THE SUPREME IMPORTANCE OF WATT
It is speaking well within bounds to say that no other invention within historical times has had so important an influence upon the production of property—which, as we have seen, is the gauge of the world's work—as this invention of the steam engine. We have followed the history of that invention in some detail, because of its supreme importance. To the reader who was not previously familiar with that history, it may seem surprising that after a lapse of a little over a century one name and one alone should be popularly remembered in connection with the invention; whereas in point of fact various workers had a share in the achievement, and the man whose name is remembered was among the last to enter the field. We have seen that the steam engine existed as a practical working machine several decades before Watt made his first invention; and that what Watt really accomplished was merely the perfecting of an apparatus which already had attained a considerable measure of efficiency.
There would seem, then, to be a certain lack of justice in ascribing supreme importance to Watt in connection with the steam engine. Yet this measure of injustice we shall find, as we examine the history of various inventions, to be meted always by posterity in determining the status of the men whom it is pleased to honor. One practical rule, and one only, has always determined to whom the chief share of glory shall be ascribed in connection with any useful invention.
The question is never asked as to who was the originator of the idea, or who made the first tentative efforts towards its utilization,—or, if asked by the historical searcher, it is ignored by the generality of mankind.
So far as the public verdict, which in the last resort determines fame, is concerned, the one question is, Who perfected the apparatus so that it came to have general practical utility? It may be, and indeed it usually is the case, that the man who first accomplished the final elaboration of the idea, made but a comparatively slight advance upon his predecessors; the early workers produced a machine that was almost a success; only some little flaw remained in their plans. Then came the perfecter, who hit upon a device that would correct this last defect,—and at last the mechanism, which hitherto had been only a curiosity, became a practical working machine.
In the case of the steam engine, it might be said that even a smaller feat than this remained to be accomplished when Watt came upon the scene; since the Newcomen engine was actually a practical working apparatus. But the all-essential thing to remember is that this Newcomen engine was used for a single purpose. It supplied power for pumping water, and for nothing else. Neither did it have possibilities much beyond this, until the all-essential modification was suggested by Watt, of exhausting its steam into exterior space.
This modification is in one sense a mere detail, yet it illustrates once more the force of Michelangelo's famous declaration that trifles make perfect; for when once it was tested, the whole practical character of the steam engine was changed. From a wasteful consumer of fuel, capable of running a pump at great expense, it became at once a relatively economical user of energy, capable of performing almost any manner of work.
Needless to say, its possibilities in this direction were not immediately realized, in theory or in practise; yet the conquest that it made of almost the entire field of labor resulted in the most rapid transformation of industrial conditions that the world has ever experienced. After all, then, there is but little injustice in that public verdict which remembers James Watt as the inventor, rather than as the mere perfecter, of the steam engine.