Necessity is The Mother of Invention
In Charles Kingsley’s delightful fairy-tale, “The Water Babies”, there is a description of the lazy “Do as you likes” who lived “in the land of Ready made, at the foot of the Happy-go-lucky mountains, where flap doodle grows wild.” All they could possibly want grew wild for them in profusion. “They needed no weapons, for no enemies ever came to their land; and no tools, for everything was ready-made to their hand; and the stern old fairy. Necessity never came near them to hunt them up, and make them use their wits, or die.”
Real men have never been in the position of the “Do as you likes”. Throughout their history they have had to struggle with Nature even to live. Necessity, urgent and pressing need, has forced men to use their wits and invent what they could not find ready-made for them. If we could get all we need from Nature without effort, we should not bother to invent anything ; as we can’t, we are forced to find ways and means of satisfying our wants. In this way, necessity has been the mother of invention.
In the early ages of mankind, the necessity of communicating with one another led men to the invention of language. Later the necessity of keeping some record of what they did not wish to forget, led to the invention of writing. Later still, the necessity of spreading news and knowledge more widely and quickly, led to the invention of printing.
In the hunting stage, the necessity of getting food to eat led to the invention of all kinds of traps and snares and tricks for catching wild animals, and to the contriving of weapons like the throwing-spear, the sling, the boomerang, and the bow and arrows, for killing game at a distance.
When men found they could not support life by hunting only they discovered a way of taming certain wild animals, and keeping them in herds and flocks for milk and meat—the pastoral stage. And the need for a regular supply of vegetable food led to the agricultural stage, when men learnt to cultivate the ground and grow crops. For cultivation, they had to devise instruments for breaking up the soil, like spades and ploughs, and to find ways of enriching and irrigating the land.
So one might go on multiplying examples of the truth of this proverb, up to the marvellous inventions of modern times. Of course all inventions have not been due to necessity; but Necessity, a stern but beneficent schoolmistress, has taught men to use their wits and develop their minds ; and to-day the inventive faculty in man is so highly developed that he goes on inventing for the very joy of it.
