Invention: The Master-key to Progress

by Bradley A. Fiske

So long as no weapons existed, struggles between men had to be decided by physical strength and cunning and quickness only. When the first flint fist-hammer was invented, a man who was sagacious enough and industrious enough and skilful enough to make one, could gain the victory over many another man of greater physical strength and quickness, but who had not the sagacity, industry and skill to provide himself with a flint fist-hammer.

Supposing the flint fist-hammer to be the first invention ever made, as many think it was, we see here the first instance of the influence of invention on history; because this first invention influenced the course of history in favor of men possessing sagacity, industry and skill, as against men not possessing those qualities. By doing this, it not only decided that such men (and tribes composed of such men) should prevail, but did even more to influence history; it induced men and tribes to make and develop and utilize inventions. This resulted in what we call civilization.

As each improved weapon followed its predecessor, a new demand was made;—not only for a new kind of skill on the part of the man making the weapon and on the part of the soldiers using it, but also for foresight on the part of the tribe or nation that would supply the weapon to its troops. It is easily realized that, if there were two contiguous tribes about to go to war against each other, one of which was ruled by a sagacious, energetic and far-seeing chief, while the other was ruled by a dull, slothful and short-sighted chief, the former chief would probably provide his warriors with the newest weapon (say, the bow and arrow) and train them in its use; whereas the other would ignore it and go to battle with clubs and javelins only. As between two tribes otherwise equally matched, the result would be obvious; and doubtless it was exceedingly obvious in hundreds of tribal battles, before the dawn of history.

It is a characteristic of evolution, as has been pointed out by wise men, that complexity eventually evolves from simplicity. In no one department of man's endeavor does this truth stand out more clearly than in the evolution of weapons. For the oldest weapon that we know of was probably a stone, or a stick used as a club; and each succeeding weapon has been more complicated than its predecessor,—needing additional parts with which to secure the additional results achieved. This increased complexity has entailed increased liability to derangement, because the failure of any one part has entailed the failure or the decreased effectiveness of the weapon as a whole. This increased liability to derangement has entailed a demand for not only increased care and skill in fabricating the weapon, but for increased knowledge, diligence and skill in caring for it, and using it.

The superiority of the gun over all previously existing weapons was quickly recognized, and every civilized nation soon adopted it as its major implement of war. As the gun was a piece of mechanism, it possessed the attribute which seems to give to pieces of mechanism an element of superiority over every other thing in the universe, the attribute of continual improvability. Human beings do not possess this attribute, nor does any other thing in nature, so far as we know. Every human being begins where his father did—and so does everything else on the earth; though human invention has recently made it possible for certain plants to be improved. No new invention ever dies as a man does, even if the material parts or immaterial parts that compose it are destroyed. On the contrary, it lives, in the sense that it exists as a definite usable entity, and also in the sense that it continues to propagate. And the things that it propagates do not begin as helpless and useless babies, but as mature creations. The first completed gun is still the model for the guns that men make now, and will continue to be the model for all guns in the future. The man who made the first gun has been succeeded by other men, as the first gun has been succeeded by other guns; but the human successors have been no improvement on the inventor of the first gun, while the guns that have succeeded the first gun have been improvements on it to a degree that it is difficult—in fact, impossible, to realize.

The relations of the gun to civilization are reciprocal, and are therefore in accord with most of the other phenomena of our lives; for just as the gun furthered the improvement of civilization, civilization furthered the improvement of the gun. Nearly every step taken in the physical sciences, and afterward in engineering and general mechanics, has had a direct effect in improving the gun. The gun began as an exceedingly rough, awkward and crude appliance; the gun today is one of the most highly specialized and perfect appliances that the world possesses.

But it is not only the gun itself that has been improved; the powder has also been improved, and to a degree almost equal, if not quite. When we realize that modern gunnery is so exact that if a gun is fired in any direction and at any angle of elevation, the projectiles will fall so close to a designated spot that all considerable variations in the points of fall from that spot are usually attributed to other causes than imperfection in the powder; and if we realize also that a variation of one per cent. in the initial velocity imparted to a projectile by its powder would result in a variation (practically speaking) of one per cent. in the range attained, we then may realize how perfectly understood the laws of the combustion of powder and the development of powder gas have become, and how perfect are the methods of manufacturing, storing and using it. Books upon books have been written on the subject of making and using gunpowder; and as high a grade of experimental ability has been employed as on the development of any other art.

It is not quite clear whether stationary cannon or small guns carried by soldiers were the first to be used; but the probability seems to be that cannon were the first. It soon became desirable to devise and to make appliances for holding the cannon in position, elevating them to predetermined angles, and transporting them from place to place. To accomplish these things, gun-carriages were invented. These appliances have kept pace with guns and gunpowder in the march of improvement; countless minor inventions have been made; countless experiments have been conducted; countless books and articles have been written; countless millions of money have been expended. That the field has been large can readily be realized, when we remind ourselves of the numberless situations that gun-carriages have had to be adapted to, on the level plains of Central Europe, in the mountains, on the sands of the desert,—in cold and heat and wet; and on the ocean also, in small vessels and great battleships, to handle cannon great and small, on the uneasy surface of the sea. But it will not be enough for us to realize that it has been necessary to construct gun-carriages so ingeniously that guns can be handled on them under all these circumstances; for we will fall short of a realization of what must be attained, unless we realize that the guns must be handled with safety, and (which is more difficult of attainment) with precision and yet with quickness.

Now to bring the gun and its accessories to the high standard they have now reached, the resources of virtually all the physical sciences have been required and utilized; so that, while modern civilization was made possible by the gun, and could not have been made possible without it, the modern gun has been made possible by civilization, and could not have been made possible without it.

This mutuality between civilization and the gun is evident in the relations between civilization and every other great invention. It is very clearly evident in the case of material mechanism; for it has been plainly impossible for any material invention to exist without directly and indirectly contributing to the improvement, and even to the birth, of others. Any improvement in the process of making any metal or any compound has always been of assistance to every mechanism using that metal or that compound; and it seems impossible to name any mechanism or process whose invention has not helped some other mechanism or process. In the matter of the invention of immaterial things, the effect may not be quite so obvious; and yet it is plain that most of those inventions have contributed to the safety, intelligence and stabilization of peoples, and therefore to a condition of mentality and of tranquillity that permitted and often encouraged the improvement of existing appliances, and the invention of new ones. Of one class of immaterial invention, such as new books on the physical and engineering sciences, the influence on material inventions is, of course, as obvious as it is profound.