Chapter I: Preface

To show that inventors have accomplished more than most persons realize, not only in bringing forth new mechanisms, but in doing creative work in many walks of life, is, in part, the object of this book. To suggest what they may do, if properly encouraged, is its main intention. For, since it is to inventors mainly that we owe all that civilization is, it is to inventors mainly that we must look for all that civilization can be made to be.

The mind of man cannot even conceive what wonders of beneficence inventors may accomplish: for _the resources of invention are infinite_.

The author is indebted to Ginn & Company, Boston, for the use of illustrations from "General History for Colleges and High Schools," by Philip Van Ness Myers, and "Ancient Times, A History of the Early World," by James Henry Breasted, and to George H. Doran Company, New York, for the use of a map from "A History of Sea Power," by William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. INVENTION IN PRIMEVAL TIMES 1

II. INVENTION IN THE ORIENT 24

III. INVENTION IN GREECE 51

IV. INVENTION IN ROME: ITS RISE AND FALL 81

V. INVENTION OF THE GUN AND OF PRINTING 101

VI. COLUMBUS, COPERNICUS, GALILEO AND OTHERS 125

VII. THE RISE OF ELECTRICITY, STEAM AND CHEMISTRY 148

VIII. THE AGE OF STEAM, NAPOLEON AND NELSON 179

IX. INVENTIONS IN STEAM, ELECTRICITY, AND CHEMISTRY CREATE
A DANGEROUS ERA 203

X. CERTAIN IMPORTANT CREATIONS OF INVENTION, AND THEIR
BENEFICENT INFLUENCE 231

XI. INVENTION AND GROWTH OF LIBERAL GOVERNMENT AND AMERICAN
CIVIL WAR 255

XII. INVENTION OF THE MODERN MILITARY MACHINE, TELEPHONE,
PHONOGRAPH AND PREVENTIVE MEDICINE 279

XIII. THE CONQUEST OF THE ETHER--MOVING PICTURES--RISE OF
JAPAN AND THE UNITED STATES 301

XIV. THE FRUITION OF INVENTION 322

XV. THE MACHINE OF CIVILIZATION, AND THE DANGEROUS IGNORANCE
CONCERNING IT, SHOWN BY STATESMEN 333

XVI. THE FUTURE 341

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

Carvings in Ivory and in Stone of Cavern Walls made by the
Hunters of the Middle Stone Age 3

Early Babylonian Signs, Showing Their Pictorial Origin 27

Villa of an Egyptian Noble 34

The Pyramids of Gizeh 36

Assyrians Flaying Prisoners Alive 44

Two Cretan Vases 52

Insurgent Captives Brought Before Darius 58

The Lighthouse of the Harbor of Alexandria in the Hellenistic
Age 77

Triumphal Procession from the Arch of Titus 96

The Printing of Books 113

Portuguese Voyages and Possessions 126

Hero's Engines 150

Hero's Altar Engine 151

Leupold's Engine 154

INVENTION, THE MASTER-KEY
TO PROGRESS

INVENTION, THE MASTER-KEY TO PROGRESS