Henry A. Rowland became at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore one of the great physical investigators and inventors of the nineteenth century. As a boy he delighted in chemical experiments, glass-blowing, and similar occupations. The family were often summoned by the young enthusiast to listen to lectures which were fully illustrated by experiments, not always free from prospective danger. His first five-dollar bill bought him, to his delight, a galvanic battery. The sheets of the New York “Observer” he converted into a hot-air balloon, which made a brilliant ascent and flight, setting fire, at last, to the roof of a neighboring house. One day he saw a pump at work in the hold of a steamer, sending out a stream which fell from a height of five or six feet to the river. “Why,” he exclaimed, “don’t you put that pipe down into the river and save power?” As a student at the Troy Polytechnical Institute he invented a method of winding naked strips of wire on cloth so as virtually to effect its insulation. This was afterward profitably patented by some one else.
In “The Senses and the Intellect” Professor Alexander Bain considers the inventing and discovering mind:—
The Passion for Experiment.
“Not one of the leading mental peculiarities applicable to scientific constructiveness can be dispensed with in the constructions of practice:—the intellectual store of ideas applicable to the special department; the powerful action of the associating forces; a very clear perception of the end, in other words, sound judgment; and, lastly, that patient thought, which is properly an entranced devotion of the energies to the subject in hand, rendering application to it spontaneous and easy.
“With reference to originality in all departments, whether science, practice, or fine art, there is a point of character that deserves notice, as being more obviously of value in practical inventions and in the conduct of business and affairs—I mean an active turn, or a profuseness of energy, put forth in trials of all kinds on the chance of making lucky hits. In science, meditation and speculation can do much, but in practice, a disposition to try experiments is of the utmost service. Nothing less than a fanaticism of experimentation could have given birth to some of our grandest practical combinations. The great discovery of Daguerre, for example, could not have been regularly worked out by any systematic and orderly research; there was no way but to stumble upon it, so unlikely and remote were the actions brought together in one consecutive process. The discovery is unaccountable, until we learn that the author had been devoting himself to experiments for improving the diorama, and thereby got deeply involved in trials and operations far removed from the beaten paths of inquiry. The energy that prompts to endless attempts was found in a surprising degree in Kepler. A similar untiring energy—the union of an active temperament with intense fascination for his subject—appears in the character of Sir William Herschel. When these two attributes are conjoined; when profuse active vigor operates on a field that has an unceasing charm for the mind, we then see human nature surpassing itself.
“The invention of photography by Daguerre illustrates the probable method whereby some of the most ancient inventions were arrived at. The inventions of the scarlet dye, of glass, of soap, of gunpowder, could have come only by accident; but the accident, in most of them, would probably fall into the hands of men engaged in numerous trials upon the materials involved. Intense application—‘days of watching, nights of waking’—went with ancient discoveries, as well as with modern. In the historical instances, we know as much. The mental absorption of Archimedes is a proverb.
“The wonderful part of Daguerre’s discovery consists in the succession of processes that had to concur in one operation before any effect could arise. Having taken a silver plate, iodine is first used to coat the surface; the surface is then exposed to the light, but the effect produced is not apparent till the plate has been immersed in the vapor of mercury. To fall upon such a combination, without any clue derived from previous knowledge, an innumerable series of fruitless trials must have been gone through.
“A remark may be made here, applicable alike to science and to practice. Originality in either takes two form—observation or experiment on the one hand, and the identifying processes of abstraction, induction, and deduction on the other. In the first, the bodily activities and the senses are requisite; the last are the purely intellectual forces. It is not by high intellectual force that a man discovers new countries, new plants, new properties of objects; it is by putting forth an unusual force of activity, adventure, inquisitorial and persevering search. All this is necessary in order to obtain the observations and facts in the first instance; when these are collected in sufficient number, a different aptitude is brought to bear. By identifying and assimilating the scattered materials, general properties and general truths are obtained, and these may be pushed deductively into new applications; in all which a powerful reach of similarity is the first requisite; and this may be owned by men totally destitute of the active qualities necessary for observation and experiment.”
The Chief Impulse in Discovery.
In “The Hazard of New Fortunes” Mr. W. D. Howells depicts a man of force who, without education, becomes rich. He has little patience with poor men, who, he says, “don’t get what they want because they don’t want it bad enough.” The rough old Westerner, Dryfoos, was sound in his view. Success in discovery as in money-making is as much a matter of passion as of intelligence, says Mr. O. F. Cook:—