A TREATISE ON THE STEAM ENGINE. PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE.
A Treatise on the Steam Engine would, we suppose, hardly be reckoned orthodox if it began in any other way than with an account of the doings of Savery, Papin, and the other patriarchs whose names figure in the history of steam invention. The devices indeed of these ancient worthies bear very little resemblance to the modern steam engine, and can throw but little light upon its structure or mode of operation; but it was out of these primitive contrivances that the modern steam engine arose, and they derive a sufficient dignity from that relationship to make them the objects of a just curiosity. We think, therefore, that some slight sketch of the expedients employed in the early career of steam improvement is but a reasonable prelude to a Treatise on the Steam Engine, and is indeed indispensable to the integrity of such a work: But we fear our qualifications for the task are by no means so conspicuous, for delineations of this kind require a light and graceful pencil, and become intolerable in the hand of a vulgar limner. The great art lies in saying just as much as the necessity of the case requires, and nothing more; for a history of the steam engine is the least important part of a treatise on that subject, and only deserves a space answerable to its insignificance; whereas by needlessly expanding this part of the work, or by elaborating trivial schemes into importance, the proper subordination of objects is destroyed, and all those discriminating shades are obliterated which constitute the excellence of the picture. To all this we must add that people in these utilitarian days have neither time nor inclination to listen to long-winded descriptions of exploded projects in steam machinery, though they might like well enough to know something of the nature of those expedients if it can be told them in a few words: But they are not likely to perplex themselves with such inquiries as, who first forced water above its level by steam pressure, or solicited it to rise by a partial vacuum 1 and to say the truth, such inquiries appear to us of about as much importance as the researches of those learned grammarians, who spend a lifetime in restoring a dative case, or adjusting a metre or an accent. The task, too, of resolving these frivolous problems is quite as tedious a one as that undertaken by the learned persons aforesaid; for after having ascended through history, by a most toilsome progress, to the first person guilty of disturbing the equanimity of water by steam pressure, the shade of some learned recluse who flourished in ancient times in China it may be, or Japan, will probably rise up with proofs of a still higher priority, and the idol just set up for universal adoration will be cast into the dust by this new authority, to be overthrown in its turn by the researches of subsequent enquirers. The fact appears to be, that the power of steam to raise water above its level was widely known in very ancient times, and appears to have been occasionally employed by the Greeks and Egyptians for trivial, or rather for unworthy, purposes: But it is in modern times only that steam has been adapted to ends of weight or utility, and the history of 'he steam engine properly begins with that application.
It is not to be expected that the historical narration on which we are shout to enter should contain much that is new. The facts with which we must necessarily deal have often been stated before, and we believe now admit neither of much increase nor modification; but it is not impossible, we think, to set these facts in truer lights, and to deduce from them sounder conclusions than have yet been realised. It appears to us to be a vice of many commentators, that they have attached too much importance to the deeds of individual projectors, and have estimated at far too low a rate the current intelligence of the time, of which indeed the proficiency of those exalted persons is to be regarded as merely the exponent . They have set down the early progress of the steam engine as due altogether to the perspicacity and contrivance of a few solitary adventurers, without hinting that some part of it might reasonably be ascribed to that spread of information and general advancement of knowledge to which that progress is in truth mainly attributable. The consequence of this fault is, that a host of projectors are made to 'shine aloft like stars,' whose merit, when tested by the general information of their own time, fades into insignificance. They stand, it is true, in the van of improvement, but the elevation due to the existing state of society is measured as a part of their intellectual stature; and while they are each presented to the imagination like a precipice starting abruptly to the skies in solitary and awful majesty, they are in truth only to be regarded as so many heights, which, whatever be their absolute altitude, rise only a few feet above the other heights around them. It is absurd, therefore, to seek to elevate any of the early projectors of the steam engine into greatness, for they were one and all persons of only ordinary intelligence and assiduity, of which every age has produced its thousands; and the progress they made was owing rather to the natural flow of events than to any great genius or foresight on the part of any one of them. It is still more idle to set down any one of these persons as the inventor of the steam engine. Great inventions are necessarily of a slow growth, and are rarely the produce of individual minds, but require time and experience as well as ingenuity to bring them to maturity, and indeed the happiest steps are sometimes the effect of accident. In the intellectual as in the material world, the most precious productions are those which cannot spring to perfection at once, and it would be as reasonable to inquire to what refreshing shower, or to what gleam of sunshine, the stature of a stately oak is attributable, as to what individual mind we are indebted for the creation of our modern steam engine. The exertions of different minds are merely so many agencies that have been happily conducive to a great result; and it would be as just to assign the invention of our modern men-of-war to Jason, as to assign the invention of the steam engine to Savery or De Cans.
But whatever be the merit that is due to these 'sons of notoriety,' it is we think divisible only among those of them who have been instrumental in working out some practically useful result. The mere men of speculation, who have suggested modes of doing things, but have never done them, are not to be ranked with those who have really accomplished something, in a case where the whole difficulty of the task lies in its practical achievement. Whatever else these ingenious persons may be, they are certainly not among the number of the improvers of the steam engine; and their claims, if to be considered at all, ought in strictness to be considered as the claims of a distinct class of persons. Nor can the merit of such a class, under ordinary circumstances, be considerable, for there is nothing more easy than to originate vague ideas of improvement, though it is generally a very difficult thing to carry those ideas into successful practice. M. Arago, however, and his followers it seems, have set the steam engine down as a French invention, because Solomon de Caus first adopted the idea of steam as a motive force, and Papin suggested the application of the cylinder and piston. It would be as reasonable, in our apprehension, to set down the battle of Waterloo as a French victory, because Napoleon adopted the idea of fighting it; for the question in all such cases is, not who first adopted an ideal result, but who actually realised that result in practice. The scheme of Solomon de Caus was neither useful nor new, and Papin's project was so impracticable, that he himself abandoned it in favour of Savery's scheme. We have no evidence that either of those persons ever completed an engine of any kind. Papin's scheme, as he first proposed it, was worse than the previous project of the Marquis of Worcester, for it was without a boiler; and after several gyrations he certainly left the steam engine in as imperfect a state as if he had never meddled with the subject. If, therefore, we were disposed to retort upon M. Arago his pitiful nationality, we might with some plausibility say that his proofs only show the lamentable barrenness of the French intellect; for the very ideas which, in the minds of Englishmen, have quickly grown up to a rich maturity, and base blessed all nations with countless new enjoyments, have, when implanted in the minds of Frenchmen, invariably failed to produce any useful result. But this is idle. The steam engine happens, no doubt, to be from first to last an English invention; but that result, we conceive, is not so much to be attributed to the superior genius of the English people as to the force of circumstances, which made some such instrument as the steam engine more valuable to England than to other nations. If France had possessed valuable mines lying under water, and at the same time an abundance of coal ready to be made instrumental for their recovery, there is every reason to suppose that the steam engine would have been a French invention; and we think the consideration that our honours are the result merely of accident, ought to reconcile that ingenious people to a priority it is idle to contest. No nation can be expected to excel another nation of equal power and intelligence in every thing; and if it be the fact, as we willingly admit, that the French excel us in some things, they must be content to give us the palm in others, one of which certainly is steam engineering.—There is no end, however, of these speculations, and we fear they are neither very captivating nor very convincing; so that we shall here cut them short, and proceed without further preamble to the history of the invention.
