316 WRITINGS OP JOSEPH HENRY. [1853 



the application, though he may not have spent a tithe of the 

 labor and thought on the subject which was bestowed on it 

 by those who brought it to its practical state, is crowned as 

 the discoverer of the whole. After this however, competitors 

 arise who claim a share of the reward, if not the honor of 

 the invention. These labor to show that the first inventor 

 derived his ideas from the discoverers. The public mind 

 then takes another turn, and is disposed to do injustice on 

 the other side, and it is only after a series of oscillations in 

 public opinion that the true state of the case becomes gen- 

 erally known and acquiesced in. 



With reference to the second proposition we may state that 

 so important an element is the state of public intelligence 

 in regard to the success of an invention that many of the 

 most important processes of art have been more the result of 

 the actual spirit and want of the age than the product of the 

 ingenuity and knowledge of an individual; and in such 

 cases the invention is frequently brought forth simulta- 

 neously by a number of different individuals. The art of 

 printing may be placed in this category. At a certain period 

 in the history of the world this invention was loudly called 

 for by the pressing necessities and peculiarities of the times. 

 It was then produced : but had the attempt been made at an 

 earlier date to introduce it, the result would probably have 

 been a failure. We have a similar example in the applica- 

 tion of steam to navigation. The world had for years before 

 this invention been in possession of the steam engine, and a 

 boat had even been propelled by steam on the Clyde, in Great 

 Britain, but the invention was not appreciated. Neither the 

 time nor the place was favorable to its introduction, and it 

 was reserved for our country, with its immense plexus of 

 navigable rivers and its broad expanse of internal lakes, to 

 call for this addition to th6 art of locomotion, and for the 

 genius of Fulton to give a successful response. Even in this 

 case the importance of the invention was so manifest, and 

 its means of attainment so simple, that several competitors 

 contended for the prize; and had any accident happened to 

 retard for a few weeks the completion of Fulton's first boat 



