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

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СКАЧАТЬ was that of a code of laws. It is usually ascribed to a king named Hammurabi; but whether he was the real inventor or not, we have no means of knowing. We do know, however, that the first code of laws of which there is any record was invented in his reign, and that it was the prototype of all that have followed since.

      The influence on history of the invention and carrying into effect of a formulated code of laws, we cannot exactly gauge; but we may assert with confidence that modern civilization would not have been possible without codes of laws, and that the first code must have been more important than any code that followed, because it led the way.

      Both the Babylonians and the Egyptians seem to have made most of their inventions in the period of their youth, and to have become conservative as they grew older. The Babylonians were a great people until about the year 1250 B. C., when a subject city, Assur, in the north, threw off its allegiance and formed an independent state, Assyria. The decline of Babylonia continued until the fall of Assyria and the destruction of Nineveh, its capital, about the year 606 B. C., when the new Babylonian, or Chaldean Empire, came into existence. It enjoyed a period of splendid but brief prosperity until it was captured by Cyrus, king of Persia, in the year 538 B. C.

      Egypt's career continued until a later day; but it was never glorious in statesmanship, war or invention, after her youth had passed.

      A nation possibly as old as the Babylonian or Egyptian was the Chinese; but of their history, less is known. It is well established, however, that they possessed a system of picture writing in which each word was represented by a symbol. The system was much more cumbrous, of course, than the syllabic or alphabetical; but its invention was a performance, nevertheless, of the utmost brilliancy and importance, viewed from the light of what the world was then. There is little doubt also that the Chinese were the original inventors of the magnetic compass and of printing from blocks, two of those essential inventions, without which civilization could not have been brought about. Another of China's inventions was gunpowder; though it is not clear that the Chinese ever used it to propel projectiles out of guns.

      Achievements equally great, and maybe greater, were the creations of religions – Confucianism and Taoism, invented in China, and Buddhism, invented in India. These religions may seem to us very crude and commonplace and earthy; but we should not shut our eyes to the fact that they have probably influenced a greater number of human beings toward right living than any other three religions that we know of.

      Like Babylonia and Egypt, China became conservative as she grew older. At the present day, her name stands almost as the symbol of everything non-progressive and non-inventive.

      Assyria was able to capture Babylon about the year 1250 B. C., and to maintain the position of the dominant power in western Asia for about 600 years. A progressive and ambitious people, they accomplished an original and important step in the art of government by organizing conquered peoples into provinces under governors appointed by the king. It does not seem to be a great straining of the word to declare that this achievement was so novel, so concrete and so useful as to possess the essential features of an invention. For if we realize that during all the times that had gone by, conquered peoples had remained simply conquered peoples, paying tribute but not forming parts of the conquering state, we can see that the idea of actually incorporating them into the state, thereby increasing the population of the state by the number of people incorporated, and making the state stronger in that proportion, we can hardly fail to realize that the conception of doing this was of the highest order of brilliancy. To work out afterwards the details of developing the conception in such a way as to render possible the production of an actual and workable machine of government was a constructive act. When the machine was actually produced a new thing had been created. In other words, the institution of this new scheme in government seems to have followed the same three stages as the invention of a mechanical device; that is, conception, development and production.

      The likeness between this process and that of conception, gestation and birth is obvious.

      The Assyrians were evidently a very practical and constructive people, somewhat such people as the Romans later were. They devoted themselves to the practical side of life, and to this end they developed the governmental and the military arts. They were great warriors. The period of their greatest greatness was in the seventh and eighth centuries B. C., when the conquerors Sargon II and Sennacherib were kings. The splendor of the empire afterwards was conspicuous but not long lived; for after unifying the great nations of the Orient under Assyrian rule, and carrying on wars marked with the utmost of cruelty and oppression, they finally entered on a rapid decline in morals, and consequently in national prosperity and strength. The end came in 606 B. C., when a combined force of Medes and Babylonians captured and sacked the hated Nineveh, the capital. The intensity of the hatred against the Assyrians may be gauged by the completion of the destruction visited on Nineveh. When Xenophon saw its ruins only two centuries afterwards, he could not even ascertain what city those ruins marked.

      The Assyrians have left us clearer records of their achievements in the invention of weapons than has any other ancient nation. It is impossible to declare with certainty that all the seemingly novel weapons and armor which the ancient Assyrians possessed and used were invented by themselves, and not by the Egyptians or the Babylonians; but the mere facts that the Assyrians were the most military nation of the three, and that the specimens of those weapons which have come down to us have been mostly Assyrian, give probability to that supposition.

      The Assyrian soldier was finely equipped and armed as far back as the thirteenth century B. C.; and Assyrian bas-reliefs show that they actually used war-chariots then, drawn by horses and operated by armed warriors. The infantry soldiers wore defensive armor consisting of helmets, corslets made of skin or some woven stuff on which plates of metal were sewn, and sometimes coats of steel mail; with leggings to protect the legs. They carried shields, and were armed with lances, swords, slings and bows and arrows. The Assyrians employed cavalry, the horsemen wearing mail armor, and carrying shields and swords and lances. They employed archers also; the archers being sometimes mounted.

      The use of war-chariots, with all the mechanical equipment that was necessary, in order to make them operate effectively, shows a state of civilization much higher than many people realize. It shows also that a great deal of inventiveness and constructiveness must have been employed, and must have been skilfully directed; – for it is a very long road – a very long road indeed – from the bow and arrow to the war-chariot. In order to produce the war-chariot, several inventions must have previously been made. The most important of these was one of the most important inventions ever made, – the wheel.

      Who invented the wheel, and when and where did he invent it?

      This is one of the unanswered questions of history. The war-chariot suddenly appears on the stage, without any preliminary announcement, and without any knowledge on our part that even the wheel on which it moved had been invented.

      It is true that the records of prehistoric man show us that in fashioning pottery he used a disc that he revolved on a spindle and applied to the surface of the urn or vase; and it is also true that a revolving disc is a kind of wheel. But a disc revolving on a stationary spindle is in its intent and use a very different implement from a wheel placed on a chariot, and turned by the forward movement of the chariot itself, for the important purpose of reducing its resistance to being drawn along the ground.

      It is true also that invention was needed to produce the revolving disc, the forerunner of all the polishing and turning machines on the earth today. But the wheel was a different invention, probably a later one, and certainly a more important one. There are things sometimes seen in nature that look a little like revolving discs; for instance, swirls of dust or water. In fact, almost anything put in rotation looks like one, if the rotation is rapid enough; for instance, the sling that a primeval slinger revolved around his head. But what do we know of in nature that looks like a wheel, or that is used for a similar purpose? Nothing. This being the case, the mind may lose itself in speculation as to what could have СКАЧАТЬ