Historical & Descriptive Anecdotes of Steam Engines, and Their Inventors & Improvers (Volume 1) - Brossura
Sinossi
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1829. Excerpt: ... INTRODUCTION. XXX111 tasle to claim indulgence for diverging into so obscure and tasteless a path of biographical research--Even he, in a laboured apology, never dreamt of attributing the overflow of national wealth which all ascribe to the extension of our manufactures to Vhe humble artists whose genius produced the machines which alone gave us the superiority over all other nations. This deference to refinement might, therefore, perhaps have been better omitted; our regret is, that of those who widely extended the dominion of mind over matter, little should be known beyond the fact,that while theircoumry was reaping unknown benefits from their inventions, it left their authors to pine in obscurity and want; one of the two, who fortunately were partial exceptions, when he appealed for protection against piracy to that law, which apparently secured to him the fruits of his ingenuity, found it to have been enacted on the principle of an " order of the day," issued by a Bajazet to discourage and repress individual.exertion. "If the enterprise succeeds," said the caliph, "let the booty be equally divided among my whole army--if its success be doubtful, and the leader survives, let him lose his head." They who dissent from what they are pleased to designate as the overweening conceit of inventors have remarked, that even their most boasted productions when narrowly examined do not appear to exhibit any great ingenuity; but on the contrary, many of them are such simple and obvious things as to preclude the notion of invention altogether. These critics, however, con. found ingenuity with complexity, and are persons who would think Swift's puddle to be amazingly deep because they could not distinguish the bottom of it. The simplicity which they despise XXXW INTR...
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