Invention: The Master-key to Progress

CHAPTER III

INVENTION IN GREECE

Our brief survey has thus far carried us over the lands of Egypt, China and western Asia; lands so far removed from us in distance, and inhabited by people so far removed from us in time and character, that they seem to belong almost to another world. But we now are coming to a country which, though its history goes back many centuries before the Christian era, was a country of Europe and inhabited by a people who seem near. The Greeks who overran what we now call Greece, probably about 1500 B. C., took possession of a civilization exceedingly high, which the inhabitants of the mainland and the Ægean Islands had received from the East, through the Phœnicians, who brought it in their ships. This civilization the Ægean islanders, especially the Cretans, had developed and improved, particularly in creations of beauty and works of art. The Greeks created a still higher civilization, and transmitted it to us. The influence of Greek civilization we see on every hand: – in our language, in our daily life, and especially in our ideas of art, literature and philosophy.

That a civilization so high and beautiful should have been attained, could hardly have been brought about without the presence of great imagination among the Greeks, and the exercise of considerable invention. The presence of both imagination and invention are evidenced in every page of the early history of Greece, in the stirring stories of her heroes, and in the conception and development of her government. Compared with the stories of ancient Greece, the stories of the childhood of every other country seem unimaginative and tame. The stories of early Greece still live and still have the power to charm. The Iliad and Odyssey are in the first rank of the great poems even now; and the story of Helen and the siege of Troy is as full of life and color as any that we know.

An interesting legend characteristic of the inventiveness of the ancient Greeks was that of the large wooden horse in which a hundred brave warriors concealed themselves, and were drawn within the walls of Troy by the Trojans themselves, who had been induced to do this by an ingenious story, invented to deceive them. Whether the legend is true or not does not affect the fact that invention was needed and employed to create the legend in the one case, or to cause the incident in the other case.

The prehistoric age of Greece was filled with myths of so much beauty, interest and originality, that the Greek mythology is more read, even now, than any other. It formed also the basis of the later mythology of the Romans.

It may be noted here that mere imagination is not a quality of very high importance, unless it be associated with constructiveness. In fact, imagination is evidenced more by savage and barbarous peoples than by the civilized; as it is also by children and women than by men. Imagination by itself, untrained and undirected, while it is unquestionably an attribute of the mind, is not one of reason, in the sense that it does not necessarily employ the reasoning faculties. In fact, the imagination, unless trained and well-directed, may lead us to the absurdest performances, in defiance of the suggestions of reason. Using the word imagination in this sense, Shakespeare said —

It is only when imagination has been assisted by reason, it is only when conception has been followed by construction, that practical inventions have resulted.

The myths invented by the Greeks in their prehistoric period were the products of not only imagination but construction. Each myth was a perfectly connected story, complete in all necessary detail, admirably put together, and told in charming language. The story of Jason's Argonautic Expedition in search of the Golden Fleece cannot be surpassed in any of the elements that make a story good; Penelope is still the model of conjugal devotion, and Achilles the ideal warrior; Poseidon, or his Roman successor, Neptune, still rules the waves; Aphrodite, or Venus, calls up more vividly before our minds than any other name the vision of feminine beauty even to this day. Hercules exemplifies muscular strength, and Apollo still typifies that which is most beautiful in manliness.

The influence of the Grecian myths, "pure inventions" as they were, in the sense that they were fictitious and not true, has been explained and demonstrated at great length and with abundant enthusiasm by poets and scholars for many centuries. They have been generally regarded as inventions, but nevertheless as quite different from such inventions as the steam-engine or the printing press. The present author wishes to point out that the mental processes by which both myths and engines were created were alike, and that the inventions differed mainly in the uses to which they were put.

Even the uses to which they were put were similar in the end; for the use of the myths and of the steam engine was to improve the conditions of man's existence. There is only one way in which to do this, and that is by improving the impressions made on his mind. The myths did this by making beautiful pictures for his mind to gaze at, and by using them to induce him to follow a certain (good) line of conduct, rather than the contrary. The steam engine did it by making the conditions of living more comfortable, by rendering transportation more safe and rapid, and by rendering possible the procuring of many of the pleasant things of life from distant places.

The invention of a myth may be said to be the invention of an immaterial thing; the invention of a steam engine to be of a material thing. These two lines of effort, invention has followed since long before the dawn of history. Of the two, the invention of myths and stories probably succeeded the other.

Probably also it has been the more important in affecting our actual degree of happiness; affecting it beneficently in the main. For, while some myths and stories have filled men with dread and horror, a very large majority have had the opposite effect; and while many mechanical inventions have contributed to our material ease and comfort, it is not clear that they have much increased our actual happiness. Men accommodate themselves easily to changes in their material surroundings; what is a luxury today will be a necessity tomorrow; and very many of the material inventions have tended to artificial and unhealthful modes of living, with consequent physical deterioration and its accompanying loss of happiness.

As to influence on history, however, the influence of the material inventions has probably been the greater. Immaterial inventions might have been made in enormous numbers without of themselves affecting history greatly; but the material inventions have brought about most of the events that history describes; and without one material invention, that of writing, history could not exist at all. History is rather a narrative of men's deeds than of their thoughts; and their deeds have been directed largely by the implements which they had to do deeds with.

