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Updated: May 28, 2025
Single-minded, tough-skinned, ruthless, "suggesting a power which invents man for one purpose and no other, as generals, saints, and the like are invented," he shoulders and hurls his bulk through a sea of troubles and carries off his spoils. Such a man as Frank Cowperwood Mr. Dreiser understands. He understands the march of desire to its goal.
He invents machines, and makes fiddles and plays 'em, and mends all their clocks and watches and wheel-barrows, and charges 'em naught. He makes hisself too common. I often tell him so. Says I, 'Why dost let 'em all put on thee so? Serve thee right if I was to send thee my pots and pans to mend. 'And so do, says he, directly.
He is a true parasite. His tongue has but little end to it. It wags from morning to night; invents seemingly plausible theories of work, but never attempts them. He is full of advice to all who will listen. Can such a man be healthy? He cannot enjoy good health because he is too lazy to do so. No way has as yet been found to make him healthy and put him to work. He cannot be got rid of.
But the Christian first invents this faculty, and then tells us that by this faculty religion is to be judged. Spiritual truths are to be spiritually discerned. What is a "spiritual truth"? It is neither more nor less than a mental idea. It is an idea originating in the brain, and it can only be "discerned," or judged, or understood, by an act of reason performed by the brain.
The former has only to follow the pattern proposed to him by the latter. This latter is the mechanician who invents the machine; the former is merely the workman who sets it in motion." And what part have men to act in all this? That of the machine, which is set in motion; or rather, are they not the brute matter of which the machine is made?
What is the proper age and nature of fish and fowl, though inquired after, was never discovered before my palate. There are some, whose genius invents nothing but new kinds of pastry. To waste one's care upon one thing, is by no means sufficient; just as if any person should use all his endeavors for this only, that the wine be not bad; quite careless what oil he pours upon his fish.
The monstrosity of the crimes of the Renaissance was not a mark of imagination; it was a mark, as all monstrosity is, of the loss of imagination. It is only when a man has really ceased to see a horse as it is, that he invents a centaur, only when he can no longer be surprised at an ox, that he worships the devil.
My brother Jeff, who is five years older than me, gives proofs of this, partic'lar. It's Jeff who invents that enterprise in fishin', which for idleness, profit an' pastime, ain't never been equalled since the flood, called "Juggin' for Cats."
The latter fulfil most of their bodily requirements by muscular effort. If a horse wants to get from one place to another it walks; man can go on wheels. None of the lower animals makes a single tool to assist it in the various means of sustaining life; but man puts on his "thinking-cap", and invents useful machines and tools to enable him to assist or dispense with muscular movement.
The saying that the poet is born, not made, applies with equal force to the inventor, who, though indebted like the other to culture and improved opportunities, nevertheless invents and goes on inventing mainly to gratify his own instinct. The inventor, however, is not a creator like the poet, but chiefly a finder-out.
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