"
"It was nothing but just an idea that came across my mind," said the
doctor.
"It may be only that," said Meldon, "but it may be more. The proper
person to judge of its importance is me. You must have frequently
observed, doctor, that the man to whom an idea occurs is not by any means
the best judge of its value. Sometimes he thinks too much of it. Take
Galileo, for instance. He hit upon the fact that the earth goes round
the sun, and it struck him as immensely important. He gassed on about it
until everybody got so tired of the subject that the authorities had to
put him in prison and keep him there until he said it wasn't true, and
that he'd stop writing books to say it was. As a matter of fact it was
true, but it didn't matter. We'd all be doing exactly the same things we
are doing to-day if he had never made his beastly telescope. On the
other hand, men who get a hold of really important ideas often think very
little of them. Look, for example, at the case of the man who first
thought of collecting a lot of people together and making them pass a
unanimous resolution. He didn't even take the trouble to patent the
process, and now there's no record left of when and where he hit upon his
idea.
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