Bradley A. Fiske
Invention: The Master-key to Progress
Published by Good Press, 2021
EAN 4057664592613
Table of Contents
INVENTION, THE MASTER-KEY TO PROGRESS
CHAPTER I INVENTION IN PRIMEVAL TIMES
CHAPTER II INVENTION IN THE ORIENT
CHAPTER III INVENTION IN GREECE
CHAPTER IV INVENTION IN ROME: ITS RISE AND FALL
CHAPTER V THE INVENTION OF THE GUN AND OF PRINTING
CHAPTER VI COLUMBUS, COPERNICUS, GALILEO AND OTHERS
CHAPTER VII THE RISE OF ELECTRICITY, STEAM AND CHEMISTRY
CHAPTER VIII THE AGE OF STEAM, NAPOLEON AND NELSON
CHAPTER IX INVENTIONS IN STEAM, ELECTRICITY AND CHEMISTRY CREATE A NEW ERA
CHAPTER X CERTAIN IMPORTANT CREATIONS OF INVENTION, AND THEIR BENEFICENT INFLUENCE
CHAPTER XI INVENTION AND GROWTH OF LIBERAL GOVERNMENT, AMERICAN CIVIL WAR
CHAPTER XII INVENTION OF THE MODERN MILITARY MACHINE, TELEPHONE, PHONOGRAPH, AND PREVENTIVE MEDICINE
CHAPTER XIII THE CONQUEST OF THE ETHER—MOVING PICTURES—RISE OF JAPAN AND THE UNITED STATES
CHAPTER XIV THE FRUITION OF INVENTION
PREFACE
To show that inventors have accomplished more than most persons realize, not only in bringing forth new mechanisms, but in doing creative work in many walks of life, is, in part, the object of this book. To suggest what they may do, if properly encouraged, is its main intention. For, since it is to inventors mainly that we owe all that civilization is, it is to inventors mainly that we must look for all that civilization can be made to be.
The mind of man cannot even conceive what wonders of beneficence inventors may accomplish: for the resources of invention are infinite.
The author is indebted to Ginn & Company, Boston, for the use of illustrations from "General History for Colleges and High Schools," by Philip Van Ness Myers, and "Ancient Times, A History of the Early World," by James Henry Breasted, and to George H. Doran Company, New York, for the use of a map from "A History of Sea Power," by William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott.
INVENTION, THE MASTER-KEY
TO PROGRESS
CHAPTER I
INVENTION IN PRIMEVAL TIMES
Our original ancestors dwelt in caves and wildernesses; had no sewed or fabricated clothing of any kind; subsisted on roots and nuts and berries; possessed no arts of any sort; were ignorant to a degree that we cannot imagine, and were little above the brutes in their mode of living. Today, a considerable fraction of the people who dwell upon the earth enjoy a civilization so fine that it seems to have no connection with the brutish conditions of primeval life. Yet, as these pages show, a perfectly plain series of inventions can be seen, starting from the old conditions and building up the new.
The progress of man during the countless ages of prehistoric times is hidden from our knowledge, except in so far as it has been revealed to us by ruins of ancient cities, by prehistoric utensils of many kinds, and by inscriptions carved on monuments and tablets. The sharp dividing line between prehistoric times and historic times, seems to be that made by the art of writing; for this epochal invention rendered possible the recording of events, and the consequent beginning of history.
Of prehistoric times we have, of course, no written record; and we have but the most general means of estimating how many millenniums ago man first had his being. Geological considerations indicate a beginning so indefinitely and exceedingly remote that the imagination may lose itself in speculations as to his mode of living during those forever-hidden centuries that dragged along, before man had advanced so far in his progress toward civilization as to make and use the rude utensils which the researches of antiquarians have revealed.
Inasmuch as the most important employment of man from his first breath until his last has always been the struggle to preserve his life; inasmuch as the endeavor of primeval man to defend himself against wild beasts must have been extremely bitter (for many were larger and stronger than he), and inasmuch as man eventually achieved the mastery over them, one seems forced to conclude that man overcame wild beasts by employing some means to assist his bodily strength, and that probably his first invention was a weapon.
The first evidences of man's achievements that we have are rude implements of stone and flint, evidently shaped by some force guided by some intelligence;—doubtless the force of human hands, guided by the intelligence of human minds. Many such have been found in caves and gravel-beds over all the world. They were rough and crude, and indicate a rough and crude but nevertheless actual stage of civilization. Some call this the Old Stone Age and others call it the Early Stone Age. Besides stone and flint, bones, horns and tusks were used. Among the implements made were daggers, fish-hooks, needles, awls and heads of arrows and harpoons. One of the most interesting revelations of those rude and immeasurably ancient implements is the fact that man, even in those times, possessed the artistic sense; for on some of them can be seen rough but clear engravings of natural objects, and even of wild animals.