Invention: The Master-key to Progress

by Bradley A. Fiske

As part of this treaty, Great Britain agreed to give up Malta. For various reasons that do not concern this discussion, Great Britain did not do so, and war followed in May, 1803.

Before that time, Napoleon had realized that his principal enemy was England. He now conceived the project of sending an invading army across the English Channel, knowing that if he could accomplish that, he could march to London, and dictate his own terms of peace. But how could he get across the channel, in the face of the British fleet? From the numberless pictures conjured up in his brilliant imagination, Napoleon selected the one which showed a French fleet threatening British possessions in the West Indies, a British fleet rushing to the West Indies to save them, the French fleet returning and joining with another French fleet waiting for it, then the combined fleets securing the mastery of the English Channel from the depleted British fleet remaining, then a French flotilla of transports with an invading army forthwith starting across the channel, then a landing against an opposition easily overcome, then a march to London, then a capture of London: and finally, he, Napoleon, riding in triumph through London streets and sleeping in the palace at London—as he had slept in other palaces on the Continent.

It was a beautiful vision;—a beautiful series of moving pictures presented to his imagination. To embody all these pictures in realities became the pre-occupation of his waking and his sleeping hours. By dint of herculean exertions, he finally collected near Boulogne about 200,000 troops and 1,500 transports. At the proper time, Villeneuve, with a powerful fleet, was sent to the West Indies to threaten the British possessions there.

But the same man who had spoiled his India project by the battle of the Nile, and who had spoiled his project of ruining British commerce by the battle of Copenhagen, spoiled his present project: the same man, Horatio Nelson. Nelson had some imagination himself; and he imagined (correctly as usual) that Villeneuve had sailed for the West Indies—and away he went in pursuit. Arriving there, and finding that Villeneuve had been in the West Indies but had left, Nelson left also. He imagined that Villeneuve had sailed for Europe; and so Nelson sailed for Europe also, sending a fast frigate to inform the Admiralty of all that he had learned, and of all that he inferred. The frigate made such speed, and the First Lord of the Admiralty, Admiral Lord Barham, acted with such sailor-like energy and skill, that a large British fleet intercepted Villeneuve on his return, brought him to action near the coast of Spain, and handled him so roughly that he went for repairs to Cadiz. He arrived there on August 20.

The news of this, reaching Napoleon, wiped all the beautiful pictures out of his mind. But he had other pictures in the background. These he put promptly into the foreground, and started off with incredible swiftness toward Austria. On October 19, he brought the Austrians to battle near Ulm, and achieved one of the most decisive victories of his career. The victory was mainly due to the clearness and correctness of Napoleon's conceived idea, and the amazing speed and certainty of his movements in carrying it into execution. The Austrian General Mack was so wholly taken by surprise that he found his army was completely surrounded before he had had time to take any preventive measures.

Napoleon had correctly judged the import of Villeneuve's interception by the British fleet, and realized that it would be mere folly afterward to attempt to cross the channel then. Still, the situation was not wholly bad for him, and the victory at Ulm made it beautiful. For, though England was still greater on the sea than France, France was also great, and was still a powerful weapon which he could wield against England, with all the power of genius. But, two days after the victory of Ulm, came the disaster near Cape Trafalgar, when Nelson defeated the combined French and Spanish fleets, and thereby secured for England a superiority at sea, vastly more pronounced than it had been before. This victory, by making Napoleon helpless at sea against Great Britain, ruined all Napoleon's chances of dominion, except upon the Continent.

Napoleon made two brilliant campaigns after this, that brought him to the summit of his career. Had he been content to stop there, had he not tried to climb still higher, his descendants might now sit on the throne of France. But the intoxicating fumes of success seem to have clouded that brilliant mind, and to have prevented those clear and correct pictures from forming there that had formed before. The result was that he embarked on a new project for ruining England that began with an invasion of Portugal and Spain, which brought on a war with Austria. It is true that, by a brilliant campaign, Napoleon worsted Austria and made an advantageous treaty with her, and then married the daughter of the emperor: but the continuance of the policy that underlay the war with Austria, brought on later a war with Russia that sent Napoleon to Elba, an exile.

We see the key to Napoleon's successes in the quality of his mind at the time of those successes, and we see the key to his failures in a lowering of the quality of that mind. Military writers tell us that his mind was not of the same quality when he planned his Russian campaign as it had been when he planned his early campaigns. Now the reasoning faculties do not grow dull when one approaches middle age; but the imaginative faculties do—(in most people). It is an old saying that "one cannot teach an old dog new tricks." Clearly, this cannot be because of any failing of memory, though memory fails with age; because the memory is not involved, save slightly. It must be therefore because of failing impressionability and receptivity. We all speak of the "receptive years," meaning the years of childhood and then of youth; and it is a common saying that young people are more receptive than old people. Of what are they receptive? Clearly, of mental impressions. Parents and teachers are warned not to forget that the minds of young people are very impressionable, and to be careful that their minds receive good impressions only, so far as they can compass it. Napoleon, when he made his Russian campaign, was only 43 years old in years; but he had lived a life that was far from normal or hygienic physically, and extremely abnormal and unhygienic mentally.

The intention of the last sentence is to point out that mental health cannot be long preserved amid surroundings mentally unhealthful, any more than physical health can be long preserved amid surroundings physically unhealthful; and that the highest qualities of our nature are the most difficult to maintain and therefore are the first to fail, under unhealthful surroundings. The spiritual faculties fail first, then the moral, then the mental and lastly the physical. Now the imagination, while a mental quality, rather than a moral one, partakes in a measure of the spiritual, and is one of the highest of the mental attributes. For this reason imagination is one of the first to be impaired.

The especial picture of the imagination that becomes faulty under certain conditions, is the picture of one's self. Under conditions such as Napoleon had lived under for several years, the picture of himself in his mind had become unduly magnified in relation to the pictures of other men. Now is there any one thing more dangerous to a man than to carry in his mind an incorrect picture of himself?