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 Phoenicians, 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.
[Illustration: Two Cretan Vases]
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--
"The lunatic, the lover and the poet
Are of imagination all compact."
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.
[Illustration: Insurgent Captives Brought Before Darius]
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 Phoenician
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.
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 Phoenicia 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.
Shortly afterward Alexander reached the town of Gaza, the great
stronghold of the Philistines. It stood on high ground, and was
more than two miles from the sea. Alexander's engineers reported to
him that, as the fleet could not assist them, and as the walls were
themselves very high and stood on a high hill, the walls could never be
stormed. Things looked serious. They were serious; and failure would
then have come to any man, except a man like Alexander. He cut the
Gordian knot by ordering that ramparts be thrown up as high as the top
of the walls, and war engines placed on the ramparts. This was done,
and the city was taken.
Alexander's campaigns in Egypt, and afterward in western Asia, were
characterized by the same quickness and daring, both in conception and
in execution, that had marked his opening campaigns in Greece. Later,
when advancing toward Persia, he encountered a tribe of hillsmen in
the Uxian Pass, who, like the Thessalians and the Thracians, thought
they had blocked his passage by opposing him in so narrow a defile.
Alexander literally "circumvented" them by making a night march over
a difficult mountain pass, and astonishing them by an attack on
their rear the following morning. Shortly afterward a like situation
presented itself, when an army opposed him in a narrow defile called
the Persian Gates, that was fortified with a wall. Alexander soon
realized that the position of his enemy was impregnable. He learned,
however, that there was a path that led around the pass, though it was
exceedingly dangerous, particularly to men in armor and to horses,
and especially at that time, when snow and ice were on the ground. He
again utilized his former invention (circumvention) and with his former
success; though the conditions under which it was accomplished were
much more difficult.
The four examples just given of literally circumventing an uninventive
enemy illustrate in the simplest form the influence of invention on
military history.
After it became clear to Alexander that his invasion of Asia would
be successful from a military point of view, his active imagination
presented to his mind a picture of a grand and noble empire, embracing
the whole world, but dominated and inspired by the spirit of the
civilization of Greece. To develop this conception into an actual
reality, became at once the object of his efforts. To develop it, he
decided to adopt in some measure the characteristics and dress of
the people in whatever province he might be, and to take such steps
in organizing provinces, founding cities and establishing systems, as
to weld all into one empire, under himself, as ruler. One can hardly
credit the authoritative account he reads of Alexander's bewildering
success. He seems not only to have won battles, and built cities,
and organized provinces, but actually to have super-posed Greek
civilization on Persian civilization!
In one of his most important later battles, Alexander again utilized
his inventiveness. If he had not done so, he would assuredly have lost
the battle. It was against King Porus in northwestern India. Alexander
found the forces of Porus encamped on the opposite side of the Hydaspes
River, with the evident intention of preventing him from crossing. As
the army of Porus in men alone was evidently equal to his own, and
as it was reinforced with a multitude of elephants, Alexander was
apparently confronted with a problem impossible of solution. It would
have been impossible to anyone but a man like Alexander. He, however,
by means of various feints and ingenious stratagems, managed to get
across at night about sixteen miles up the river, using boats that he
had constructed, and floats of skin stuffed with straw. Porus took up
a position on the opposite shore and made ready to receive attack, his
front preceded by war chariots and elephants. Alexander had neither;
but he did have brains and originality. So he simply held the enemy
with his infantry, and then made a determined attack with cavalry and
archers on the enemy's left flank, and especially on the elephants. The
elephants soon got beyond control; and the rest of the battle was a
fight between a highly trained Macedonian phalanx, assisted by cavalry,
and an Oriental mob.
Alexander died in Babylon when not quite thirty-three years old. In
actual and immediate achievement he surpassed perhaps every other man
who has ever lived. He founded an empire which he himself had conceived
and developed, which covered nearly all the then known world, and
which, though it was composed mainly of barbarous and semi-barbarous
people, was dominated by Greek thought. It is true that the empire
fell apart almost immediately after Alexander died. But it did not
fall into anarchy, or revert to its previous state: it was divided
into four parts, each of which was distinct, self-governing and well
organized. The two larger parts, the kingdom of the Seleucidæ, which
occupied approximately the territory of Persia, and the kingdom of the
Ptolomies, or Egypt, continued as torch-bearers to civilization for
many centuries thereafter.
Of the two, the former was the larger and was probably the better,
from an administrative point of view; but Egypt represented the finer
civilization; for Alexandria, with its library and its wonderful
museum, became the seat of learning and the resort of the scholars of
the world, and the centre of the Hellenistic civilization that followed
that of Greece.
