking the brilliancy of Talleyrand, exerted his talents devotedly to the interests of his country, as he saw them. But he failed to realize how deep the ideas of the French Revolution had been engraved in the minds of men, and finally saw the Machine of the Austrian Government almost destroyed in 1848. He himself was forced to flee; and the Emperor was forced to abdicate in favor of his nephew, who granted the people a Constitution, in order to save the Machine. In Prussia, affairs went almost as far as in Austria, though not nearly so far as in France. The Machine in Prussia was saved by the promise of the granting of a constitution.

The main ultimate political result of the agitations of all kinds during the half century 1800 to 1850, was the granting to greater numbers of people of a part in directing the affairs of State. In France, the whole Machine of Civilization had been menaced with destruction in the years just previous to 1800; but destruction had not resulted, and actual improvement had been begun by 1800, though in an experimental and tentative way. During the fifty years now under consideration, the idea conceived and developed in France spread to all other civilized countries; and in all those countries it exercised its benignant influence, especially in the new nation across the Atlantic, the United States of America. Reciprocally, the news of the formation of that republic, and the adoption of its Constitution in 1787, had exercised considerable influence in giving support to the idea of the people of France, although the United States of America was very far away indeed, and her experiment in government was as yet untried. Then, as the years went by, between 1800 and 1850, and as the American experiment became increasingly successful, and as the ocean steamships brought prompt and adequate information about all of its developments, the American idea joined with the French idea, to advance the cause of government by the people.

It may be pointed out here that the discoveries in the physical sciences and the utilization of those discoveries in the invention of material instruments and mechanisms were more fruitful in creations of a permanent and definite character than were the achievements of statesmen, generals, admirals and "opportunistic inventors" in general. The same remark is true of discoveries and inventions in systems of government, ethics and religion. These also have developed monuments of extraordinary permanency; witness, for instance, the inventions of the kingdom, of democracy and of the Buddhist, Shinto, Taoist, Jewish, Christian and Mohammedan religions. The distinctive feature in securing permanency seems to have been the intent to secure it. The sudden conception, development and production of a campaign, political maneuvre or business enterprise, seems to have produced a creature that was merely a temporary expedient, adapted only to meet emergencies that themselves were temporary.

This does not mean that the influence of these temporary expedients has not sometimes been great: it does not mean, for instance, that the influence of the victory at Salamis was not great. It does not mean to deny the plain fact that it has been the succession of the results of temporary expedients that has brought affairs to the condition in which they are today. It does mean, however, that the actual pieces of the existing Machine of Civilization are the permanent inventions which have been made; while the opportunistic inventions have in some cases prevented, and in other cases have furthered, the making of those inventions, and the incorporation of them in the Machine. The invention of printing, for instance, produced an actual part of the Machine; while the successful wars waged by civilized nations with the gun against savages, barbarians and peoples of a lower order of civilization, made possible the further development of printing, and its continual use in upbuilding the Machine. The use of the opportunistic inventions seems to have been in assisting the inventors of permanent creations and in directing the efforts of the operators of the Machine.