Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/684

I hear people not infrequently express the belief that man-will soon exhaust the field of invention. The inventions of the last century have been so numerous and wonderful that to many minds it seems most likely that man will soon reach the limit of his power, or that he will exhaust the resources of Nature. But there is little reason to fear that either condition can be reached for ages, if ever. It is as little likely that man will ever reach the limit of invention as it is that he will be able to fix the bounds of the universe. Man makes inventions by combining the materials and forces of Nature, so as to reach new results. Let any one consider how numerous are the materials which Nature presents to the observation and use of man, how varied in kind and degree are the forces which are in constant operation, and how multifarious and intricate are the laws which govern their actions and relations, and then calculate, if he can, the number of possible combinations which can be made. I have seen the statement, which is no doubt true, that the fifteen blocks in the gem-puzzle can be arranged in more than a million different ways. If this simple toy possesses such capabilities, what possibility is there that man can ever exhaust the field of Nature? Wonderful as man's inventions are in number and character, they are at an infinite distance behind the works of Nature. What a multitude of created things there are in Nature, looking simply at species and varieties, and not at the individuals! How many kinds of plants and animals are to be found! What multitudes of reptiles and insects! No machine which man has invented calls into play such wonderful forces or is governed by such wonderful laws as the humblest plant on which he treads! Man is far enough yet from inventing a structure which shall build itself up from the earth, air, and water, and scatter germs for its indefinite reduplication I lie has succeeded in copying some of the products of Nature, and he will achieve still greater results, but in doing it he has but opened a new field of invention, one which only a few years before seemed utterly beyond his reach. He has enlarged the field of invention, not exhausted it. A striking instance of what man has done in this new direction is exhibited in the substance called alizarine. It is the substance which gives to madder its coloring quality. Not many years ago, madder was extensively cultivated in many countries to supply the demand for the arts. Now the article is made artificially from coal-tar, and the fields where madder was cultivated have to be devoted to other purposes. Invention has taught man how to make indigo, and the artificial article is likely to supplant the natural product. Diamonds have been produced artificially. I have full faith that sugar will in time in like manner be produced artificially. Starch and oil may not unlikely be provided in the same way. Man now cultivates the silk-worm which devours mulberry-leaves and converts a large portion into a glutinous fluid which, when spun out into a fine thread, hardens and forms our silk. Man may yet learn how to ex-