Invention: The Master-key to ProgressFiske, Bradley A. (Bradley Allen)
History
Invention: The Master-key to Progress
Fiske, Bradley A. (Bradley Allen)
Inventions -- History
In France, the changes in economic and political conditions rivaled the
changes that one sees take place in Sir David Brewster's kaleidoscope.
In 1800 Napoleon had been First Consul, in 1804 emperor, in 1814 an
emperor and then an exile, in 1815 an emperor and then an exile. France
was a kingdom from then until 1848, and then a republic till 1852, when
she again became an empire, under Napoleon III. The virtual anarchy
following the Revolution had been crushed out and replaced with order;
and the menace to republican institutions had been removed by the
genius of Napoleon I, who then established an autocracy of a kind that,
though arbitrary, was so wise and broad-viewed as to be beneficent
on the whole. The result of all was that in 1850, France was in a
condition of civilization and prosperity that was amazing to one who
remembered the conditions of 1800.
When we analyze the causes of the evolution of order and prosperity out
of the conditions of 1793, and the later conditions of 1800, we can
hardly fail to realize the greatest single cause was the same cause
as that of Napoleon's victories. It was the mind that conceived and
developed and brought forth; the mind that invented so amazingly.
That many other causes may be named need hardly be pointed out. In
the complex affairs of human life, every result is the resultant of
many causes; but in most of those affairs, most of those causes are
always present; so that we have to find an unusual cause to explain an
unusual condition or event. It would be easy to say that the cause of
France's return to a condition of law and order was that the condition
of anarchy was abnormal; and that France simply returned to her normal
state, as a wave does after it has risen above or fallen below the
level of the sea. But would this be true? Is the condition of anarchy
more abnormal than the condition of law and order? Which was the
condition of primitive man? Which is an artificial product of man's
invention? Is it not logical to conclude from the record of invention's
influence that it was man's inventions that brought into existence the
artificial condition of law and order which existed in France prior to
1793, and that it was also man's inventions that restored it afterward?
Three ideas were conceived in France and developed into the Revolution:
these ideas were the principles of equality, of the sovereignty of
the people and of nationality. After the overthrow of Napoleon, the
Congress of Vienna met to readjust the affairs of Europe. The Congress
seems to have conceived the idea of preventing the carrying out of
those principles as their first starting point, and to have developed
that idea with fixed determination. The Commissioners endeavored
to restore everything to its condition before the Revolution, and
to discredit the principles conceived and developed in France.
They succeeded in accomplishing their intent, so far as remaking
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