Invention: The Master-key to Progress

It can hardly be seriously questioned that in this plan Miltiades showed the abilities of the inventor, and in a highly brilliant and highly important way. Had he fought the battle in the obvious way, the great numerical superiority of the Persians could hardly have failed to gain the victory, despite a really considerable superiority of the Athenians in training and equipment. But the Persians were the victims of a new and unexpected kind of attack. A new weapon suddenly brought to bear on them would have had a similar effect.

This is the first illustration in recorded history of the influence of invention on the deciding of a war. Its influence was enormous in this case; for the battle of Marathon was one of the most decisive and one of the most important battles ever fought. If it had been decided contrariwise, Grecian civilization would have been stamped out, or so completely stifled that it would never have risen to the heights it afterwards attained; freedom of thought and government would have been smothered, and the world would be immeasurably different now from what it really is.

The defeat of the Persians was so decisive that they withdrew to their own country, but with the determination of returning, and in overwhelming force. By reason of a variety of circumstances, including the death of the king, the invasion did not take place until ten years later. Then, in the year 480 B. C., King Xerxes set out on a punitive expedition against Greece with an enormous military and naval force.

Again Greece was saved from Persia by pure brain power, that of Themistocles. Like Miltiades, he rejected the obvious. Discerning, as no one else discerned, that the weakest point in the Persian forces was the line of communication across the Ægean Sea, because the ships of those days were fragile, and an invading army needed to get supplies continually from Persia, he pointed out that although it was the Persian army that would do the actual damage in Greece, yet nevertheless, the major effort of the Athenians should not be spent on their army but on their navy.

The difficulties he met in making the Athenians see the truth may easily be imagined, from experiences in our own day. He succeeded at last, however; so that by the time the Persians reached Greece, Greece had a fleet that was very good, though not nearly so large as the Persian. The fleets came near to each other in the vicinity of Athens. The majority of the Athenian leaders advised that the Athenian fleet should retreat toward the south and west, to the isthmus of Corinth, and await the Persians there; because, if defeated, a safe retreat could be effected. But Themistocles opposed this plan with all the force and eloquence he could bring to bear; pointing out that the aim of the Athenians should not be to find a safe line of retreat, but to win a battle; and that the Bay of Salamis was the best place, for two reasons. One reason was that the Persians would have to enter the bay in column, because the entrance was narrow, and the Persian ships, as they successively passed into the bay, would therefore be at a great disadvantage against the combined attack of the Athenian ships, waiting for them there; the other reason was that the bay was so small that the great numbers and size of the Persian ships would be a disadvantage, instead of an advantage. Themistocles (not without the use of considerable diplomacy and even subterfuge) finally secured the assent of the other Athenian leaders. The result was exactly what he predicted that it would be. The Persian fleet was wholly defeated, and Greece again was saved.

The great victory of the Greeks over the Persians wrought a powerful stimulation among all the people, especially in Athens, and was followed by the most extraordinary intellectual movement in the history of the world. It lasted about a century and a half; and in no other country, and at no other period, has so much intellectual achievement been accomplished by so few people in so short a time.

Before the Persian wars, the Greeks had already shown an extraordinary originality in art and literature; especially in architecture, sculpture and poetry. Naturally these peaceful arts languished during the wars; but after the Persian invaders had been finally ejected, they rose with renewed vigor, stimulated by the patriotic enthusiasm of the nation as a whole.

It was in Athens, and among the Athenians that most of the movement was carried on. The principal state in Greece besides Athens then was Sparta. The Spartans devoted themselves mainly to warlike and allied arts, while the Athenians devoted themselves mainly to the beautification of Athens; though they were careful to guard it adequately by maintaining an excellent navy, surrounding the city with high walls, and building two long parallel walls from Athens to Piræus, its seaport.

It would be out of place in a book like this to attempt any description or discussion of the various phases of the intellectual activities that rose with such startling quickness, and developed into such important movements, during the century and a half that followed the Persian wars; especially as this has already been done by many scholars, in many languages, and at many times. A very brief and elementary statement may, however, be made, for the purpose of illustrating the influence of invention on history.

The main characteristic of the movement as a whole and of every one of the various channels which it followed, was originality. No such perception of beauty had ever been evidenced before; no such conceptions of logic, philosophy or science.

Accompanying these was a conception of free government equally original. Whether the government of Athens was the cause of the intellectual rise, or the intellectual rise was the cause of the government, may safely be left to scholars to debate; for the purposes of the present discussion, it seems sufficient that they co-existed and had together a powerful influence on history.

