hing that promised to solve
the question. In view of this immense amount of thought and labor, my
sympathy got the better of my judgment, and I said: 'Isn't it a shame
that with the tremendous amount of work you have done you haven't been
able to get any results?' Edison turned on me like a flash, and with
a smile replied: 'Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results! I
know several thousand things that won't work.'

"At that time he sent me out West on a special mission. On my return, a
few weeks later, his experiments had run up to over ten thousand, but
he had discovered the missing link in the combination sought for. Of
course, we all remember how the battery was completed and put on the
market. Then, because he was dissatisfied with it, he stopped the sales
and commenced a new line of investigation, which has recently culminated
successfully. I shouldn't wonder if his experiments on the battery ran
up pretty near to fifty thousand, for they fill more than one hundred
and fifty of the note-books, to say nothing of some thousands of tests
in curve sheets."

Although Edison has an absolute disregard for the total outlay of money
in investigation, he is particular to keep down the cost of individual
experiments to a minimum, for, as he observed to one of his assistants:
"A good many inventors try to develop things life-size, and thus spend
all their money, instead of first experimenting more freely on a small
scale." To Edison life is not only a grand opportunity to find out
things by experiment, but, when found, to improve them by further
experiment. One night, after receiving a satisfactory report of progress
from Mr. Mason, superintendent of the cement plant, he said: "The only
way to keep ahead of the procession is to experiment. If you don't, the
other fellow will. When there's no experimenting there's no progress.
Stop experimenting and you go backward. If anything goes wrong,
experiment until you get to the very bottom of the trouble."

It is easy to realize, therefore, that a character so thoroughly
permeated with these ideas is not apt to stop and figure out expense
when in hot pursuit of some desired object. When that object has been
attained, however, and it passes from the experimental to the commercial
stage, Edison's monetary views again come into strong play, but they
take a diametrically opposite position, for he then begins immediately
to plan the extreme of economy in the production of the art