MANUAL WORK. 403 



were started for the first time by that excellent 

 observer of shooting stars, Mathieu de la Drome, 

 and by an old Jack tar, Fitzroy all these could 

 be mentioned as instances in point. 



Of course, we have a number of cases in which 

 the discovery, or the invention, was a mere 

 application of a scientific law (cases like the 

 discovery of the planet Neptune), but in the 

 immense majority of cases the discovery, or the 

 invention, is unscientific to begin with. It 

 belongs much more to the domain of art art 

 taking the precedence over science, as Helm- 

 holtz has so well shown in one of his popular 

 lectures- and only after the invention has been 

 made, science comes to interpret it. It is 

 obvious that each invention avails itself of the 

 previously accumulated knowledge and modes 

 of thought ; but in most cases it makes a 

 start in advance upon what is known ; it makes 

 a leap in the unknown, and thus opens a quite 

 new series of facts for investigation. This 

 character of invention, which is to make a 

 start in advance of former knowledge, instead 

 of merely applying a law, makes it identical, as 

 to the processes of mind, with discovery ; and, 

 therefore, people who are slow in invention are 

 also slow in discovery. 



In most cases, the inventor, however inspired 

 by the general state of science at a given 



