Another well-known fact is that those applications of the forces
of nature to the promotion of human welfare which have made our
age what it is are of such comparatively recent origin that we
need go back only a single century to antedate their most
important features, and scarcely more than four centuries to find
their beginning. It follows that the subject of our inquiry should
be the commencement, not many centuries ago, of a certain new form
of intellectual activity.
Having gained this point of view, our next inquiry will be into
the nature of that activity and its relation to the stages of
progress which preceded and followed its beginning. The
superficial observer, who sees the oak but forgets the acorn,
might tell us that the special qualities which have brought out
such great results are expert scientific knowledge and rare
ingenuity, directed to the application of the powers of steam and
electricity. From this point of view the great inventors and the
great captains of industry were the first agents in bringing about
the modern era. But the more careful inquirer will see that the
work of these men was possible only through a knowledge of the
laws of nature, which had been gained by men whose work took
precedence of theirs in logical order, and that success in
invention has been measured by completeness in such knowledge.
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