The greatest genius that guided the intellectual forces of the Athenians in the matter of government was that of Pericles, who ruled their minds by pure force of argument and persuasion, from about 445 to 431 B. C. Athens and her subject cities formed a virtual empire, small in extent, but powerful in influence; though in form it was a democracy. In some ways it was the most perfect democracy that ever has existed even to this day; for not only was every citizen available for office, but he was expected to take active part in deciding public measures, and to be really qualified to hold office.

This idea was put into practical operation by a careful system of payment for every public service; to the end that even the poorest citizen should be enabled to hold office, and a wealthy office-holding caste prevented from existing. To so great an extent was this carried out that, by the time that the Age of Pericles ceased and the Peloponnesian War began, almost every citizen was in the pay of the state. The perfect equality of all the citizens, and their community of interests and privileges, was recognized by supplying them at times with free tickets to places of amusement, and by banqueting the people on great occasions at the expense of the state. To distribute widely the powers and duties of citizenship, exceedingly large juries were established for the trials of all cases. There was no king or president or prime minister. The source of authority was the Assembly which included every citizen over eighteen years of age, and held forty meetings a year. Cooperating, as a sort of committee, was a Council of Five Hundred, whose members were chosen by lot each year from citizens over thirty years of age.

The success of the Athenian democracy has had a powerful influence ever since on history; because it has supplied not only a precedent but an encouragement to every people to try to escape from the individual restrictions that monarchies and all "strong governments" tend to impose. But it had another though less powerful influence also, which continued for a long while, but now has ceased, in supplying a precedent for slavery. For while the citizens of Athens were free, only the sons of Athenian fathers and Athenian mothers could be citizens; many thousand workers and merchants of all kinds could take no part in the government, and there were besides an enormous number of slaves. It was to a great degree the fact of slavery that made possible the success of the so-called Athenian democracy; for it liberated the citizens in very great measure from the drudgery of life, and gave them leisure to devote themselves to the study of government and the arts.

In addition, Athens acquired great wealth from the spoils of its wars and the tribute of its subject states. This wealth was expended largely in the beautifying of Athens, and in the consequent encouragement and opportunity to artists of all kinds. Naturally, the art most immediately encouraged was that of architecture; and that the encouragement met with ready and great success the most beautiful ruins in the world superbly testify. The directing genius in this work and in all the others was Pericles, who stimulated the Athenians with his conception and description of a city worthy to symbolize the power and glory of the empire. The twin arts of architecture and sculpture worked together and in harmony; and a city more beautiful than ever known before, or ever known since, testified to the soundness and brilliancy of the conception and to the constructive ability of the Athenians to embody it in material form.

The poets and scholars kept pace with the statesmen and the architects and the sculptors; but the philosophers surpassed them all. For, while the successful democracy of Athens is a model still, and while the Parthenon and the statue of Apollo are models still, yet an integral part of the system of government (slavery) has been abjured by the civilized world, and the temples and the statues have been for the pleasure of but a few; while the teachings of the philosophers have been the basis on which has rested ever since much of the intellectual progress of mankind.

It may be noted here that, as men have progressed up the steep road to civilization, the only guides they have had have been men who have not themselves passed over the road before, and whose only qualification as guides has lain in some attribute of the mind that enabled them to survey the road a little farther ahead than the others could, and to point out the paths to take, and the obstructions to avoid. Man's physical instincts guide him considerably as to the methods to preserve his physical existence; but they help him not at all to lift himself above his physical self, and in many ways they hinder him. It seems to be the office of the mind both to discern the upward paths and to stimulate the will to overcome the difficulties and dangers in the way.

Of the great pointers of the way, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and others, it might be deemed presumptuous of the present author to do more than speak; and of the great stimulators, Æschuylus, Sophocles, Euripedes, Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, and, above all, Demosthenes as well. But because it is pertinent to our subject it is instructive for us to note that the main distinctive feature of the work of each was originality. It is true that it is the completed work in the case of each that meets our gaze; it is true that the superficial impression would be the same, even if each work had been a copy of some work that had gone before; in the same way that, superficially, many a copy of an oil painting is as good as the original. But from the standpoint of influence on the future, it is the originator rather than the copyist who wields the influence; just as it is the basic inventor of a mechanical appliance rather than the man who improves upon it.

The Athenians and Spartans became involved in the Peloponnesian War, that lasted from 431 to 404 B. C., and ended with the capture of Athens. The Spartans thereupon became dominant in Greece, but only to be mastered by the Thebans in 371 B. C. The little jealous states of Greece were never able to agree together long, and no one state was ever able to unite them. But the half-barbarian people of Macedonia, under Philip their king, after developing their army, according to a novel system invented by him, overcame and then united under their sway the highly cultured but now military weak states that had despised them.

