G04 THE BIRTH OF INVENTION. 



and materials, is aii integrated cosmos. Anyone who is the least 

 familiar with the progress of philosoi)hy will recall that since the dawn 

 of written history the thoughts of men were tending to this unitica- 

 tiou. Shortly after tliis tirst effort at comprehensive unity Mayer, 

 Eumford, and Joule invented the methods of demonstrating the oneness 

 of physical forces, the conservation of energy. Wollaston, Kirchoft", 

 and Bnusen devised the delicate apparatus to prove the chemical 

 identity of all worlds. Lamarck, Geoffroy St. Hilaire, and Darwin 

 taught the consanguinity of all living beings. Heluiholtz and Meyer 

 coordinated nervous excitation with mental activity. Comte and 

 Spencer grasped the unity of all sensible phenomena. T^ewtou, Leibnitz, 

 and Hamilton projected their minds beyond phenomena and invented 

 mathematics of four or more dimensions, conceiving of worlds and sys- 

 tems that under the present order of nature can have no objective 

 reality. Over all this, into many great souls, have come the notions of 

 infinite space and time ami causation. The idea of limitation to tlumglit 

 or achievement no longer enters the imagination. The depth of the 

 sea, the distances of the stars, the concealment of the earth's treasures, 

 the minuteness of the springs of life and sense, the multiplicity and 

 complicity of phenomena are only so many incitements to greater 

 achievements. The daring souls of this decade are determined at any 

 risk to answer the inquiry of Pontius Pilate, What is truth? With 

 sympathetic enthusiasm we wave them on, bidding them God-speed. 



But, 1 ask you now to forget all this and go with me to that early 

 day when the tirst being, worthy to be called man, stood upon this 

 earth. How economical has been his endowment. There is no hair on 

 his body to keep him warm, his Jaws are the feeblest in the world, his 

 arm is not equal to that of a gorilla, he can not lly like the eagle, he 

 can not see into the night like the owl, even the hare is fleeter than he. 

 He has no clothing, no shelter. He had no tools or industries or 

 experience, no society or language or arts of pleasure, he had yet no 

 theory of life and poorer conceptions of the life beyond. 



The road from that condition to our own lies next to the infinite. 

 The one endowment that this creature possessed having in it the 

 promise and i)otency of all future achievements, was the creative 

 spark called invention. The superabundant brain, over and above all 

 the amount required for mere animal existence, held in trust the possi- 

 bilities of the future, and stamped upon man the clivine likeness. Tiiis 

 naked ignoramus is the father of the clothed philosopher, looking out 

 into infinite space and time and causation. It may give you pleasure 

 to know something about the connections between these two and the 

 witnesses to these connections. 



There are five guides whose services we have to engage on our inter- 

 esting journey. The first is liistory, who does not know the way very 

 far back — not over three thousand years — with nuich certainty. The 

 second is philology, the study of which in our own century has ena- 



