Invention: The Master-key to Progress

by Bradley A. Fiske

It may be pointed out here that, in the broad meaning of the word instrument, every machine that does actual work is an instrument in the hands of men for doing that work; but that every instrument is not necessarily a machine. A machine, by definition, is composed of various parts that work together to a common end, and it carries with it the ideas of movement and of power. An instrument, on the other hand, need not be composed of more than one part; it may of itself be incapable of moving or exerting power; and yet, in the hands of men and women, it may be the means of doing the most useful work. A familiar illustration among many is the needle.

Now the telephone can hardly be called a machine: it can of itself do nothing. It is not like an engine that can do work hour after hour, without external interposition, supervision or assistance. Yet, for the reason that the only value of a machine lies in the fact that it is an instrument whereby men can get results, an instrument is not necessarily in a lower class than a machine.

The essential value of the telephone seems to lie in the fact that the Machine has become so complicated, and composed of so many separate parts, that, without the telephone, those parts would not be adequately linked together. The telephone, like the telegraph, acts in the Machine of Civilization as do the nerves in the human organism. The human organism could not be an organism without the nervous system; and the present Machine could not exist in its present form without the telegraph and the telephone. These two instruments have so greatly improved the Machine as to raise it toward the dignity of an organism. They have not made it an organism, because they have not endowed it with life. They have, however, raised it to the dignity of an automatic machine, by supplying such a ready and sure means of conveying information and instructions, that a blow to the Machine anywhere is felt everywhere, and assistance to the part attacked can be summoned from everywhere.

Illustrations of this can be seen the most clearly in our large cities, in which information concerning a fire, or a riot, or an accident is transmitted instantly to all parts of the city; and fire engines, police or ambulances are sent in response thereto. Illustrations covering wider fields come to mind at once; but they are of the same character, whether the fields comprise single states or continents or seas, or the whole surface of the earth. Possibly the best single illustration is that supplied by the events of the recent World War, in which the nerves of civilization in every land were kept on the tingle by the news continually received from the fighting fronts, and measures were continually taken to meet each situation as it occurred. Australia and New Zealand and America and Canada and South Africa assisted France to repel the invader from her soil.

The influence of the telephone on history has been so great that history would not be at all as it has been, if the telephone had not been born. Has this influence been beneficent? Probably, because it has tied the parts of the Machine together, and made it more coherent. But it may be well to realize that this very fact has had the effect of permitting other additions to the Machine; with the result that the Machine is perhaps no more coherent now than it was when the telephone was added to it. Furthermore, we must not forget that, although the influence of each new invention is usually to assist civilization rather than to assist its enemies, yet we cannot assume that 100% is exerted on that side, for a considerable percentage is always exerted on the other side. For instance, the printing press is used to disseminate harmful teachings, as well as beneficent teachings, the telephone is used for bad purposes as well as good ones, etc.

We must not restrict our appreciation of the influence of the telephone by ignoring the stimulation which it has given to study and experiment, especially in the physical sciences. People of the present day do not realize the amazement and excitement caused throughout the world by the sudden realization of the fact that human speech could be transmitted. Coming as it did so soon after the invention of the Gramme dynamo, it waked the minds of men with a sudden start, and opened a dazzling avenue of anticipation of discoveries and inventions yet to come. Young men, and especially young men of fine ambition, saw ahead a clear line of useful and brilliant work; and the colleges and technical schools were soon thronged with eager youth. A new epoch—the electric epoch—was at hand.

The most generally noticed herald of the new epoch was not the telephone, however, but the "electric candle" invented by Jablochkoff in 1876, which soon afterward came into use in Paris. This candle consisted of two parallel sticks of carbon separated by an insulating substance, made of some refractory material, that fuzed as the carbons gradually burned away. The two carbons were connected to an electric circuit that passed from the tip of one carbon to the tip of the other, causing a brilliant electric arc. To prevent one carbon wasting away more rapidly than the other, an alternating current was employed. This great invention is now almost forgotten, because it was soon supplanted by the present arc-light that is better in many ways. Nevertheless, to Jablochkoff must be accorded the distinction of being the first to make electric lighting on a large scale practicable, and to demonstrate the fact.

In the same year, an invention of more than doubtful beneficence was made, a machine for continuously making cigarettes; but this was balanced in the same year by the inventions of the steam saw-mill and of Portland cement.

In the following year came an invention fully as brilliant as the telephone, though not so useful, the phonograph. It is usually considered as more brilliant; certainly it was more unexpected. The idea of transmitting speech was very old, many men had worked on it, and many were working on it at the time when Bell accomplished it; but the idea of recording speech was almost undreamed of. Up to the present moment, it can hardly be said that the phonograph has had great influence on history; for its main work has been in giving pleasure by the music it has rendered. We can easily imagine the present Machine, without the phonograph, but not without the telephone.

And we cannot imagine the present Machine to exist without the gas engine, invented the same year by Dr. Otto, that made possible the use of large units of mechanical power, without the need of boilers or condensers or other external appliances; for the combustion of the fuel was carried on inside the engine itself. This invention has been followed by many others during the forty-five years that have since gone by, in which oil has taken the place of gas. Petrol or gasolene has been the oil (or spirit) most used; but engines of the Deisel type, employing heavy oils, have now come into being in large numbers.