Invention may seem an easy way to _fame_, or, what is the same thing to many, _notoriety_, different as are in reality the two objects.

But it is far otherwise.

I, indeed, desire the first, for true fame implies well-deserving, but I have no wish for the latter, which yet seems inseparable from it.
"The condition of an inventor is, indeed, not enviable.

I know of but one condition that renders it in any degree tolerable, and that is the reflection that his fellow-men may be benefited by his discoveries.

In the outset, if he has really made a _discovery_, which very word implies that it was before unknown to the world, he encounters the incredulity, the opposition, and even the sneers of many, who look upon him with a kind of pity, as a little beside himself if not quite mad.