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

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      The duodecimal system of notation seems to have been the earliest system of notation invented; and it was an invention so important that we cannot imagine civilization without it and the decimal system, possibly its offspring. The influence of these two inventions on history has been so great that the mind is incapable of realizing its greatness, even approximately.

      Who were the inventors, we do not know. It is almost certain that none of our generation ever will know, and it is far from probable that any one of any generation will ever know. If any knowledge on this subject is ever given to the world, it will be knowledge of names only – only names. Yet some human beings, forgotten now and probably obscure even in their lifetimes, invented those systems, and contributed more to the real progress of the race than many of the great statesmen and warriors of history.

      The Babylonians invented measures of length, capacity and weight, also; and it is from those measures that all the later measures have been directly or indirectly derived. To have invented systems by which time, angle, distance, space, weight and volume were lifted out of the realm of the vague and formless into the realm of the definite and actual, was an achievement that almost suggests that noted in the first chapter of Genesis, in the words, "And God said 'Let there be light,' and there was light"; for what a clearing up of mental darkness followed, when the science of measurement turned its rays on the mysteries that beset the path of early man!

      The Egyptians seem to have been inventors, though hardly to the same degree as were the Babylonians. The Egyptians studied the heavens and employed a science of astronomy; and it is possible that they, rather than the Babylonians, should be credited with its invention. But it is not the intention of this book to decide points in dispute in history, or even to discuss them. Its intention is merely to study the influence that inventions and inventors had. Whether the name of an inventor was John Smith or Archimedes, whether he lived in the year 1000 or 1100, or which one of two rival claimants should be credited with the honor of any invention, is often an interesting question; but it is not one that is especially important to us, unless it casts light on the main suggestion of our inquiry. The only reason for mentioning names and dates and countries in this book is to show the sequence of inventions as correctly as practicable. In order to show the influence of invention on history it seems best to give the treatment of the subject an historical character.

      Possibly the most important invention of the Egyptians was papyrus, which was the precursor of the paper of today. The clay tablets of the Babylonians were clearly much less adapted to the making of many records than was papyrus. One cannot readily imagine an edition of 300,000 newspapers like the New York Times, made out of clay tablets an inch in thickness, and sold on the streets by newsboys. Clearly the invention of papyrus was one so important that we cannot declare any invention as more important, except on the basis that (other factors being equal) the earlier an invention was the more important it was. To assume such a basis would, of course, be eminently reasonable; because the earlier invention must have supplied the basis in part for the making of the later. The invention of writing, for instance, was more important than the invention of papyrus.

      A curious invention of the Egyptians was the art of embalming the bodies of the dead, an art still practiced in civilized countries. It was prompted by their belief that the preservation of the body was necessary, in order to secure the welfare of the soul in the future life. This belief resulted further in building sepulchres of elaborate design, filling them with multitudes of objects of many kinds, decorating the walls with paintings, sculptures and inscriptions, and placing important manuscripts in the coffins with the mummies or embalmed bodies. The sepulchres of the kings were, of course, the largest and most elaborate of all; and of these sepulchres the grandest were the pyramids. By reason of the great care and labor lavished on tombs and sepulchres and pyramids, and by reason also of the dryness of the air in Egypt, and the consequent durability of works of stone, it has been from the tombs that many of the clearest items of information have come to us about old Egyptian times.

      The Egyptians excelled in architecture, and the greatest of their buildings were the pyramids. As to whether or not there was much invention devoted to those works, it is virtually impossible now to know. The probability seems to be that they could not have been produced without the promptings of the inventor, but that the progress was a slow and gradual march. It seems that there was a long series of many small inventions that made short steps, and not a few basic inventions that proceeded by great leaps.

      The Egyptians seem to have been the inventors of arithmetic and geometry. What men in particular should most be credited with inventing them, we do not know; but that some men were the original inventors the probabilities seem to intimate. For these sciences were creations just as actual as the steam engine, and could hardly have been produced save by similar procedures.

      The suggestion may here be made that whatever we do is the result (or ought to be) of a decision to do it, that follows a mental process not very different from that invented by the German General Staff for solving military problems. By this process one writes down —

      1. The mission – the thing which it is desired to accomplish.

      2. The difficulties in the way of accomplishing it.

      3. The facilities available for accomplishing it.

      4. The decision – that is, how to employ the facilities to overcome the difficulties and accomplish the mission.

      In solving a military problem (or in solving many of the problems of daily life) it is often a matter of great difficulty to arrive at a clear understanding of what the mission actually is, what one really wishes to accomplish. In the majority of ordinary cases, however, the mission stands out as a clear picture in the mind. Such a case would be one in which an enemy were making a direct attack; for the mission would be simply to repel it. Another case would be one in which the mission was stated by the terms of a problem itself; for instance, to build a steam engine to develop 1000 horse power. In the case of the inventor, the mission seems to be sent to him as a mental picture; he suddenly sees a dim picture in his mind of something that he must make.

      Perhaps, many centuries ago, some man who had been laying out plots of ground in Egypt, of different shapes and sizes, and making computations for each one, suddenly saw a phantom picture in which all the lines and figures appeared grouped in a few classes, and arranged in conformity to a few fixed rules. The mission was given to him free, but it devolved on him to formulate the rules. As soon as he had formulated and proved the rules, the science of Geometry existed.

      It is interesting to note that the conception of the idea required no labor on the part of the conceiver. He was virtually a passive receiver. His labor came afterwards, when he had to do the constructive work of "giving to airy nothing a local habitation and a name."

      The Egyptians seem to have learned the use of many drugs, though they can hardly be said to have invented a system or a science of medicine. They did, however, invent a system of characters for indicating the weights of drugs. Those characters are used by apothecaries still.

      The first means of cure were incantations that evidently influenced the mind. It is interesting to note that modern systems tend to decrease the use of drugs and increase that of mental suggestion.

      Both the Babylonians and the Egyptians held religious beliefs; but it is doubtful if the religious beliefs of either were so definite and formulated that they could be correctly called religions, according to our ideas of what constitutes a religion. An interesting fact is the wide difference between the beliefs of the two peoples, in view of the similarity of many of the other features of their civilizations. The beliefs of neither can be called highly spiritual; but of the two, the Egyptian seems to have been the more so. The Egyptians believed that the souls of those who had lived good lives would be rewarded; while the Babylonian belief did not include even a judgment of the dead.

      One of the most important inventions made СКАЧАТЬ