Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Mechanical Inventions and Suggestions on Land and Water Locomotion, Tooth Machinery, and Various Other Branches of Theoretical and Practical Mechanics
Discovery and invention, whether in ethics, chemistry, mathematics, or mechanics, &c., as well as of the fine arts, are gifts bestowed on the few for the benefit of the many. When any new principle or plan (never known before, ) has been found out, the discoverer may consider it a revelation from God, who has chosen him as the only one of the millions of the past, the present, and the future, to trust with the secret; and on this person unveiling the hidden treasure to the world, he bestows a blessing on millions of his fellow-beings, now existing as well as of future generations. It is, indeed, a matter of surprise, when an important discovery or invention is made, that it has not been made before; but it has been long in embryo, progressing circumstances have matured the fruit, and from the degree of force and rapidity with which the tide of invention may ?ow may even be elicited some light as to the date of the o gin of mankind. It is well known that in ages long past little discovery and invention existed, but everything reduces its kind, and invention produces invention, w ich increases in a parabolic degree, its early progress being nearly on a cvel and varying by degrees into a sudden upward start. This is not mere figure of imagination, but is the actual way in which invention proceeds, and it really does seem that by tracing its progress, as with the portions of a curve, we ma find out every part, as Hercules may be known by his foot, we may then see how long invention has been rising to its present state also how much further it can go: and indeed it does seem that a time is rapidly ap reaching when it can go no further; and then it is to e feared that its talent will become a mere drug, while geniuses w'dhgmm maxim.
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