The problem becomes, then, how to make a machine that grows
in ability over time that is not limited by the initial choices made by the
inventor of the machine.
Brewster conceived of the kaleidoscope as a labor saving device
for artists, an automation of part of the creative process:
"When we consider, that in this busy island thousands of
individuals are wholly occupied with the composition of symmetrical designs,
and that there is scarcely any profession into which these designs do not enter
as a necessary part, so as to employ a portion of the time of every artist, we
shall not hesitate in admitting, that an instrument must have no small degree
of utility which abridges the labour of so many individuals. If we reflect
further on the nature of the designs which are thus composed, and on the
methods which must be employed in their composition, the Kaleidoscope will
assume the character of the highest class of machinery, which improves at the
same time that it abridges the exertions of individuals. There are few
machines, indeed, which rise higher above the operations of human skill. It
will create, in a single hour, what a thousand artists could not invent in the
course of a year; and while it works with such unexampled rapidity, it works
also with a corresponding beauty and precision.[1]"
The Reverend Leigh Richmond wrote on a similar theme:
"I took up my kaleidoscope; and, as I viewed with delight the
extraordinary succession of beautiful images which it presented to my sight, I
was struck…with the singular phenomenon of perfect order being invariably and
constantly produced out of perfect disorder—so that, as by magical influence,
confusion and irregularity seemed to become the prolific parents of symmetry
and beauty.
It occurred to me,
that the universality of its adoption would imperceptibly lead to the
cultivation of the principles of taste, elegance, and beauty, through the whole
of the present and following generations, and that from the philosopher and
artist down to the poorest child in the community…
I saw a vast accession
to the sources of invention, in its application to the elegant arts and
manufactures, and the consequent growth of a more polished and highly
cultivated state of habits, manners, and refinement, in both… I was struck with
the idea of infinite variety more strikingly demonstrated to the eye than by
any former experiment. Here the sublime mingles with the beautiful.
I perceived a kind of
visible music. The combination of form and colour produced harmony—their
succession melody: thus, what an organ or pianoforte is to the ear, the kaleidoscope
is to the eye. I was delighted with this analogy between the senses, as
exercised in this interesting experiment.…[2]"
Things did not turn out quite as Sir Brewster and Rev. Richmond
expected. Our use of machines to automate work previously done by artists has
modified our concept of beauty. What used to take a great deal of skill and
time could be done immediately and without effort by a mechanical process. This
led to society valuing designs of rigid perfect symmetry less. A similar effect
occurred with the invention of photography. Because of the ease of obtaining a
perfectly accurate likeness, abstract and nonrepresentational art became more
highly valued by the art world.
Brewster was at the same time able to see his invention as a
toy, and as an important advance of science.[3]
He saw it as a kind of proof of principle, which later engineers would use for
practical purposes, in much the same way that components of automata found
their way into practical machinery:
"The passion for automatic exhibitions which characterized the
eighteenth century gave rise to the most ingenious mechanical devices, and
introduced among the higher orders of artists habits of nice and accurate
execution in the formation of the most delicate pieces of machinery. The same
combination of the mechanical powers which made the spider crawl, or which
waved the tiny rod of the magician, contributed in future years to purposes of
higher import. Those wheels and pinions, which almost eluded our senses by
their minuteness, reappeared in the stupendous mechanism of our
spinning-machines and our steam engines. The elements of the tumbling puppet
were revived in the chronometer, which now conducts our navy through the ocean;
and the shapeless wheel which directed the hand of the drawing automaton has
served in the present age to guide the movements of the tambouring engine.
Those mechanical wonders which in one century enriched only the conjurer who
used them, contributed in another to augment the wealth of the nation; and
those automatic toys which once amused the vulgar, are now employed in
extending the power and promoting the civilization of our species. In whatever
way, indeed, the power of genius may invent or combine, and to whatever low or
even ludicrous purposes that invention or combination may be originally applied,
society receives a gift which it can never lose; and though the value of the
seed may not be at once recognized, and though it may lie long unproductive in
the ungenial till of human knowledge, it will some time or other evolve its
germ, and yield to mankind its natural and abundant harvest.[4]"
[1] Ibid.
[2] Rev. Richmond, Hogg's Weekly Instructor, Volume 6 1851
[3] At the Media Research
Laboratory at NYU where I studied in 2004 and 2005, a form of kaleidoscope was
actually used to study the way isotropic materials, like satin, appear and
respond to light at various angles. It was a realization of Brewster’s hope that
the kaleidoscope would find a scientific use.
[4] Brewster, Letters on Natural Magic, 1868, p.336
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