Possibly, it would somewhat strain the meaning of the word invention, to declare that Philip made a radically new invention, when he improved on the Theban phalanx, and devised his system of military training; for kings and other leaders had trained armies long before Philip lived, and Philip departed only in what some might call detail from the methods that had been used before. But, at the same time, it was an act, or a series of acts, betokening great initiative and originality, for a man ruling a weak collection of tribes such as dwelt in Macedon, to create out of such crude material as he began with, such an extraordinary army as he ultimately was able to lead to battle. To accomplish this it was necessary for him to conceive the idea of doing it, then to embody his conception in a formulated plan, and then bring forth the finished product. The thought of doing it must have come to him: – how else could he get it? An idea comes from outside through the mental eye to the mind; as a ray of light comes from outside through the physical eye to the retina.

The picture made on Philip's mind must have impressed him profoundly, for he spent the rest of his life in giving it "a local habitation and a name." To accomplish it cost him years of continual effort of many kinds, but he did accomplish it. He did, as a result, produce a machine, as truly a machine as Stephenson ever produced, but made up of many more parts; each part independent of any other, and yet dependent on every other, and all working together, for a common purpose.

Let us remind ourselves again that a machine composed of inanimate parts only is only one kind of machine; for a machine may be composed of animate parts, or inanimate parts, or of parts of which some are animate and some inanimate. Clearly, it makes no difference, so far as the act of invention goes, whether a man uses animate or inanimate parts; the essential of invention is the creation of a new thing. If a man merely puts two pieces of wood and a piece of string into a pile, or if he merely collects a number of men together, no invention is made and nothing is created. But if he so combines the two pieces of wood and the string as to make a bow and arrow; or if he combines a modified Theban phalanx with masses of cavalry and catapults in a novel and effective way as Philip did, invention is exercised and something is created.

Before Philip's time a phalanx was used to bear the brunt of the battle, and to overwhelm the enemy by mere strength and force; as the Thebans did at Leuctra and Mantinea. But Philip conceived the idea of merely holding the enemy with his phalanx assisted by the catapults, and hurling his cavalry against their flanks. Philip's army, as Philip used it, was a machine and a very powerful one: – each part independent of every other, yet dependent on every other – all the parts working together for a common purpose. Philip conceived the idea of making this machine, and afterwards made it; just as Ericsson more than two thousand years later conceived the idea of making a "Monitor" and afterwards made it.

By means of his machine Philip defeated the Greeks at Cheronea in the year 338 B. C., just as Ericsson by means of his machine defeated the Merrimac at Newport News in the year 1862 A. D., exactly twenty-two centuries later. The two machines differed, it is true. Yet they did not differ so much as one might unthinkingly suppose; for each machine was made up of parts, of which some were animate and some were not; and in each machine every part, animate or inanimate, cooperated with all the others; and all cooperated together, to carry out the inventor's purpose, the destruction of the enemy.

The influence of Philip's invention began before Philip died, and it continues to this day. For after Philip's death, his son Alexander put it to work at once on the task of subduing thoroughly all of Greece, and then subduing Asia.

The influence of the machine in subduing even Greece alone must not be regarded lightly; not so much because Greece was subdued, as because the various little states were by that means brought together; and because it illustrates the fact that without a machine, no great number of people can work together. It was because of the absence of any machine that the Grecian states acted separately and antagonistically, instead of in cooperation.

After subduing Greece, Alexander took his machine across the Hellespont, in the year 334 B. C., to try it on the Persian troops in Asia Minor. The machine worked so successfully at a battle on the Granicus that Alexander took it south, and with its aid was able to conquer all of Asia Minor in about a year.

It may be objected that it is not correct to attribute all of Alexander's success to the excellence of his machine; and this objection would have great force and receive the approval of most people, for the reason that, in most histories, the main credit is given to the energy of Alexander and the courage of his troops; – though the excellence of the training and organization bequeathed by Philip is admitted.

To this hypothetical objection the answer may be made that the ultimate result was due to both the machine and the excellence with which it was operated; that is, to the product of what the machine could do if it were used with perfect skill and the percentage of skill with which it was actually used. This statement is, of course, true of all machines and instruments, as the author has often pointed out, in articles and addresses.

In the case of Alexander and his army, the percentage of skill, of course, was high; but Alexander and each one of his soldiers was only a part of the machine; and even their skill was part of the machine in the sense that it was a characteristic included in the original design of Philip. In other words, we should not fall into the error of dissociating the skill of Alexander and his soldiers from the machine itself; because it was part of Philip's invention that the training should produce that skill. The system of training was part of the invention.

