Thought Reduces Labor.

H

PROF. GEORGE G. WILSON, PH.D., of Brown University.

WOW is it that man accomplishes so much? Some animals are larger, have more strength, can move faster, can follow a trail, may live on land or in water, do not need so tender nor so long care in infancy, do not require clothing, shelter, and many other necessities for man's existence.

Such being the case, one might at first think the greater possibility of development would be in some other animal than in man. The ants work faithfully; the bees are examples of diligence; the beavers show much intelligence in the construction of their dwellings, yet all these manifest practically the same characteristics, and live the same life generation after generation. Little of the past enters into their lives. Sometimes the same nest, cave, or hole may serve as the home of several generations; but little of what those preceding saw, knew, or did affects those that come after.

One of the great hindrances to the progress of most animals is the lack of thought, or, if there be any well developed thought, the lack of a means of registering and transmitting it to others. Some animals by instinct or foresight provide for the future, yet even these repeat the same labors year after year without the application of improved methods.

How does man gradually become superior to nature's forces, while most animals find in them the same obstacles year after year? It is true that God in the beginning commanded that man should be "fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and

over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." Here were great forces, animate and inanimate, to be brought under man's power. The labor of primitive man, or of man in uncivilized countries, even now brings little more than food and shelter, and these often of the poorest sort. Even existence must often be a struggle. An uncivilized man's hardest labor may bring only an extra fish or two; indeed, his dreary round of life may differ little, so far as civilized man can see, from that of lower animals. A few simple implements, a monosyllabic language, a limited range of action and thought, usually characterize man in his lowest stages.

Yet it is this power of thought that gives him superiority over other animals. His cunning plans entrap them; his intelligence shows him how they may be trained and used. Över "the fish of the sea," "the fowl of the air," and "the living things upon the earth," man has obtained a measure of dominion; even the great whale has felt his keen lance. The cow, the horse, the dog, and many other animals serve him.

From the other animals man differs greatly in his power over thought. Through his ability to express it in language, he becomes acquainted with the acts of others. The thoughts of early days were handed down by tradition. A great step in advance was taken when thought was expressed by means of symbols. These symbols were rude in the beginning, like the picture writing of ancient peoples, or the figures on Dighton Rock.

When letters came to be used, there was a still greater step even though these letters must be slowly written by hand, but when John Gutenberg, about the year 1450, showed the civilized world how this labor might be lessened through the use of movable type, another wonderful advance was made. Man was no longer dependent upon what he could hear from the mouth of others, or upon the slow process of recording thought by hieroglyphics, or even handwriting. By printing, many copies of a page could be far more easily made than a single

one formerly was. The thought of the past could be preserved with that of the present. The hard labor once needed was no longer required to make the thought of one age a basis for the action of another.

It is very easy to see how this preservation of thought of the past in books and language of the present reduces the labor of man from day to day. A single table of logarithms abridges the labor of mathematical computation; the nautical almanac greatly lessens the labors of the seafaring man; a cook book does the same for the housekeeper; a single set of rules, the result of the thinking of some learned man, makes difficult undertakings easy for men who but for these rules would never dare attempt such labor.

The compounding of many valuable substances, or even the manufacture of gas for illuminating purposes, is a simple labor for those who are acquainted with the principles applied by William Murdoch in 1798. The labor of those who have come after him has been lessened by his thought. A library in a town or city may contribute much to the progress of the town or city by reason of the thought stored upon its shelves.

Communication between man and man has been greatly enlarged through language in the forms already mentioned, yet other forms of expressing thought have been found in modern times. The telegraph and telephone are the most marked examples of such means.

Man has put his thought in other forms than spoken, pictured, or written language. By use of some of the forces of nature, he has made other forces his servants. Carlyle called man a "tool-using animal." It is through tools and machinery that man has been able to multiply the efficiency of his labor. The savage increased his power by the use of the rude stone hammer. The civilized man brings to his assistance the giant steam hammer of the great machine shops and foundries. The early farmers labored long to do the work of a single mowing or reaping machine. The Massachusetts shoemaker of a few decades ago used but simple tools. Now the complicated ma

chinery directed by a workman here and there does the work of many an olden shoemaker. Weaving is something far different from the long process of the eighteenth century. The stored thought of Whitney, Arkwright, Slater, and many others enters into the production of cloth.

Invention, the flower of thought, has made possible what but a little while ago was thought impossible. Large populations are supported on small areas, or in sections formerly thought uninhabitable. The inventions of Watt and Stephenson have opened up vast territories, and made their resources available. Where, in the middle of the nineteenth century, slowly moving wagon trains carried men and supplies to the far West, vestibuled trains, luxurious in appointment, and fast freights, fifty years later, perform the same services. "Time-and-space-conquering steam," as Emerson names it, under the direction of thought, has revolutionized the world of labor.

The application of electricity bids fair to accomplish even greater wonders than steam. These are not new forces, but thought has harnessed them to do the work of man. Years of testing are sometimes necessary for the final discovery of the best means of governing force. The arc light was known to Sir Humphry Davy from his study of electricity in 1813, but it needed the Brush system of 1878 to make it practical for street lighting. The incandescent principle of electric lighting, long known, awaited an Edison to make it feasible for general purposes. Edison's inventions are in no sense the product of chance, for he says, "I never did anything worth doing, by accident." In his own words, his rule is, "When I have fully decided that a result is worth getting, I go ahead on it, and make trial after trial until it comes." Cyrus W. Field on one side of the Atlantic, and Sir William Thomson on the other, worked long and faithfully before their thoughts were realized in the great Atlantic cable.

How wonderful these great inventions are, those who live in daily contact with them hardly realize. There is needed such a contrast as between this and the preceding century, or

as between the conditions of the civilized and uncivilized countries of the present day. It is easy for those, who, a few years ago, wondered at the first telephone, to appreciate the feelings of the savage warriors of Lobengula, king of the Matabele, when on a visit of investigation in England. It was not impossible for them to believe that the English could make a machine which, by some means, to them mysterious, might speak English, but when one of them at one end of the telephone line heard the words of his friend at the other end, in the dialect of the Matabele, his wonder knew no bounds.

Not alone has electricity, once so feared by man in the lightning, been chained by the thought of man and made his servant, but many other of nature's forces do his will. Carlyle questions of powder, "The first ground handful of nitre, sulphur, and charcoal drove Monk Schwartz's pestle through the ceiling: what will the last do?" Where man once labored years to produce but slight impressions upon the face of the mountains, now by powder or dynamite the same labor is done almost in an instant. Hills are leveled, and through the hearts of mountains, once considered impassable, dynamite has opened tunnels for the commerce of the world.

There seems to be no place in life where thought will not reduce labor, not only in the mammoth undertaking, but also in the trivial daily duty. The schoolboy hastening through his essay, careless of moods and tenses, fumbling several books for apt illustrations, opening the middle of the dictionary for a word beginning with c, finds next day his work must be entirely rewritten. To the one who thoughtfully plans the labor of the day, the tasks are easier, and both labor and laborer are dignified. As Emerson says, "No fate, save by the victim's fault, is low."

Thought is one of the most valuable forms of property, since it makes possible the greatest achievements. Yet "thought is the property of him who can entertain it, and of him who can adequately place it." Applied thought accomplishes far more than years of labor. As the thought-bulk of the world becomes