ADVICE TO INVENTORS ON INVENTIONS
What and how to invent, is very often asked and variously answered.
On the nature of the answer to the honest inquirer often depends
whether he is to be discouraged in a good undertaking, or sent on a
fool's errand, or directed rightly to the avenue of success.
The various answers to what and how to invent may be divided
into three different kinds. The stupid, the misleading, and the
intelligent. The remark is often made by certain people, "Oh, there
used to be lots of chances to make fortunes out of inventions YEARS
AGO, but not NOW." This is as stupid as it is untrue.
Never in the history of the world, have the opportunities been as
numerous and the rewards as great as they are now for any and every
kind of meritorious invention. Our advanced civilization, the complex
intricacies of our social fabric, the enormous general increase in
wealth and the consequent general ability, to greater or less extent,
to gratify our numerous and various desires, has created an unlimited
field of opportunity for the ingenious, fertile and enterprising
brain. Not only for the improvements upon methods of "doing things,"
for which there is no man capable of setting a limit, but even for
the invention and creation of entirely new means of gratification and
utility.
The inventor of steam locomotion created for mankind a new means
of providing for certain phases of its existence. Yet THOSE who
successively contributed their ingenuity and made the MODERN
locomotive possible have filled a want, served a useful purpose,
conferred a benefit and justly earned and merited reward. The
existence of the perfected steam locomotive did not deter human
ingenuity and enterprise from developing electric traction. The
inventors of wireless telegraphy, were not deterred or discouraged
in their efforts by the existence of telegraph wires. The fact that,
in all the unknown thousands of years of human existence, speech was
considered only a human prerogative did not prevent "THE SAGE OF
LLEWELLYN" from giving to the world the phonograph.
Every human brain is different from every other; endowed with its own
special marvellous capacity, making it possible for it to succeed in
new directions.
Who can fathom, or set a limit to the ingenuity of that divine
creation, THE HUMAN BRAIN? None but its Creator. Our ordinary
every-day mechanical utilities would be considered MAGIC by him who
wrote, "There is nothing new under the Sun."
[Illustration: WHO CAN FATHOM OR SET A LIMIT TO THE INGENUITY OF
THAT DIVINE CREATION, THE HUMAN BRAIN? NONE BUT ITS CREATOR.]
[Illustration: OUR ORDINARY EVERYDAY MECHANICAL UTILITIES WOULD
BE CONSIDERED MAGIC BY HIM WHO WROTE--"THERE'S NOTHING NEW UNDER
THE SUN."]
Happily the world is not apt to suffer from the foolish slogan of
"IN GOOD OLD TIMES," as generally the possessor of extraordinary
abilities will not be deterred by it from using them. And a SIGH for
PAST opportunities is but a true indication of the unfitness of its
unfortunate emitter for any opportunity.
The "MISLEADING ANSWER" to "WHAT AND HOW TO INVENT" is that which
tells everybody and anybody, to invent ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING.
Human abilities and environments vary, and it necessarily follows
that every individual cannot be successful in that undertaking which
requires for its successful accomplishment that which manifestly
his Creator did not endow him with. Nor is the capable man apt to
be as successful in a direction where, through his environments, he
is a stranger, as he would in that field of operation that he has
been most active in. It is better and cheaper for a person to first
determine his possession of the abilities for doing certain things,
than to find out the want of them by the failure of his undertaking.
The gifted individual will also find success easier to attain if his
efforts are directed in experienced channels, than if prospecting on
what is to him, "unexplored wilds."
And to the "MISLEADING ANSWER" OF "WHAT AND HOW TO INVENT," can
be, in a great measure, attributed the product of the inventive
weeds that choke up the patent offices as well as the elimination
of numerous individuals from ordinary but useful occupations for
which their Creator evidently intended them. Their wasted substances
furnishes a fat living to them who make a profession to give out this
"misleading" advice broadcast.