Who Is the True Inventor?

The question "who is the true inventor," is often asked about many modern inventions. In an attempt to establish a criterion for ascertaining the true role of different contributors to human progress, we must make it clear to ourselves as to what factors are usually involved in making great inventions and discoveries. It seems that a satisfactory answer to this query can be found by postulating the following working hypothesis. Imagine that all kinds of general ideas, when time is ripe, are found, so to say, "floating in the air." How they get there is immaterial to the present thesis. As general progress marches on, humanity reaches different levels of intellectual and spiritual maturity, at which it becomes capable of assimilating certain ideas heretofore unrevealed to it, or revealed and long forgotten. In this general evolutionary movement a few individuals, pioneers of the spirit, become attuned earlier than others to some of these ideas, more readily respond to them and perceive their manifestation in observable phenomena, while other people pass them by without noticing them. History shows that, in addition to some other necessary qualities, the condition without which the matter cannot be, for such an ability to perceive and to discover seems to be a spirit full of interest and devotion to the subject and the absence of prejudices. These people become channels through which humanity as a whole receives new ideas. They are those who are born great. It is argued that the outlined hypothesis and its inferences, once accepted, can help one more easily to untangle the existing ambiguities, discrepancies, and outright errors in historical information as often given in textbooks on science, historical essays and in so-called historical movies.