"Everything in this world is a development. Nothing happens by chance."

Can my invention be made to do better work by putting in gears in place of that sprocket chain? Would canvas be cheaper and better than leather in that belt? Won't a cotter pin be cheaper and better in place of that nut? Won't a steel casting be cheaper and better than that expensive machined steel bearing? Would not my machine do better work and cost less if I stuck to just this one operation?

Questions such as this you must ask yourself. The successful inventor is not a "one-idea" man. He must be on the watch for "something better" all the time, until he and his expert advisers are convinced by actual tests in actual service that it is absolutely right in every way. No invention is complete and perfect when it is first conceived. Its successful development is a series of changes, substitutions, alterations, rearrangements, until finally it attains marketable shape.

At a meeting of mechanical experts in Philadelphia one evening, six men were asked the very best way to make a certain piece of machine work. There were six different answers.—"Many men of many minds."—Which was the best way, and why? If you take your own ideas you will possibly have but one way to do it, and your way may not prove the best way in the end. The successful invention of today dominates its particular field. Why? Because it is better than others.

Successful development of any invention requires a great degree of patience, unlimited hard work, belief in ultimate success, and competent theoretical and practical knowledge of mechanics, physics, mathematics, salesmanship, shop practice and the like. It is a science in itself.

"Whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; in great aims and small I have always been thoroughly in earnest."—Charles Dickens.