Inventions in the Century

by William Henry Doolittle

So marvellous have been these developments of this century that, not content with sober definitions, men have defined invent, even when speaking only of mechanical productions, as “creating what had not before existed;” and this period has been described as an age of new creations. The far-off cry of the Royal Preacher, “There is no new thing under the sun: Is there anything whereof it may be said, see this is new, it hath been already of old time which was before us,” is regarded as a cry of satiety and despair, finding no responsive echo in the array of inventions of this bright age.

But in one sense the Preacher’s words are ever profoundly true. The forces and materials of Nature always exist, awaiting man’s discovery, and at best he can but vary their relations, re-direct their course, or change their forms. In a still narrower sense the truth of the Preacher’s declaration is apparent:—

In an address before the Anthropological Society of Washington in 1885, the late Prof. F. A. Seely, of the United States Patent Office, set forth that it was one of the established laws of Invention, that,

“Every human invention has sprung from some prior invention, or from some prior known expedient.”

Inventions, he said, do not, like their protectress, Pallas Athene, spring forth full grown from the heads of their authors; that both as to modern inventions and as to those whose history is unrecorded, each exhibits in itself the evidence of a similar sub-structure; and that, “in the process of elimination we go back and back and find no resting place till we reach the rude set of expedients, the original endowment of men and brutes alike.”

Inventions, then, are not creations, but the evolution of man-made contrivances.

It may be remarked, however, as was once said by William H. Seward: “The exercise of the inventive faculty is the nearest akin to that of the Creator of any faculty possessed by the human mind; for while it does not create in the same sense that the Creator did, yet it is the nearest approach to it of anything known to man.”

There is no history, rock-record, or other evidence of his existence as man, which discloses a period when he was not an inventor.

Invention is that divine spark which drove, and still drives him to the production of means to meet his wants, while it illuminates his way. From that inward spark must have soon followed the invention of that outer fire to warm and cheer him, and to melt and mould the earth to his desires. Formed for society, the necessity of communication with his fellows developed the power of speech. Speech developed written characters and alphabets. Common communication developed concert of action, and from concert of action sprung the arts of society.

But the evolution of invention has not been uniform. Long periods of slowness and stagnation have alternated with shorter or longer periods of prolific growth, and these with seasons of slumber and repression.