142 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



inventor appears, but only appears, to be able to look far ahead of the 

 knowledge of his day, and the speed and scope of modern progress give a 

 false impression of human powers in general. 



It is not only our material equipment that is artificial, but our social 

 and our moral codes, always excepting those minimum requirements that 

 enable family, if not other groups, to hold together, since these are as 

 instinctive in the species as is the quest for food itself. Our artefacts, 

 material and immaterial alike, have emerged from the interaction between 

 mind and matter, and between mind and mind ; they were not devised 

 beforehand for material or social ends, but arose out of the rough-and- 

 tumble of an environment that grew as knowledge grew and artefacts 

 accumulated. Aims and ends evolved with the discovery and invention 

 of ways and means. The artificial environment has expanded with the 

 progress of civilisation, but the human brain has not undergone a like 

 inflation ; nor, as far as can be seen, has the human mind undergone a 

 change in its essential characters. It is still unable to form preconceptions 

 of artefacts and processes that cannot be built up in the mind's eye, on 

 paper or in practice, by combining facts, methods and principles that are 

 known, with the aid also of discoveries arrived at by experience and 

 experiment. Only as man became capable of transmitting his knowledge 

 to his offspring, by precept as well as by practice, could he create a cul- 

 tural continuity extending over many generations. Only when his speech 

 became intelligible did his reminiscences acquire posthumous value, whilst 

 hieroglyphs and alphabets served to make the future still more dependent 

 on the past. 



Viewed from any standpoint, it is clear that we have to make a big 

 allowance for our own sophistication, when we are trying to explore the 

 origins and growth of discoveries and inventions, and neglect of this 

 precaution is not infrequent. In the case of pottery, for example, it is 

 sometimes maintained that the plasticity of clay is so obtrusive, and its 

 hardening by heat so easily made manifest, as to place the ceramic art 

 amongst those human industries that may have been developed more 

 than once, if not over and over again. The two essential properties of 

 clay are obvious enough, given the conditions for its accidental hardening 

 by fire, and both may have been discovered at various periods. Looking 

 backward it seems evident to us that an early discoverer, looking forward, 

 could have deduced from these two properties of clay the advantages of 

 modelling this plastic stuff into the forms of vessels, and baking them to 

 hardness. Some may think that the deduction was an easy one, but the 

 ease is purely retrospective. The potter was not a product of predestina- 

 tion. The conventional theory of the origin of pottery through the 

 plastering of clay on the walls of baskets may or may not be acceptable, 

 but it is in any case a recognition of the need that is felt to bridge the 

 gap between the discoveries of two properties of clay and the production 

 of an earthenware pot. The discoveries were essential, but it is only in 

 the light of our own knowledge that pottery appears to have been an 

 inevitable result. In man's potential arts and crafts first steps must 

 have been last steps far oftener than not, and many beginnings came to 

 an end before they got a start. The first step or the next step may be 

 within the range of vision, but the next but one is always out of sight — 

 foresight is not farsight. 



