Where Did The Idea Come From?
No one person can be credited for the invention of the automobile that
you are driving today. It has developed bit by bit from the ideas, imagination,
fantasy, and tinkering of hundreds of individuals through hundreds of years.
In the 13th-century, the English philosopher-scientist, Roger Bacon,
said that "cars can be made so that without animals they will move with
unbelievable rapidity." Oh, Roger, if you only knew! Bacon was positive
that these vehicles had existed in ancient times, but he didn't know what
propelled them.
The Greeks apparently had their own Olympic assembly line. In the "Iliad,"
Haephestus (the Roman "Vulcan"), was the god of fire and invention. When
he had time off from making thunder bolts and beautiful jewelry for the
vain goddesses, he built three-wheeled vehicles, which moved from place
to place under their own power. Homer says they were "self-moved, obedient
to the gods," and would Homer lie? The really remarkable thing about this
is that even as far back as the Homeric era (8th-9th (?) century B.C.),
man had already imagined automobiles.
The motorized vehicle is, indeed, a prime example of creeping development;
i.e., invention through slow accumulation of bits and pieces over a time
so long that it is hard to pin down its origin. Thomas Russell Ybarra,
in this century, wrote rhyming doggerel which pointed to the automobile
as a Roman invention. Those who care to can point to two 15th-century Italians:
Francesco di Giorgio Martini (whose concept has been presented in another
section) and Leonardi Da Vinci. Da Vinci conceived an armor-plated war
vehicle, the propulsion system of which is much like that of Martini's.
This particular concept of Da Vinci did not contribute anything of value,
not even a name, as did Martini's.
The important thing to remember is the automobile is not some recent
idea that popped up in the 19th-century, or the 18th, or even the 14th.
It is a creation that has charmed imagination and inventiveness before
man was able to conceive how to make it go. Perhaps that is why Homer placed
it in the hands of the gods.
