CHAPTER I.

Locomotion as applied to the question of transportation of matter in all its varied forms has always been, and will always continue to be, one of the great problems of advancing civilization. To such an extent does the element of transportation enter into our highly organized system of society that it is said to be the most powerful factor in the evolution of man. So confidently is this believed, that a great genius has been led to promulgate the theory that at some future time man will consist of a head and trunk; that all use for the limbs being entirely dispensed with in the art of moving and manipulating matter, these will gradually shrivel up and drop off, as it has been said the tail did when we no longer used it for swinging our bodies from tree to tree, like the proverbial monkey, or as a projectile force so valuable to the locomotion of the kangaroo.

The development of mechanical means for transporting and manipulating all matter has, to a wonderful extent, excused the use of man’s legs and arms: and the facility with which a great mass is loaded for transportation, delivered at its destination, and there manipulated with scarcely the touch of human hands has, it must be admitted, greatly diminished the labor otherwise delegated to the limbs. It is possible that almost all matter could be moved, moulded into desirable form, and utilized by civilized man for all his requirements, by the use of mechanical means, and man could no doubt transport himself by the same means, without using his limbs, and thereby reach a very high state of civilization; but such means must include a great amount of mechanical appliance accompanying the transportation, the more in proportion to each as the number of travellers is less in the same circuit.

Now, I think we can well admit that the very highest state of advancement will be marked by the greatest facility each man has to go his own way, and when we come to think of the world crowded as it must eventually become, does it not seem apparent to the reader that, since the natural energy now encompassed within our system is sufficient to carry us about, it will be for the best to continue to use this energy in our locomotion and make our improvements with the view to such a use, not for the purpose of dispensing with the many mechanical conveniences that now subserve our demands, but in order to add a simple and convenient means of unit transportation over reasonably long distances in a reasonably short space of time and accomplish the same with the least possible increase of mechanism? Humanity without the power to transport itself is to us an almost incomprehensible idea, and at the present day it is almost equally hard to conceive the state of society in which the movement of large masses over even small distances was impossible; yet there was a time when man could do no more than transport himself, together with such articles as he could carry upon his back or hold in his hands. It was probably not till long after this that he constructed a sled from the bark of a great tree to receive his chattels, and pulled it along by some rude vine; still nearer to our own time comes the invention of the wheeled vehicle or wagon, and when we come to that marvel of modern inventive genius the railway and steam-driven locomotive we are within a period yet personally known to our oldest fellow-citizens.

So much inventive ingenuity, so much marvellous energy has been expended upon the solution of the problem of transporting large masses, in which we see the wheel has finally played an important part, that the question of the individual transportation of individual men has received comparatively little attention, and it is only within the last twenty-five years that an amount of labor and thought has been given to this problem at all commensurate with its importance. This recent labor and thought has not been expended in vain; it has placed the man, too, upon the wheel, which has done so much towards developing the use of other energy, and at last there spreads out before him a beautiful vista of independent locomotion unexampled in all the previous experience of his race.

As wheel suggests the name “cycle,” let us call this art, appertaining to the man and the wheel, “The Cycle Art,” or, more definitely, if we wish, the art of “Man-Motor Carriages.”