164 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



DISCUSSION. 



Mr. P. B. Pierce, discussing the paper, referred to some of the curi- 

 osities or phenomena of invention ; for this science of ewematics, 

 like every science, has its attendant phenomena. Indeed, that 

 invention is a science is demonstrated by its attendant phenomena. 



Invention is not creation; the first deals with matter direct; the 

 latter supplies that with which invention deals. The student of 

 eurematics, giving heed to what the history of his science has to 

 teach, soon discovers the principles of the great law of evolution. 

 Let him inspect the almost humanized giant that bears its load of 

 living freight daily from Washington to New York in less than six 

 hours, and what does he find, except that since the days of Watt 

 the process of selection or differentiation has been intelligently 

 going on ! The clumsy, the crude, the ruder elements have been 

 rejected; the harmonious, the simple, the efficient, and stronger 

 have been utilized. Increment by increment complexity has given 

 way to simplicity, until the perfected machine stands forth as we 

 know it ; that is to say, the machine we are pleased to call perfect, 

 the selected excellence, the suinmuin bonum, of all that experience 

 and long use have taught to be best of those that have preceded it. 

 Each inventor has contributed his mite, and lo ! the grand result ! 

 And its maker, man, is he not perfecting himself along with that 

 dull matter upon which he works and in which he achieves! Is he 

 not, as described by the poet. 



The heir of all the ages in the foremost files of time ? 



Is not matter reflex? Is Frankenstein in reality the monster his 

 author protrayed him to be? Will not the science of eurematics, 

 when once fairly beset by the persistent inquisition of scientific 

 study and investigation, open wide the door of the temple that is 

 even now ajar, and permit its disciples to enter and make intelligent 

 conquest, under a full knowledge of its laws, where until now they 

 have only been permitted to make occasional, random captures from 

 the vestibulum, as it were? 



The thousand forces of nature lie hidden within grasping distance ; 

 but for lack of systematic study they elude our clutch, escaping from 

 our wilieot approaches as the thistle down upon a puff of air. This 

 may not always remain so. The Lilliputians bound Gulliver with 

 straws ; let us ply Nature with pitiless interrogation till she yields 



