Invention: The Master-key to Progress

by Bradley A. Fiske

Men of purely constructive ability have not of themselves taken very conspicuous parts on the stage of history; and yet the things that they have constructed comprise nearly all that we can see and hear and touch in the world of civilization. Thus history, while it is a narrative of things that have been done, is not a narrative of all the things that have been done, but only of the new and striking things. It is a narrative of wars, of the rise and fall of nations, of the founding of cities, of the establishment of religions and theories, of the writing of books, of the invention of mechanisms, of the painting of pictures, of the carving of statues; in general, of the creative work that man has done.

The merely constructive man, unless he has been inventive also, has never constructed anything of a really novel kind. It is a matter of everyday experience that nearly all the things that are constructed are according to former patterns and the lessons of experience. All the constructive and engineering arts and sciences are studied and practiced for the purpose of enabling men to build bridges and houses and locomotives, etc., in such ways, as experience has shown to be good. Nearly all our acts, nearly all our utterances, nearly all our thoughts, are of stereotyped and conventional forms.

This condition of affairs possesses so many advantages that we cannot even imagine any other to exist. It enables a man to act nearly automatically in most of the situations of life. The main reason for drilling a soldier is that when confronted with the conditions of battle, he shall fire his musket and do his other acts automatically, undisturbed by the danger and excitement. Similarly, all our experience in life tends to automaticity. It is a very comfortable condition, for it demands the minimum amount of mental and nervous energy. The conductor demands your fare, and you pay it almost automatically. That a condition of automaticity prevails in nature, as we see it, one is tempted to suppose: for the seasons succeed each other with a regularity suggestive of it.

But even if the machine of nature and the machine of civilization are automatic now, we have no reason for believing that they always were so. Even the most perfect automatic engine had to be started at some time, and it had to be invented before it could be started; and it had also to go through a long process of development. Similarly, a man reads a paper almost automatically; but it required years of time to develop his ability to do so.

Now it has happened from time to time in history that some invention has broken in on the smoothly running machine of civilization and introduced a change. The gun did this, and so did the printing press. In every such case, a few men have welcomed the invention, but the majority have resented the change: some of them because their interests were threatened by it; others because of the instinctive but powerful influence of dislike of change.

The purely constructive man does not cause any such jolt. His work proceeds smoothly, uniformly, and usually with approval. But the inventive man, "his eye in a fine frenzy rolling," is visited with some vision which he cannot or will not dismiss, and which compels him to try to embody it in some form, and to continue to try until he succeeds in doing so, or gives up, confessing failure. The inventive man, having seen the vision, becomes a constructive man, and (in case he succeeds) puts the vision which he sees into such form that other people can see it also.

It is obvious therefore that two kinds of ability are needed to produce a really good invention of any kind, inventive ability and constructive ability; and it is also obvious that they are separate, though they cooperate. Many an invention of a quality that was mediocre or even inferior in originality, novelty and scope, has been quite acceptable by reason of the excellent constructive work that was done upon it: many a book and many an essay has succeeded almost wholly because of the skilful construction of the sentences; many a picture because of the accuracy of the perspective and the mixing of the colors; many a new mechanical device because of the excellent workmanship bestowed upon it. Conversely, many a grand and beautiful conception has failed of recognition because of the poor constructive work that was done on it. But occasionally a Shakespeare has given to the world an enduring masterpiece, the joint work of the highest order of invention and the highest order of constructive skill; occasionally a Raphael has painted a picture similarly conceived and executed; and occasionally an Edison has given the world a mechanical invention, comparably wonderful and perfect.

In all such cases, the start of the work was a picture on the mental retina; an image of something that was not, but might be made to be. A physical picture is actually made on the physical retina, but it cannot be recognized by the owner of the retina, unless a healthy optic nerve transmits it to his brain. Every mental picture must also be transmitted to the brain; and some mental pictures are very bright and clear. In some forms of insanity, the mental pictures are so clear that the patient cannot be persuaded that they are not physical; the patient sees a man approaching him, when there is no man approaching him; but the impression made on the patient's mind is the same as if there were.

The thought of the enormousness of the consequences that have followed the appearing of some visions to men (the vision of the gun, for instance) is almost stunning, if we try to realize the small area of the brain that the vision must have covered. If a line 1/4000 of an inch wide made on the physical retina and afterwards transmitted to the brain is seen with perfect clearness by the mind, what a small area of the brain must have been covered by the original vision of the gun! Yet how vast have been its consequences!

The fact that the inventor sees a vision, and then mentally arranges and rearranges the various material elements available in order to embody his vision in a painting, a project, a machine, a poem or a sonata, indicates that the essential processes of invention are wholly mental. This truth is illustrated by the work of every inventor, great or small. Possibly, the most convincing illustration is that given by the deaf Beethoven, who conceived and composed some of his grandest works when he could not physically hear a note.