It is true, however, and exceedingly important, that the degree of skill which Alexander brought to bear personally was far in excess of what any system of training could possibly produce. When we read of the amazing victories that Alexander made over superior forces of highly trained warriors, we see that Philip of Macedon should not be given all the credit; that the genius of Philip of Macedon was not the only genius contributing to the result. We see that genius of some kind directed the decisions of Alexander. What were the characteristics of that genius?

Courage? Yes; history tells of no one possessing higher courage, both physical and moral, than Alexander. Not only was he physically brave, not only did he dare physical danger of many kinds, and on many occasions, but he was morally brave; he did not shirk responsibility; he did not fear to take enormous risks; he did not hesitate to reject advice, even the advice of his most experienced and able generals; he was willing to stake everything, sometimes, on the success of some wholly untried expedient of his own devising.

But does mere courage, even of so many kinds – and even if it be added to trained skill and the possession of an admirable machine – do they all together explain the amazing successes of Alexander? No. What does explain them?

Genius? Yes, but the word genius is only a word, and explains nothing; for the reason that no one knows what the word genius means. It is merely a label that we attach to a man who is able to do things that other men cannot do. But granting that the possession of "genius" is an explanation of Alexander's being able to accomplish what he did, in what way did that genius operate? in what way did it help him to win so many victories and extricate himself from so many perilous situations?

By inventing methods and devising schemes and improvising plans that an uninventive man would not have thought of. The story of the Gordian knot may or may not be true; but it seems credible, because it was exactly the kind of a thing that Alexander might have been expected to do in such an emergency. Posing as a great conqueror, he was (according to the legend) suddenly confronted with the untying of a knot, the successful accomplishment of which would make him master of Asia. He realized that he could not untie it. Any man but a man like Alexander would have tried it and acknowledged failure, or have declined to try it: placing himself in a defensive position in either case. But Alexander draws his sword and cuts the knot in two, thereby accomplishing whatever the untying of the knot would have accomplished, but in an unexpected way. Alexander's victories and escapes from perilous positions were largely accomplished by unexpected measures.

But Alexander showed his inventive ability before he invaded Persia; in his very first campaign undertaken to subdue a revolt in Thessaly immediately after he ascended to the throne. The Thessalians opposed him in a narrow defile. An ordinary man would have thought, as the Thessalians did, that he was checkmated. But Alexander conceived and executed the ingenious scheme of cutting a new road up the steep side of the mountain, leading his army along that road, and suddenly threatening the Thessalians in their helpless rear. Shortly afterward in Thrace he reached a defile in the mountains which it was necessary for him to pass, but which he found defended by a force that had stationed a number of war-chariots at the top, to be rolled down on the Macedonians. Alexander immediately ordered his infantry to advance up the path and to open their ranks whenever possible to let the chariots rush through; but when that could not be done to fall on their knees and hold their shields together as a sort of roof on which the chariots would slide, and from which they would roll off. This amazing story is supposed to be true; and it is said to have succeeded perfectly.

Not long afterward Alexander had to cross the Danube with his army and all their equipments and attack a force of barbarians on the farther bank. This he saw he could not do by the use of any means available of an ordinary kind. Nothing daunted, he conceived and executed the scheme of floating his equipments across at night in floats made of tent skins, filled with hay.

The next clear example that we find of Alexander's inventiveness was when he undertook the siege of Tyre. Tyre stood on an island of Phœnicia in the extreme eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea. It was surrounded with a wall, very thick and very high, and was separated from the shore by half a mile of deep water. To capture such a place was no small undertaking for a man who had no ships. But Alexander conceived and executed a scheme that worked successfully. In accordance with that scheme, he built a causeway that extended from the shore out toward the island on which Tyre stood. Naturally, the Tyrians obstructed his efforts by sending fireships against him and firing projectiles; and these tactics became more and more effective as the causeway approached the city. Then Alexander visited some of the jealous neighbors of Tyre that had submitted to him, and secured a fleet of some eighty ships; and these he led, as the admiral commanding, against the Tyrian harbor.

By this time, the causeway was well protected with catapults and war-engines of various kinds, and had been carried close up to the island. Yet little actual damage could be done to Tyre, because of the height and thickness of the walls, and because Alexander's galleys that he had equipped with war-engines could not get close enough, by reason of large boulders under water. Alexander then equipped certain galleys with windlasses to root up the boulders, the galleys being fitted with chain cables to prevent divers from cutting them. Tyre was soon afterwards reduced to a purely passive defense and consequent surrender.

The story of the siege of Tyre, if read in the light of the conditions of the comparative barbarism of the world in those days, is a record of inventiveness, on the part of Alexander, so convincing and complete, as to entitle Alexander to a place in the first rank among the inventors of our race.