Priority of invention

“ The decision of the inventor must depend upon the nature of the invention, its profitableness, his own financial resources, his health, his energies, temperament, and the likelihood of his invention being imitated, and his mechanical and financial ability to protect it. ”

“ Can any one who reflects on merely this attitude of the trusts toward invention fail to understand how substantial, how actual, how great will be the effect of the release of the genius of our people to originate, improve, and perfect the instruments and circumstances of our lives? Who can say what patents now lying, unrealized, in secret drawers and pigeonholes, will come to light, or what new inventions will astonish and bless us, when freedom is restored? ”

“ The point is not that John or Paul, because they want to make an invention and because they work on it, shall make an invention; but where thousands want an invention and work on it, the invention must appear, as surely as an unsupported rock must fall to the ground. ”

“ When the demands of industry are found to press upon the resources of inventors, the same idea is usually found floating about in many minds;—such has been the case with the steam-engine, the safety-lamp, the electric telegraph, and other inventions. Many ingenious minds are found labouring in the throes of invention, until at length the master mind, the strong practical man, steps forward, and straightway delivers them of their idea, applies the principle successfully, and the thing is done. Then there is a loud outcry among all the smaller contrivers, who see themselves distanced in the race ”

“ The mere original invention forms generally but a small part of the whole business or merit of bringing into useful operation any new thing. Judgment, a knowledge of the world, and of business and other qualities not particularly belonging to inventors, are just as requisite as mere ingenuity, although they are not the subject of protection. ”

“ Even in America, where the adoption of improvements and innovations is regarded as so prompt and sure, and where the huge tolls of the Patent Office and the courts bear witness to the ceaseless efforts of the inventor, it is impossible to deny the sad truth that unconsciously society discourages invention rather than invites it. Possibly our national optimism as revealed in invention—the seeking a higher good—needs some check. ”

“ Where a new invention is supported by well-known principles, and promises to be useful, it ought to be tried. ”

“ This in many cases is a very wise business-like course to pursue, as it eliminates the necessity of a large investment, and leaves the inventor free to devote himself to improving and enlarging the field for his invention, and to attend to the business end to better advantage. ”

“ And here and now, as always and everywhere, invention is the mother of necessity. ”

“ There are a great many ideas which of themselves are good, and still are not of themselves of any value. It is of equal importance, in order to make a success of an invention, to have it conform to certain recognized mechanical principles, and capable of economical production through the regular trade and manufacturing channels. ”

“ It is a revelation of wonders to walk about amid these exhibits of machinery, and remember that to all intents and purposes the results we behold are the achievements of the last fifty, and in most cases of the last thirty years. And it is equally remarkable that most of these inventions are the offspring of American thought.
It is most natural for every thoughtful person to ask, how is this and why? The ready and superficial answer is that “Necessity is the mother of invention,” and that the American people, by the conditions of life surrounding them, have been compelled to invent. ”

“ Every mechanical invention arises from a need: from the strict necessity for individual preservation in the case of primitive man who wages war against the powers of nature; from the desire for well-being and the necessity for luxury in growing civilization; from the need of creating little engines, imitating instruments and machines, in the child. In a word, every particular invention, great or small, arises from a particular need; for, we repeat again, there is no creative instinct in general. ”

“ If you want to invent anything, don't try to find it in the wheels in your head nor the wheels in your machine, but first find out what the people need, and then apply yourself to that need, and this leads to invention on the part of people you would not dream of before. ”

“ Inventing is hard work.”
“What are you inventing?”
“All manner of things. Machine to forge large axes; another to grind circular saws; a railway clip: but you don't care about such things.”
“I beg your pardon, sir. I care about whatever interests you.”
“Well, these inventions interest me very much. One way or other, they are roads to fortune; and you know why I desire fortune.”
“Ah, that I do. But excuse me, you value independence more. Oh, I respect you for it. Only don't make yourself pale, or you will make me unhappy, and a foe to invention.” ”

“ The use of an invention by the inventor himself, or of any other person under his direction, by way of experiment, and in order to bring the invention to perfection, has never been regarded as such a use. ”

“ Secretary Seward pays this tribute to invention: "The exercise of the inventive faculty is the nearest akin to the Creator of any faculty possessed by the human mind; for while it does not create in the sense that the Creator did, yet it is the nearest approach to it of anything known to man." ”

“ It was long before this invention was perfected and brought into general use. It was not the production of one man, but of several generations of mechanical inventors. A perfected invention does not burst forth from the brain like a poetic thought or a fine resolve. ”

“ It is absurd to say that because I can see no possible solution of the problem to-day, that I may not see one to-morrow. The very fact that this century has accomplished so much in the way of invention, makes it more than probable that the next century will do far greater things. ”

“ The habit of research into the origin of improved industrial method must therefore help to strengthen the impression of the importance of gradual growth, and of general tendencies, as being the prime factors in promoting social advancement through the success of invention. ”

“ Take but such an everyday thing as a useful invention and the putting of it at the service of men. You know how prolific the American mind has been in invention; how much civilization has been advanced by the steamboat, the cotton-gin, the sewing-machine, the reaping-machine, the typewriter, the electric light, the telephone, the phonograph. Do you know, have you had occasion to learn, that there is no hospitality for invention nowadays? There is no encouragement for you to set your wits at work to improve the telephone, or the camera, or some piece of machinery, or some mechanical process ”

