The non-rider thinks such things absolutely necessary to keep from falling off, the expert horseman not only knows such things are unnecessary, but would be a danger in case the horse fell, as the rider could not fall clear.

In the same way inventors of firearms, if they are not shooting men, invent dangerous things for overcoming dangers which do not exist except in their own imaginations.

This would not matter so much if they would listen to experts but they refuse to learn, and actually try to instruct experts.

I had a man come in recently to show me a terribly dangerous pistol he had invented.

He was pointing it about in all sorts of dangerous directions and finally put the muzzle against his own body whilst he tried to c.o.c.k it.

I suggested to him he had better first see if it was loaded.

He smiled at me in a pitying superior way, but opened the breech and took out a loaded cartridge.

"Why it is loaded," he casually remarked, re-inserting the cartridge and beginning again to fumble with the lock, whilst he held the muzzle against his body.

I said, "Don't you know you can _kill_ yourself if it goes off,"--"that is the great beauty of my invention," he informed me radiant with delight, "I have made this thing," pushing the trigger with his left thumb, "so that it only moves at a pressure of fourteen pounds so it is quite safe."

These know-alls work up through all the steps man has gone through in perfecting firearms, instead of taking up the work from the highest it has come to.

Most likely the first inventor of firearms found he shot people accidentally when "pulling at this thing" (as my friend the inventor called the trigger), then discovered by experience that, however heavy the trigger-pull is made, it is sure to kill somebody accidentally if pulled hard enough, and finally came to the conclusion that it is safer to have a light trigger-pull if the muzzle is not pointed in a dangerous direction, than to have a half-ton trigger-pull and keep the muzzle pointed against one's body.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 19. WINANS' REVOLVER FRONT SIGHTS]

In the matter of sights an optician, even if ignorant of firearms, may be able to give a valuable hint to an inventor, but this usually applies to sights for accurate aiming at distant stationary objects; for a pistol it is more often expert shooting knowledge which is useful in designing sights.

It was my combination of sculptor and shooter which gave me the idea of my front sight, any one not a sculptor would not be apt to stumble on the idea of undercutting the sight so as to give a deep shadow below and so make the top stand out light against a dark lower portion. (See Plate 19.)

In the same way some entirely distinct branch of learning may be of use to the inventor of firearms; but in all cases, this must be subservient to practical shooting knowledge; the man who tries to force his ideas onto a shooter, against the shooter's expert knowledge, makes a mistake.

The highest authority can always learn something new from an expert; but the man ignorant of a subject who tries to teach an expert merely exposes his ignorance, like a politician who tells a general how to conduct a campaign.

CHAPTER LXIII

SIMPLIFICATION

It is human nature to keep on in the same old groove, to try to avoid change, even if that change is for the better. This habit is owing to it being so much easier not to have to think for oneself but merely to do as you see others do.

But following convention is not progress.

Convention is the deadly enemy of progress. Simplification is the twin sister of progress. All improvements are the result of simplification, not of elaboration.

The public when they see some very elaborate invention say "how clever,"

but the really clever inventor is the one who can make a simple apparatus do the work that formerly could be done only by a much more complicated apparatus, or even took several apparatuses to accomplish.

The Universe appears to consist of endless variety, but the more it is studied (whatever else remains a mystery), this one fact becomes plainer and plainer.

Everything acts in unison.

The Universe is One Perfect Whole.

The Universe can, even with our limited knowledge, be reduced to a few simple elements, governed by a few simple "laws."

It is, from a solar system, to a sub-microscopical organism, subject to the same "laws" and working as one whole.

Probably, it will be ultimately discovered that there is only one "Law"

and one Element in the Universe.

All has to obey this "Law," there is no such thing as "luck," "chance," or destruction. All has always existed through incessant permutation; and will exist, from all eternity, through all eternity.

The ancients, and the modern Mahometans knew this. The ancients called it _Fate_, the Moslems call it _Kismet_. If a man tries to make an automatic pistol contrary to the Laws of Nature, it naturally will not operate properly, he loses his temper, says it is just his luck, but he reasons wrongly.

If he studies the laws of mechanics, which are one form of the Law of Nature, and complies with them, his pistol will act properly; if not and he is ignorant of the laws of mechanics, his pistol will not act properly; it is not his "hard luck" but simply that he is trying vainly to work against Nature, and Fate holds him in a steel grip.

If he obeys the Laws of Nature, which are another name for Fate, he can go on like a train following its rails, but he can no more make a pistol constructed on wrong principle function properly than he can stop the sun in its course.

Simplification is the goal to be striven for in pistol shooting as it is in sculpture.

I saw two men, as I was writing the above, mowing a field.

One, an elderly man, was working in the conventional manner, cutting short deep swaths with a half blunt scythe set at the wrong angle to the handle, working in a cramped position.

The other, a young man, was examining his scythe.

He altered the blade at an acuter angle to the handle and gave it a twist sideways so that the cutting edge should lie horizontal when in use.

Then he sharpened the blade as carefully as he would strop a razor.

Putting himself into a firm position so that he could swing from the hips as an athlete about to throw the discus would, he made long clean sweeps with his scythe, taking a short depth, but this with a clean cut, and the cut gra.s.s thrown clear to the side, his return being only just clear of the gra.s.s, like a good sculler feathering.

At the least sign of bad cutting, he re-sharpened the scythe.

Although I know nothing of mowing, I could see at once that this was an artist and a workman at his job, and one who used his brains and took a pride in doing good work.

I asked if he was not the champion mower of the district. I was answered "not at all--he is only the carpenter."

This is the sort of man who invents.

He diagnoses faults and thinks out how to correct them. He did not, like the other man who had been mowing all his life, work as his father and grandfather had done, because it was the conventional manner. He thought out for himself and improved by simplification.

It is evident that the cut should come on gradually, not jump into a thick bunch of gra.s.s all at once, so he set the blade at an angle which made its entry into the gra.s.s deeper progressively, and so on with all the rest.

The inventor who knows his business, when he has made something to accomplish its object, does not rest there. This is only the "blocking out" as we sculptors call it.

Then he begins to simplify.