Invention: The Master-key to Progress. Fiske Bradley Allen

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СКАЧАТЬ no great number of people can work together. It was because of the absence of any machine that the Grecian states acted separately and antagonistically, instead of in cooperation.

      After subduing Greece, Alexander took his machine across the Hellespont, in the year 334 B. C., to try it on the Persian troops in Asia Minor. The machine worked so successfully at a battle on the Granicus that Alexander took it south, and with its aid was able to conquer all of Asia Minor in about a year.

      It may be objected that it is not correct to attribute all of Alexander's success to the excellence of his machine; and this objection would have great force and receive the approval of most people, for the reason that, in most histories, the main credit is given to the energy of Alexander and the courage of his troops; – though the excellence of the training and organization bequeathed by Philip is admitted.

      To this hypothetical objection the answer may be made that the ultimate result was due to both the machine and the excellence with which it was operated; that is, to the product of what the machine could do if it were used with perfect skill and the percentage of skill with which it was actually used. This statement is, of course, true of all machines and instruments, as the author has often pointed out, in articles and addresses.

      In the case of Alexander and his army, the percentage of skill, of course, was high; but Alexander and each one of his soldiers was only a part of the machine; and even their skill was part of the machine in the sense that it was a characteristic included in the original design of Philip. In other words, we should not fall into the error of dissociating the skill of Alexander and his soldiers from the machine itself; because it was part of Philip's invention that the training should produce that skill. The system of training was part of the invention.

      It is true, however, and exceedingly important, that the degree of skill which Alexander brought to bear personally was far in excess of what any system of training could possibly produce. When we read of the amazing victories that Alexander made over superior forces of highly trained warriors, we see that Philip of Macedon should not be given all the credit; that the genius of Philip of Macedon was not the only genius contributing to the result. We see that genius of some kind directed the decisions of Alexander. What were the characteristics of that genius?

      Courage? Yes; history tells of no one possessing higher courage, both physical and moral, than Alexander. Not only was he physically brave, not only did he dare physical danger of many kinds, and on many occasions, but he was morally brave; he did not shirk responsibility; he did not fear to take enormous risks; he did not hesitate to reject advice, even the advice of his most experienced and able generals; he was willing to stake everything, sometimes, on the success of some wholly untried expedient of his own devising.

      But does mere courage, even of so many kinds – and even if it be added to trained skill and the possession of an admirable machine – do they all together explain the amazing successes of Alexander? No. What does explain them?

      Genius? Yes, but the word genius is only a word, and explains nothing; for the reason that no one knows what the word genius means. It is merely a label that we attach to a man who is able to do things that other men cannot do. But granting that the possession of "genius" is an explanation of Alexander's being able to accomplish what he did, in what way did that genius operate? in what way did it help him to win so many victories and extricate himself from so many perilous situations?

      By inventing methods and devising schemes and improvising plans that an uninventive man would not have thought of. The story of the Gordian knot may or may not be true; but it seems credible, because it was exactly the kind of a thing that Alexander might have been expected to do in such an emergency. Posing as a great conqueror, he was (according to the legend) suddenly confronted with the untying of a knot, the successful accomplishment of which would make him master of Asia. He realized that he could not untie it. Any man but a man like Alexander would have tried it and acknowledged failure, or have declined to try it: placing himself in a defensive position in either case. But Alexander draws his sword and cuts the knot in two, thereby accomplishing whatever the untying of the knot would have accomplished, but in an unexpected way. Alexander's victories and escapes from perilous positions were largely accomplished by unexpected measures.

      But Alexander showed his inventive ability before he invaded Persia; in his very first campaign undertaken to subdue a revolt in Thessaly immediately after he ascended to the throne. The Thessalians opposed him in a narrow defile. An ordinary man would have thought, as the Thessalians did, that he was checkmated. But Alexander conceived and executed the ingenious scheme of cutting a new road up the steep side of the mountain, leading his army along that road, and suddenly threatening the Thessalians in their helpless rear. Shortly afterward in Thrace he reached a defile in the mountains which it was necessary for him to pass, but which he found defended by a force that had stationed a number of war-chariots at the top, to be rolled down on the Macedonians. Alexander immediately ordered his infantry to advance up the path and to open their ranks whenever possible to let the chariots rush through; but when that could not be done to fall on their knees and hold their shields together as a sort of roof on which the chariots would slide, and from which they would roll off. This amazing story is supposed to be true; and it is said to have succeeded perfectly.

      Not long afterward Alexander had to cross the Danube with his army and all their equipments and attack a force of barbarians on the farther bank. This he saw he could not do by the use of any means available of an ordinary kind. Nothing daunted, he conceived and executed the scheme of floating his equipments across at night in floats made of tent skins, filled with hay.

      The next clear example that we find of Alexander's inventiveness was when he undertook the siege of Tyre. Tyre stood on an island of Phœnicia in the extreme eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea. It was surrounded with a wall, very thick and very high, and was separated from the shore by half a mile of deep water. To capture such a place was no small undertaking for a man who had no ships. But Alexander conceived and executed a scheme that worked successfully. In accordance with that scheme, he built a causeway that extended from the shore out toward the island on which Tyre stood. Naturally, the Tyrians obstructed his efforts by sending fireships against him and firing projectiles; and these tactics became more and more effective as the causeway approached the city. Then Alexander visited some of the jealous neighbors of Tyre that had submitted to him, and secured a fleet of some eighty ships; and these he led, as the admiral commanding, against the Tyrian harbor.

      By this time, the causeway was well protected with catapults and war-engines of various kinds, and had been carried close up to the island. Yet little actual damage could be done to Tyre, because of the height and thickness of the walls, and because Alexander's galleys that he had equipped with war-engines could not get close enough, by reason of large boulders under water. Alexander then equipped certain galleys with windlasses to root up the boulders, the galleys being fitted with chain cables to prevent divers from cutting them. Tyre was soon afterwards reduced to a purely passive defense and consequent surrender.

      The story of the siege of Tyre, if read in the light of the conditions of the comparative barbarism of the world in those days, is a record of inventiveness, on the part of Alexander, so convincing and complete, as to entitle Alexander to a place in the first rank among the inventors of our race.

      Shortly afterward Alexander reached the town of Gaza, the great stronghold of the Philistines. It stood on high ground, and was more than two miles from the sea. Alexander's engineers reported to him that, as the fleet could not assist them, and as the walls were themselves very high and stood on a high hill, the walls could never be stormed. Things looked serious. They were serious; and failure would then have come to any man, except a man like Alexander. He cut the Gordian knot by ordering that ramparts be thrown up as high as the top of the walls, and war engines placed on the ramparts. This was done, and the city was taken.

      Alexander's campaigns in Egypt, and afterward in western Asia, were characterized by the same quickness and daring, both in conception and in execution, that СКАЧАТЬ