We must realize, of course, that the Greeks were much indebted to the Ægeans; for discoveries about the shores and islands of the Ægean Sea show that long before the advent of the Greeks they used tools and weapons of rough and then of polished stone, and later of copper and tin and bronze; that they lived on farms and in villages and cities, and were governed by monarchs who dwelt in palaces adorned with paintings and fine carvings, and filled with court gentlemen and ladies who wore jewelry and fine clothing. Exquisite pottery was used, decorated with taste and skill; ivory was carved and gems were engraved, and articles were made of silver and bronze and gold.

As early as the sixth century B. C., the Greeks made things more beautiful than had ever been made before. One almost feels like saying that the Greeks invented beauty. Such a declaration would be absurd of course: but it seems to be a fact that the Greeks had a conception of beauty that was wholly original with them, and that was not only finer than that which any other people had ever had before, but finer than any other people have had since. And not only did they have the conception, they had the ability to embody the conception in material forms that possessed a beauty higher than had ever been produced before, and higher (at least on the average) than have ever been produced in any other country since.

Looked at in this way, the production of a new and beautiful statue, painting or temple, seems to be an act of invention much like the formulation of a myth or the writing of a poem. In this sense, the Greeks were inventors, inventors of works of beauty that have existed as concrete material creations for centuries, and have exercised an enduring influence on the minds of men.

The influence of paintings, statues and temples is not so clear as that of material inventions, but more clear than that of myths and poems. They may be said to form a class midway between inventions of material appliances and inventions of immaterial thoughts and fancies. A beautiful painting or statue is a material object in the same sense as that in which a steam engine is; but its office is to stimulate the mind, as a poem does.

The first inventor of mechanical appliances, mentioned by name as such, was Dædalus of Athens. He was probably a mythical person. He was reputed to be the son or the grandson of Erectheus, a probably mythical king. He is credited with the invention of the saw, the gimlet, the plumb-line, the axe, the wedge, the lever, masts and sails and even of flying; – for he is said to have escaped from Crete to Sicily with artificial wings. The story of Dædalus, like that of many other mythological personages, is both interesting and irritating from the mixture of the very probable, the highly improbable, and the entirely impossible, in a jumble. But the story of Dædalus seems to make it probable that all the things which he is reported to have invented (except flying) were in use in Greece in prehistoric times.

As no records show to us that the inventions just enumerated (except masts and sails) had been invented elsewhere, we may feel justified in inferring that they were invented in Greece by Dædalus, or by some other man bearing a different name, – or by some other men. The name borne by the man is not important to us now; but it is important to realize that such brilliant and original inventions were made so long ago by a primeval people; especially since they were of a character somewhat different from those invented in Egypt and Asia which we have already noted. The invention of the gimlet seems the most brilliant and original of those just spoken of; and one marvels that it should have been invented at such a time; for the action of the gimlet was a little more complicated than that of even the balista or the catapult. It is true that the number of parts was less, that in fact there was only one part. But that part turned around in one plane, and advanced in another; it was less like anything that existed before than the catapult was like the sling, or the balista was like the cross-bow. There was no immediate forerunner of the gimlet. In other words, the mental jump needed to invent the gimlet was from a base of nothing that we can exactly specify.

A possible suggestion for the gimlet was the succession of inclined planes by which one mounted to the top of an Assyrian or Chaldean palace; these planes rising gradually on each of the four sides, so as to form together what might be called a square spiral. It is possible that a circular spiral may have been traced later around some cylindrical shaft or column, and given the first suggestion for the screw or gimlet. Of course, a gimlet is a kind of screw. The Greeks do not seem to have applied their inventiveness after the time of Dædalus to mechanical appliances, but to works of art and systems of religion and philosophy. One of their most important inventions may be said to be mid-way between: it consisted in adding vowels to the Phœnician alphabet and producing the basis of the Latin and succeeding alphabets. The Greeks were not naturally of a warlike disposition, and their peculiarly jealous temperament prevented the various states and cities from combining and forming a great nation. Their energetic character and great intellectuality saved them, however, when Darius, King of Persia, invaded Greece in 490 B. C.

By that time the Greeks had raised and trained an army of great excellence. No especial inventiveness seems to have been exercised, but the equipments of the men, their organization, their armor, their weapons and their discipline had been brought to a standard exceedingly high. All these advantages were needed; for the Persians were a warlike people, their King Darius was an ambitious and successful conqueror, and the number of Persians that invaded Greece was far greater than the number that Greece could raise to fight them.

Had the Greeks been destitute of invention they would have followed the most obvious course, that of shutting themselves up inside the protection of the walls of Athens. Had they done this, the Persians would have surrounded the city, shut them off from supplies from outside, and slowly but surely forced them to surrender.

But, on the insistent advice of Miltiades, the Greeks advanced to meet the Persians, leaving the shelter of their walls behind them. It may not seem to some that Miltiades made any invention in planning the campaign which he urged against much resistance, and which the Athenians finally carried out. Yet his mental action was one allied to that of making an invention; for his mind conceived a plan as a purely mental picture, then developed into a workable project, and then presented it as a concrete proposition. Later, when the hostile forces met on the low plain of Marathon, Miltiades rejected the obvious plan that an uninventive mind would have adopted. Instead of it, he invented the plan of weakening his center, strengthening his flanks, and departing from the usual custom of advancing slowly against the enemy, in favor of advancing on the run. The plan (invention) worked perfectly. The unsuspecting Persians broke through the center and pursued the fleeing Athenians to a rough ground; – only to be caught between the two flanks, like a nut in a nut-cracker, and crushed to pieces.