conservatism that characterizes negative intuition in tolerating no innovation fosters no improvements. But all improvement results from invention, hence it stimulates no invention. Extreme forms of this tendency are seen in some cases of religious conservatism which looks upon all newfangled contrivances as diabolical, and if allowed prohibits or distroys them.1 The habit of thought also reacts upon the constitution of the mind. rendering conservative persons uninventive. It is difficult to demonstrate this in men, yet could it be investigated it would probably appear. But society possesses a great conservative class the female sex-and a comparison of the average mental qualities of men and women is not difficult. While many exceptions of course exist, while there are conservative men and progressive women, and uninventive men and ingenious women, it is nevertheless an obvious fact patent to every observer that the female is the conservative and the male the inventive sex, that women as a rule are conservative, and that as a rule they are not inventive. The foregoing considerations go to show that these qualities stand in the relation of cause. and effect, that the habitual exercise of the intuitive judgment is not favorable to the development of the inventive faculty.

This exhausts the sources of comparison, and the question reverts to the psychology of invention, the essential nature of an inventive act. All the mental acts of intuition of whatever form, that is, the flow of nerve-currents constituting psychic activity, are attended with corresponding movements of the appropriate organs or of the entire organism. These movements are adapted to taking advantage of the relations perceived. In the subjective forms of intuition these acts are usually such as

1 Suivant la logique, barbare mais rigoureuse, des peuples arriérés, toute intervention active de l'homme pour améliorer à son profit l'économie générale de la nature, doit certainement constituer une sorte d'injurieux attentat au gouvernement providentiel. Il n'est pas douteux, en effet, qu'une prépondérance trop absolue de l'esprit religieux tend nécessairement, en elle-même, à engourdir l'essor industriel de l'humanité, par le sentiment exaggéré d'un stupide optimisme, comme on peut le vérifier en tant d'occasions décisives. — Auguste Comte: Philosophie Positive, IV, 517.

to deceive some other sentient being, and cause such being to do what it otherwise would not have done, or to refrain from doing what it would otherwise have done. That is, it consists in a form of inducement, allurement, or attraction to perform certain acts. Certain forces are perceived regularly to actuate living things, and by cunning, sagacity, shrewdness, diplomacy, or strategy these forces are made to impel in directions that will be advantageous to the intuitive agent. Mechanical ingenuity certainly very closely resembles this. Certain qualities of material bodies and certain physical forces (these in the last analysis being really the same) are perceived to exist. It is also perceived that if these forces acted in a different direction, or with a different degree of intensity from what they do when unobstructed, or acted together instead of separately, or with, instead of against each other, etc., etc., they would of themselves accomplish results advantageous to man, primarily, of course, advantageous to self. It is still further perceived that although the agent himself is unable by his own muscular strength to accomplish these desired results, he is able to make such adjustments in the circumjacent objects as will change the direction, intensity, and dynamic relations of these forces, so as to cause them to act as he perceives to be advantageous. Or, dealing with the qualities of materials, he is able to change their form from the amorphous and useless to the definite and useful, as e. g., to convert clay1 into pots, or trees into boats. Such complicated readjustments as these last named required a high degree of intellectual development, and could only have been finally reached through an infinite number of partial failures and increasingly successful efforts.

1 ̓Αλλὰ γὴν μὲν οὐδεὶς ἴδατι δεύσας ἀφῆκεν, ὡς ἀπὸ τύχης καὶ αὐτομάτως πλίνθων ἐσομένων. Plutarch: Περὶ Τύχης.

CHAPTER XXIX.

INVENTIVE GENIUS.

The devices and strategems by which he [man] was enabled to circumvent the less sagacious forms of life, and the foresight and calculation which taught him how to multiply the growth and abundance of nutritive vegetables, were of no avail beyond a certain limit unless supplemented and assisted by a still higher order of mental activity, by a practical comprehension of the inert laws of physics and mechanics, and the skillful elaboration of material objects into forms adapted to aid, accelerate, intensify, and focalize the natural forces which were operating in the direction of producing his means of subsistence. The form of mental exertion, the species of cunning, which he had manifested in the primary modes of production, were superficial and general. To make them permanently successful, they required to be seconded by more profound and more specific forms of psychic power and intellectual energy. — Dynamic Sociology, I, 549.

Now, what I maintain, and what the advocates of the new education ought to insist upon in the discussion of this question, is, that this exalted faculty of invention, both in its mental and its physical aspects -- both as to mind and body, brain and muscle—is susceptible of cultivation in the same manner and to the same degree as all other human faculties. The mind can be directed by appropriate training into habits of inventive thought. It can be habituated to look for possible utilities in all objects and phenomena that present themselves to the senses, and trained to embody these ideas in concrete forms and mechanisms. This is genuine invention. The process consists in forming a mental conception of a given utility, and then in working out the modifications necessary to realize it.

. . The great mistake lies in supposing that this state of things cannot or should not be increased. It can be increased by education to any desired degree, and such a degree can be conceived of as might relieve mankind of nearly all the drudgery that has now to be performed. — The Forum, Vol. V, New York, July, 1888, p. 578.

