RELATION OF DISCOVERY AND INVENTION

(2) the ease of diffusion of knowledge; (3) the size ofthe population within which the diffusion occurs—thelarger the population the greater being the number ofinventive geniuses, the greater their incentive, and thewider their sphere of influence; (4) the encouragementof invention especially through the early discovery andapproval of genius, and, to some extent through patentprotection. Inventors are at once the rarest and mostprecious flower of the industrial world. Too often theyare crushed by the obstacles of poverty, prejudice, orridicule. While this is less so today than in the days ofRoger Bacon or Galileo, it still requires far too muchtime for the Bells, Edisons, Fords, or De Forests to gettheir start. The decades in which these rare brains aredoing their wonderful work are at most few, and it isworth many billions of dollars for their countrymen toset them to work early. As Huxley says, it should bethe business of any educational system to seek out thegenius and train him for the service of his fellows, forwhether he will or not, the inventor cannot keep thebenefits of his invention to himself. In fact, it is seldomthat he can get even a small share of the benefits. Thecitizens of the world at large are the beneficiaries, andbeing themselves not sufficiently clever to invent, theyshould at least be sufficiently alive to their own intereststo subsidize or employ the one man in a million who can.