232 THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



phase in the evolution of navigation since the earli- 

 est times. Like considerations would apply to rail- 

 ways, antiseptic surgery, or friction matches. The 

 nineteenth-century inventor of the friction match 

 was certainly no more ingenious (considering the 

 means that chemistry had put at his disposal) 

 than many of the savages who contributed by their 

 intelligence to methods of producing, maintaining, 

 and using fire. In fact, as we approach the consid- 

 eration of prehistoric times it becomes difficult to 

 distinguish inventions from the slow results of de- 

 velopment in metallurgy, tool-making, building, 

 pottery, war-gear, weaving, cooking, the domestica- 

 tion of animals, the selection and cultivation of 

 plants. Moreover, it is scarcely in the category of 

 invention that the acquisition of alphabetic writing 

 or the use of Arabic numerals properly belongs. 



These and other objections, such as the omission 

 of explosives, firearms, paper, will readily occur to 

 the reader. Nevertheless, these lists, placed side by 

 side with the record of theoretic discoveries, en- 

 courage the belief that, more and more, sound theory 

 is productive of useful inventions, and that hence- 

 forth it must fall to scientific endeavor rather than 

 to lucky accident to strengthen man's control over 

 Nature. Even as late as the middle of the nineteenth 

 century accident and not science was regarded as 

 the fountain-head of invention, and the view that a 

 knowledge of the causes and secret motions of things 

 would lead to "the enlarging of the bounds of hu- 

 man empire to the effecting of all things possible " 

 was scouted as the idle dream of a doctrinaire. 



In the year 1896 three important advances were 