Primo itaque videtur inventorum nobilium introductio inter actiones humanas longe primas partes tenere: id quod antiqua sæcula judicaverunt. Ea enim rerum inventoribus divinos honores tribuerunt; iis autem qui in rebus civilibus merebantur (quales erant urbium et imperiorum conditores, legislatores, patriarum a diuturnis malis liberatores, tyrannidum debellatores, et his similes), heroum tantum honores decreverunt. Atque certe si quis ea

recte conferat, justum hoc prisci sæculi judicium reperiet. Etenim inventorum beneficia ad universum genus humanum pertinere possunt, civilia ad certas tantummodo hominum sedes: hæc etiam non ultra paucas ætates durant, illa quasi perpetuis temporibus. Atque status emendatio in civilibus non sine vi et perturbatione plerumque procedit: at inventa beant, et beneficium deferunt absque alicujus injuria aut tristitia. - BACON : Novum Organum, Aph. cxxix.

The higher acquisitions and achievements of intellect have now become so remote from practical life, that their relations to it are usually lost sight of. But if we remember that in the stick employed to heave up a stone, or the paddle to propel a boat, we have illustrations of the uses of levers; while in the pointing of an arrow so as to allow for its fall during flight, certain dynamical principles are tacitly recognized; and that from these vague early cognitions the progress may be traced step by step to the generalizations of mathematicians and astronomers; we see that science has gradually emerged from the crude knowledge of the savage. And if we remember that as this crude knowledge of the savage served for simple guidance of his life-sustaining actions, so the developed sciences of mathematics and astronomy serve for guidance in the workshop and the countinghouse and for steering of vessels, while developed physics and chemistry preside over all manufacturing processes; we see that at the one extreme as at the other, furtherance of men's ability to deal effectually with the surrounding world, and so to satisfy their wants, is that purpose of intellectual culture which precedes all others. — HERBERT SPENCER: Principles of Ethics, I, pp. 516–517.

Jene Schärfe des Verstandes im Auffassen der kausalen Beziehungen der mittelbar erkannten Objekte findet ihre Anwendung nicht allein in der Naturwissenschaft (deren sämmtliche Entdeckungen ihr zu verdanken sind); sondern auch im praktischen Leben, wo sie Klugheit heisst; da sie hingegen in der ersteren Anwendung besser Scharfsinn, Penetration, und Sagacität genannt wird: genau genommen bezeichnet Klugheit ausschliesslich den im Dienste des Willens stehenden Verstand. Jedoch sind die Gränzen dieser Begriffe nie scharf zu ziehen, da es immer eine und dieselbe Funktion des nämlichen, schon bei der Anschauung der Objekte im Raum in jedem Thiere thätigen Verstandes ist, die, in ihrer grössten Schärfe, bald in den Erscheinungen der Natur von der gegebenen Wirkung die unbekannte Ursache richtig erforscht und so der Vernunft den Stoff giebt zum Denken allgemeiner Regeln als Naturgesetze; bald, durch Anwendung bekannter Ursachen zu bezweckten Wirkungen, komplicirte sinnreiche Maschinen erfindet; bald, auf Motivation angewendet, entweder feine Intriguen und Machinationen durchschaut und vereitelt, oder aber auch selbst

die Motive und die Menschen, welche für jedes derselben empfänglich sind, gehörig stellt, und sie eben nach Belieben, wie Maschinen durch Hebel und Räder, in Bewegung setzt und zu ihren Zwecken leitet. — SCHOPENHAUER: Welt als Wille, I, 25–26.

The use of the word genius has thus far been avoided because there is usually associated with all its uses the notion of disinterested application to some inspiring conception, a notion directly opposed to the intense egoism characteristic of the class of primary intellectual acts that have been considered. But the inventive faculty alone among all these contains the possibility of developing out of self and of losing itself in nature. Originating like the others in pure egoism under the lash of the will, it still possessed even at the outset, as shown in the last chapter, the special privilege of being directed toward the discernment of relations between external things, and of being only secondarily connected with the willing subject. At first this liberty produced no tendency to cut loose from the will, and these relations were perceived only in order to discover thereby a line, however irregular, of least resistance to the object of desire. But at length the habit of treating these means temporarily as ends resulted in transferring some small part of the satisfaction to the successful discovery of the means. The rare and special quality of mind required for this gave it a peculiar relish and it became a pleasure to discover hitherto unsuspected means for the accomplishment even of the primary ends of being. Up to this point we may consider the intellect simply as an instrument of the will, but henceforth it was destined to form, to a greater and greater extent, a part of the will or soul, to become itself a center of emotional feeling, to have wants of its own and desires to satisfy. This datum point may be set down as the true origin of the sense of enjoyment in intellectual exercise, which ultimately developed into a great psychic and social force.

This circumstance soon carried the inventive faculty above and beyond the other forms of intuition. The act of seeking