Necessity is the mother of Invention-Meaning
Meaning: The meaning of the proverb ‘Necessity is the mother of invention? is that when we stand in dire need of a thing, we can never rest satisfied until we get it. We strain every nerve to have it, as if some inward force were compelling us to act. Most of the great and good things of the world are the products of divine discontent in the mind of man.
When a man feels the pinch of hunger, it cannot be said that his want is trifling; it is then a pressing want, for unless it is satisfied, he will die or starvation.
When human wants becomes necessity, it impel a man to action. It is to remove want that he works. This want may be of various degrees. It may be trivial or it may be pressing.
All the articles we use in our daily life are the products of man’s endeavor to get what becomes a necessity for him. Human need makes an article a necessity. Even luxuries have been invented to remove some sort of want, want of ease and comfort. Without the want of money no one would strive to be rich and without feeling the bitterness of cold, no one would exert himself to make clothes for covering the body.
Necessity makes us bold, hardy and adventurous. The present greatness of Great Britain is primarily due to this fact. Britain, being an island cut off from the rest of Europe, has to depend even for foodstuff on other countries. So, the Britishers are compelled to go abroad. They would have remained confined within their own land, had they found their country self-sufficient. It is Britain’s wants that had sent her sons all over the world, and the result was that they had established supremacy over a large portion of the globe.
Necessity compels us to get into activity: Instances showing how people have, out of dire necessity, invented things are not rare. Greenland is covered with perpetual snow, and at no time of the year does the snow melt away or disappear completely. No wood or other material is available there for the construction of a house; but still the people there have built houses with solid masses of snow and live comfortably in them. It is the dire necessity of protecting themselves against the intense cold outside that has led them to build houses with ice.
