EXCURSIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONIST 



became statesmen or lawyers, poets or philoso- 

 phers, but not inventors on a grand scale. There 

 was no lack of inventive talent on the part of 

 the ancients, especially as applied to processes 

 of warfare, as was illustrated by the skilful de- 

 vices with which the Romans, in the first Punic 

 war, wrought such wholesale destruction on the 

 Carthaginian fleets. But the men who devised 

 these remarkable engines, though they effected 

 an important temporary purpose, accomplished 

 nothing toward extending permanently the con- 

 trol of mankind over the forces of nature, or 

 toward modifying the career of industry ; and 

 so they are not remembered among the great 

 inventors. The explanation of the non-appear- 

 ance of Watts and Arkwrights in ancient times 

 is not to be found, therefore, in any assumed 

 lack of inventive talent, but in the social condi- 

 tions which prevailed in antiquity and down to 

 the close of the Middle Ages. 



But there is a still more striking historic sig- 

 nificance in the relatively late appearance of the 

 heroes of industry. The paucity of inventors in 

 antiquity, and their increasing frequency in mod- 

 ern times, serves as the index of a great change 

 that has been slowly taking place in the prevail- 

 ing character of human activity. Whereas the 

 basis of civilization was once mainly military, it 

 has now become mainly industrial. Whereas the 

 occupation of the greater part of mankind was 

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