122 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



majority of cases an invention is in its origin a mental conception, it is a 

 conception of something material and practical, while a discovery begins 

 and ends in the realm of the mind. 



Discovery and invention are important links in the chain of progress 

 but neither marks the end of the chain. The discovery has to be proved 

 or the invention has to be reduced to practice. This brings in a third 

 link, finance. The Einstein Theory, for instance, could never have been 

 tested and established without the assistance of capital to finance the 

 extensive eclipse observations which converted it from a pure mental 

 conception to a working theory. The assistance of capital in the develop- 

 ment of great inventions of recent years is a necessity too well known to 

 need description. 



Here then we have a series of operations. First comes the funda- 

 mental discovery laying bare one more of nature's secrets ; then invention 

 turning the discovery to practical use ; and lastly, the hand of finance 

 to help dreams to come true. The first is a matter of genius or inspiration 

 coupled necessarily with deep study. The second needs skill in the arts 

 and crafts and generally a high degree of patience and courage to weather 

 the disappointments and setbacks which we are too prone to call failures. 

 The last, though it may be allied with technical knowledge, requires most 

 of all the commercial instinct to sense to-day the needs of to-morrow, 

 coupled with faith in the invention and the inventor and courage to see 

 the task through to the end. We are often told that the financial world 

 of to-day worships above all things a fat and speedy dividend, but when 

 one thinks for a moment of the amount of capital that must have been 

 spent, often fruitlessly, in financing the discoveries and inventions of the 

 past and realises at the same time the number of other channels open to 

 finance in its own immediate sphere, offering possibly greater certainty 

 and speedier returns, it is surprising, not that it is so difficult to obtain 

 finance for a pure scientific invention, but rather that it is possible to find 

 it at all. It says something for man's imagination that finance with its 

 many other opportunities is willing, even to a limited extent, to place 

 its resources at the disposal of scientific progress in the courageous belief 

 that it is casting its bread on the waters of knowledge and that in good 

 season it will return. 



When one seeks to study the history of some of the great inventions, 

 one begins to realise how exceedingly complex they are, despite their 

 outward appearance of simplicity. As an example, take wireless telegraphy 

 and telephony. No single person deserves the credit for its discovery 

 and invention. Maxwell, Hertz, Lodge, Crookes, Branly, Marconi, 

 Jackson, Fleming, de Forest, Fessenden and many others have contri- 

 buted their share to its development, but the basis of wireless communi- 

 cation did not necessarily begin with Maxwell. What was it caused 

 him to conceive the idea of the electro-magnetic theory of light ? Most 

 probably he was trying to explain, like many others, the experimental 

 fact that the ratio between the electro-magnetic and electrostatic units 

 was the velocity of light, and having conceived a possible explanation 

 he proceeded to work it out and test it, and the electro-magnetic theory 

 was the result. The original idea may have been a lightning flash of 

 inspiration, but the complete mathematical theory was the work of years. 