“ Never in the history of the world, have the opportunities been as numerous and the rewards as great as they are now for any and every kind of meritorious invention. Our advanced civilization, the complex intricacies of our social fabric, the enormous general increase in wealth and the consequent general ability, to greater or less extent, to gratify our numerous and various desires, has created an unlimited field of opportunity for the ingenious, fertile and enterprising brain. ”

“ And our mind will approach invention with more ease, if it often and carefully goes over both its own relation and that of the opposite party, of what has been done; and if, eliciting what suspicions each part gives rise to, it considers why, and with what intention, and with what hopes and plans, each thing was done. ”

“ In the past the inventor has worked on upon his own resources or with the help of friends or speculators having some confidence in him, and if he has succeeded he has benefited himself and them, and the world at large using his invention, except those fellow-workers whose old processes have been placed at a disadvantage by his discovery. ”

“ Invention, then, of the highest kind must be composed of four qualities—imagination, to conceive a new and complicated machine; knowledge, to gather materials; judgment, to select and combine them; and perseverance without wearying till the truth be obtained. Those things which commonly go by the name of new inventions are very often mere modifications of what has been done before. “Improvements” is the technical term applied to them. ”

“ So far has scientific discovery, and its practical applications to human benefit by invention, now progressed, that every one considers this to be, par excellence, the scientific age. And as discovery and invention continue to progress with accelerated speed, we are encouraged to hope, not only that scientific principles will ultimately be universally recognised as the regulators of all technical industry, but also as a fundamental basis of morality. ”

“ These are, indeed, the conditions of successful invention. The world knows little of such things, and regards the new machine or the new method as the immediate outcome of a happy idea. Probably, if the truth were known, we should see that, in nine cases out of ten, success depends as much upon good judgment and perseverance as upon fertility of imagination. The labors of our great inventors are not unappreciated, but I doubt whether we adequately realize the enormous obligations under which we lie. ”

“ More frequently, however, inventions are not entirely new, but modifications of contrivances previously known, though to a few, and not yet brought into practical use. Glancing back over the history of mechanism, we occasionally see an invention seemingly full born, when suddenly it drops out of sight, and we hear no more of it for centuries. It is taken up de novo by some inventor, stimulated by the needs of his time, and falling again upon the track, he recovers the old footmarks, follows them up, and completes the work. ”

“ One starts the idea, another developes it, and so on progressively until at last it is elaborated and worked out in practice; but the first not less than the last is entitled to his share in the merit of the invention, were it only possible to measure and apportion it duly. Sometimes a great original mind strikes upon some new vein of hidden power, and gives a powerful impulse to the inventive faculties of man, which lasts through generations. ”

“ In these and similar cases, though the idea was born and the model of the invention was actually made, it still waited the advent of the scientific mechanical inventor who should bring it to perfection, and embody it in a practical working form.
Some of the most valuable inventions have descended to us without the names of their authors having been preserved. We are the inheritors of an immense legacy of the results of labour and ingenuity, but we know not the names of our benefactors. ”

“ Mark the spirit of invention everywhere, thy rapid patents, Thy continual workshops, foundries, risen or rising, See, from their chimneys how the tall flame-fires stream. ”

“ Many a great invention to increase human comfort and happiness would be given to the world, if inventors were given that encouragement and protection which their genius, industry and usefulness deserve.
CHAPTER 30
The Successful Inventor
One has indeed to be more than ordinarily gifted, and most carefully trained in many directions, spiritual, mental and physical, to be a successful inventor. To improve by one's own ability and efforts the results of any phase of human activities ”

“ In such cases, though the individual merit of the inventor is small, the benefit conferred may be important, and may operate influentially in promoting the progress of civilization.
Scientific discovery goes hand in hand with invention, and they mutually assist each other's progress. Every discovery in science may be applicable to some new purpose, or give greater efficiency to what is old. ”

“ The most important and radical departures from old methods, by which many of the industries of the world have been completely revolutionized, are nearly always originated by persons wholly ignorant of the accepted practice in the particular industry concerned. The first and most important prerequisite to invention is an absolutely clear insight into, and a comprehensive grasp of, all the conditions involved in the problem. ”

“ A careful study of the histories of great inventors and inventions impresses the student most forcibly with the glaring fact that while the field of invention offers, and has paid, fabulously large rewards to the fortunate genius who invents or discovers some really new device or idea, it also is a field full of discouragements, dangers and heart-breaking delays, disappointments and unfulfilled hopes, to say nothing of time and energy utterly wasted by misguided zeal and misdirected effort. ”

“ The onward flow of inventions may be interrupted, if not materially stayed, by the cessation of some of the causes and incentives which now give them life. When comfort for all and rest for all, and a suitable division of labour, and an equal distribution of its fruits are reached, in that state of society which is pictured in the visions of the social philosopher, or as fast as such conditions are reached, so soon will cease the pricking of those spurs of invention,—individual rewards, the glorious strife of competition, the harrowing necessities, and the ambitions for place and power. ”

“ From that time until the present it has been his constant duty and practice to take note of the advance of inventive science as applied to industrial improvement—to watch it as an organic growth, not only from a philosophical, but also from a practical, point of view. The advance towards the actual adoption of any great industrial invention is generally a more or less collective movement ”