This Hellenistic civilization, it may here be pointed out, was in some
respects as fine as that of Greece, and in some respects was finer,
because it was more mature. But (perhaps for the reason that it was
more mature) it lacked much of the element that was the highest in the
Greek, the element that gave Greek civilization greater influence on
history than any other civilization ever had--the creative element. The
creative period of Greece ceased when her political liberty was lost.
Furthermore, the immense amount of wealth that poured into the Grecian
cities and the Græco-Oriental world, by reason of the putting into
circulation of gold that had been stored away in Oriental palaces,
as well as by the commercial exploitation of the riches of the East,
brought about a general effeminizing of all classes of society, and the
consequent dulling of their minds.
[Illustration: The Lighthouse of the Harbor of Alexandria in the
Hellenistic Age]
Nevertheless, there was great intellectual activity in the
Græco-Oriental world, and a certain measure of invention, though little
was of a basic kind. Euclid improved the science of geometry, and put
it in virtually the same shape as that in which it has been taught
since, even to this day. Aristarchus, the astronomer, announced the
doctrine that the earth revolves around the sun and rotates on its
own axis; and Hipparchus invented the plan of fixing the positions of
places on the earth by their latitudes north and south of the Equator
and their longitude east or west of a designated meridian. Hippocrates
and Galen conceived and developed the foundations of the science of
medicine of the present day. Eratosthenes estimated with extraordinary
accuracy the circumference of the earth, and founded the science of
geography.
But the greatest of all of the original workers of that time was
Archimedes, who lived at Syracuse in Sicily, and was killed by mistake
when Syracuse was captured in the year 212 B. C., while engaged in
drawing a geometrical figure on the sand. His principal fame is as a
mathematician; but as a great inventor of mechanical appliances, he
is the first man recognized as such in history. The invention with
which his name is most frequently linked is that of the Archimedean
screw. This consisted of a tube, wound spirally around an inclined
axle, and so disposed that when the lower end of the tube was dipped
into water and the axle was rotated water would rise in the tube--as
shavings do when a screw is screwed down into wood. It constituted a
very convenient pump and was so used. This was, of course, a mechanical
invention of the utmost originality and value, and forms one of the
clearly defined stepping-stones to civilization.
There seems to be a belief in the minds of some that Archimedes was the
inventor of the lever. The lever was, of course, invented long before
he lived; but the laws of its operation and the principle that the
weight on each side of the fulcrum, multiplied by its distance from
the fulcrum, is equal to the weight on the other side, multiplied by
its distance (when the lever is in equilibrium), seems to have been
established by him.
Many stories are told of his exploits when Syracuse was besieged by
the Romans, but they are rather vague. The best known story is that he
arranged a great many mirrors in such a way that he concentrated so
many rays of sunlight on some Roman ships that they took fire. Whether
this is true or not is not definitely known; but many centuries later
Buffon, the French scientist, made an arrangement of plane mirrors
with which he set fire to wood 200 feet away.
The greatest single exploit of Archimedes was his discovery and
demonstration of the hydrostatic principle that the weight of liquid
displaced by a body floating in it is equal to that of the body.
The story is that the king gave him the apparently impossible task
of determining the quantity of gold and the quantity of silver in a
certain gold coin, in making which the king suspected the workmen of
stealing part of the gold and substituting silver. Pondering this
subject later while lying in his bath, Archimedes suddenly realized
that his body displaced a bulk of water equal to that part of his body
that was immersed, and conceived the consequent law; and the conception
was so startling and so vivid that he rushed unclad out into the street
crying, "I have found it, I have found it."
The story as a story may not be exactly true; but if Archimedes
had realized the full purport and the never-ending result of his
conception, he would probably have done something even more eccentric
than he did.
* * * * *
Archimedes esteemed mechanical inventions as greatly inferior in value
to those speculations and demonstrations that convince the mind, and
considered that his chief single work was discovering the mathematical
relation between a sphere and a cylinder just containing it.
Whether this discovery and the discovery of the hydrostatic principle
just mentioned were inventions or not, depends, of course, on the
meaning of the word invention. Within the meaning of the word as
employed heretofore in this book, both seem to have been inventions.
Each made a definite creation and each caused something to exist,
the like of which had never existed before. Furthermore, the mental
processes followed resemble very closely the conception and formulation
of a religion or a theory, the conception and composing of a new piece
of music, story or poem, the conception and developing of any new
plan or scheme; the conception and embodying in material form of any
mechanical device.
It is not asserted, of course, that all inventions are on a dead level
of equality, simply because they are inventions. Evidently there are
degrees of excellence among inventions as among all other things.