Les Origines de la Technologie_.

[124] The same correspondent, without my having asked him in regard
to this, gives me the following details: "When about seven years old
I saw a locomotive, its fire and smoke. My father's stove also made
fire and smoke, but lacked wheels. If, then, I told my father, we
put wheels under the stove, it would move like a locomotive. Later,
when about thirteen, the sight of a steam threshing-machine
suggested to me the idea of making a horseless wagon. I began a
childish construction of one, which my father made me give up," etc.
The tendency toward mechanical invention shows itself very early in
some children--we gave examples of it before. Our inventor adds: "My
imagination was strongest at about the age of 25 to 35 (I am now 45
years old). After that time it seems to me that the remainder of
life is good only for producing less important conceptions, forming
a natural consequence of the principal conceptions born of the
period of youth."

[125] See above, Part Two, chapter V.

[126] L. Bourdeau, _Les Forces de l'Industrie_, Paris, 1884. This
very substantial work, abounding in facts, conceived after a
systematic plan, has aided us much in this study.

[127] _Op. cit._, pp. 45-46.

[128] Quoted by L. Bourdeau (_op. cit._, p. 354), who also mentions
many other attempts: an anonymous Scot in 1753, Lesage of Geneva,
1780, Lhomond (France, 1787), Battencourt (Spain, 1787), Reiser, a
German (1794), Salva (Madrid, 1796). The insufficient study of
dynamic electricity did not permit them to succeed.

[129] E. Veron, _L'Esthetique_, p. 315.

[130] L. Bourdeau, _op. cit._, p. 233.

CHAPTER VI

THE COMMERCIAL IMAGINATION

Taking the word "commercial" in its broadest signification, I understand
by this expression all those forms of the constructive imagination that
have for their chief aim the production and distribution of wealth, all
inventions making for individual or collective enrichment. Even less
studied than the form preceding, this imaginative manifestation reveals
as much ingenuity as any other. The human mind is largely busied in that
way. There are inventors of all kinds--the great among these equal those
whom general opinion ranks as highest. Here, as elsewhere, the great
body invent nothing, live according to tradition, in routine and
imitation.

Invention in the commercial or financial field is subject to various
conditions with which we are not concerned:

(1)