FIRE AS AN AGENT IN HUMAN CULTURE 191 



All products of man's inventive thought are subjected to a con- 

 stant improvement. When man felt a need for artificial light and 

 devised the first way of making it shine forth for his use, from that 

 moment the electric hght was a foregone conclusion. More light was 

 the keynote, and with this in view the history which is unfolded in 

 the struggles for improvements in hghting makes up one of the 

 most instructive chapters of progress. 



The division of the day into the ideal periods of work, recreation, 

 and sleep has been sadly disorganized. The period from Argand to 

 the present has seen inventions for increased illumination so radical 

 that the human mind tires of the effort at comprehension. 



The growth of the use of artificial illumination increases pari passu 

 with the expansion of human culture, and is an instance of the corre- 

 lation of supply and demand. The variety of uses to which illumi- 

 nation is put also greatly increases in response to social and industrial 

 developments, but from the point of view of invention looking to 

 better light there may be negligible progress. This is the history of 

 artificial illumination from the beginning of the definite use of the lamp 

 through the rise and fall of great civilizations to less than two and a 

 quarter centuries ago. A tremendously long period also elapsed be- 

 tween the primitive illumination usages and the employment of the 

 simple vessel called the lamp. 



All inventions have as a basis the need for surmounting or render- 

 ing subservient natural obstacles. Upon these inventions are 

 pyramided improvements, other lines of inventions and interactions, 

 combinations, and developments in bewildering array. It is to be 

 expected, therfore, that man would carry forward his use of fire to 

 the field of illumination, and this would occur at an early period. 



REMARKS ON THE FUTURE OF ARTIFICIAL LIGHTING 



The present age looks forward to procuring an abundant and cheap 

 source of brilliant light obtained also with a minimum of mechanical 

 aid. It is admitted that this is an ideal worth striving for, difficult 

 of accomplishment, but not an impossibility. As part of the work 

 of the world it has received unremitting attention since the begin- 

 ning of human consciousness, growing slowly for a long period and 

 more and more rapidly to the present. In the little span from 1780 

 to now a vast comprehension of the world of radiant energy in its 

 application to the science of illimination has taken place. We may 

 look with allowable confidence on the near attainment of the desid- 

 erata mentioned above. 



The inevitable tendency of the hghting arts is to build up enor- 

 mous systems of producing and distributing, the complexity of this 

 group of industries becoming rapidly greater with every advance in 

 the two phases mentioned. 



