150 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



there was a time when it did not exist, is not startling, and may be 

 passed over for the second : before it existed there was a creature 

 capable of producing it. This is as much as saying that no product 

 of art came into existence simultaneously with its producer, and 

 seems to be no more startling a proposition than the first ; and yet, 

 if I rightly interpret the ideas of most writers, they have failed 

 to grasp even so common -place a truth. 



The third proposition, that the producer must have been conscious 

 of needing the product, or must have had u.se for it before producing 

 it, is not at first sight so obvious. In fact I believe the failure to 

 grasp this truth is a great source of error and misconception among 

 many writers. No one, however, who has given any thought to 

 the nature of invention, has failed to observe that every step in the 

 mechanic arts has grown out of a pre-existing want. Not neces- 

 sarily out of a pressing need. Invention now-a-days does not wait 

 for the call to be so urgent that waiting can be no longer. Long 

 before this stage necessities are anticipated, and the means by which 

 they are overcome often do not become indispensable till the very 

 habits they engender make them so. Illustrations of this are all 

 around us. The sewing machine, the reaper, the telephone — what 

 could we do without them ? And yet in our own generation we 

 have done without them all. They have themselves created the 

 conditions which have made them indispensable. But none of them 

 came by accident. They have been, every one, the fruit of years 

 of toil and thought and anxiety on the part of those who saw, what 

 few clearly comprehended, the imperfection of the means employed 

 to do the daily work of mankind, and studied to produce better 

 means. This is the history of steam, of electricity, of railroads, 

 of metal working, of pottery, of every art that has a recorded his- 

 tory. Prevision and calculation are so truly elements in the growth 

 of all known arts that in asserting their universality we incur no 

 more risk than did Newton in asserting the law of gravitation. 



What then, it may be asked,- is the place due to accident in inven- 

 tion? Notwithstanding a popular belief that many if not most of 

 the great inventions have been the fruit of accident, it may be 

 asserted that the contrary is true. Fortuitous circumstances, trifling 

 unforeseen incidents, have in many cases doubtless suggested expe- 

 dients which have led to the consummation of great inventions. 

 It was an accident — the result of his poverty — which led Senefelder 

 to write on a stone slab his family wash-bill, and so led to the inven- 



