Page:The Kinematics of Machinery.djvu/604

 indication of one of the thousand points in which the region of the compound chains awaits investigation. And here, after all, we considered only the abstract mechanism as formed from rigid elements. If we substitute for some of these flectional elements and use for all of them the materials actually employed in construction, each with its special natural characteristics, we find a multitude of new demands upon us which must be met before the abstract scheme is suitable for working under its altered conditions. Before these, that is before the never-ending demands of practical work, the doubter may well make himself once more happy in the knowledge of the essential simplicity of the means with which we have to work. We are encouraged by the conviction that the many things which have to be done can be done with but few means, and that the principles underlying them all lie clearly before us.

And now, finally, I have reached a matter upon which I touched long ago in the Introduction, and with which this whole chapter has been, without directly mentioning it, indirectly connected. This matter is the. What I meant in saying that the process of invention might become a scientific one, and might especially be performed synthetically, has now been made clear, and the truth of my assertion has, I believe, been proved. The kinematic synthesis, however, makes the finding of mechanisms easier only to those who have scientifically grasped their subject, while at the same time it places the goal which they attempt to reach ever higher and higher. It does not decrease, but rather raises, the intellectual work of the inventor, while it enables him to see more clearly, not only the object he wishes to attain, but also the means at his disposal for attaining it, and the best method of employing those means.