Mill cites the following case, which is worth noting as an
instance of the extreme delicacy and accuracy to which may be
developed this power of sizing up the significant factors of a
situation. A Scotch manufacturer procured from England, at a
high rate of wages, a working dyer famous for producing very
fine colors, with the view of teaching to his other workmen the
same skill. The workman came; but his method of proportioning
the ingredients, in which lay the secret of the effects he
produced, was by taking them up in handfuls, while the common
method was to weigh them. The manufacturer sought to make him
turn his handling system into an equivalent weighing system,
that the general principles of his peculiar mode of proceeding
might be ascertained. This, however, the man found himself
quite unable to do, and could therefore impart his own skill to
nobody. He had, from individual cases of his own experience,
established a connection in his mind between fine effects of
color and tactual perceptions in handling his dyeing materials;
and from these perceptions he could, in any particular case,
infer the means to be employed and the effects which would be
produced.--JOHN DEWEY, “How We Think.”
(1671)
=Invention=--See AMBITION.
=Invention and Employment=--See VALUE OF ONE MAN.
=Inventions=--See LABOR-SAVING DEVICES.
=Inventions, Worthless=--See DISAPPOINTMENT.
=Inventive Possibilities=--See FUTURE POSSIBILITIES.