Say What? Necessity is the mother of invention / There's no smoke without fire
Let's take a closer look at these two classic "saws." What exactly do they mean?
"Necessity is the mother of invention" relies on the sensible notion that if something must be done, someone will find a way to do it. For example:
Sir Samuel Vimes, fresh from a good hot bath, leaned back in his favorite chair and lit a fresh cigar. Willikins, the butler, was tidying away the bath things. Both of them froze for a moment as a distant scream, followed by a faint but distinct thump!, came from the window.
Vimes grinned and exhaled a satisfying cloud of smoke. "That makes three this week. You think they'd learn."
"That's the first useful thing anyone has ever done with that hoho," observed Willikins. "Earlier dukes and duchesses just tried to keep people from falling into it."
"They probably weren't as popular with the Assassins Guild as I am," said Vimes. "As it is, you know what they say: necessity is the mother of invention."
The saying is an old one. Some have ascribed it to the ancient Greek philosopher Plato (427-347 B.C.), but it's been noted that the scholars who used the phrase in translations of Plato's works did so after the expression had already been recorded in English works. It was often used in a Latin form, such as Mater artium necessitas ("Necessity is the mother of the arts"), in works aimed at young students. The earliest properly verified usage of the current form seems to have been in a work by the author Richard Franck (c. 1624 - 1708, according to Wikipedia), where he said "Art imitates Nature, and Necessity is the Mother of Invention." The saying gained new life when musician Frank Zappa used it as the basis for the name of his band, the Mothers of Invention, in 1964.
"There's no smoke without fire" goes back to the Renaissance, at the very least. It's recorded in English by 1592, according to The Facts on File Dictionary of Proverbs, but a saying in 13th-century French, "Nul feu est sens fumee ne fumee sens feu" ("No fire is without smoke nor smoke without fire"), shows that the proverb is older than its English version. It means that if there is evidence of something happening, then that thing is probably true or has probably occurred. Most commonly, it's used to describe a situation in which there are unfavorable rumors that the speaker believes to be true:
"Well, Sarge, I heard that he's been seen sneaking into his room at Mrs. Palm's way past midnight when there's a full moon. Barking dogs go silent when he goes past, they say. And he's a regular at Biers. You know the place," said Corporal Nobbs, with a knowing leer.
"Biers, eh?" said Sergeant Colon, wisely. "Sounds like that's worth investigating, that is. There's no smoke without fire, my granny used to say."
Nobby looked confused for a moment and then shook his head. "No, Fred. Not arson. That's one thing they haven't said about 'im."
Forms of the saying exist around the world in places as widely separated as Nigeria (" A toad does not run in the daytime for nothing," because the toad is believed to be a nocturnal animal) and China ("Without wind there are no waves"). In fact, if you're writing a story set in another culture or in a fantasy or science fiction setting, this is probably a good proverb to translate - either by actually researching it or by making up your own version - to avoid using the usual cliché.
Sources
- Necessity is the mother of invention (Phrasefinder)
- The Semantics and Pragmatics of Nigerian Proverbs in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Ola Rotimi’s the Gods Are Not to Blame (University of Ilorin, Nigeria)
- Chinese Proverbs (Teaching Nomad, a People's Republic of China educational site)
- "[T]here's no smoke without fire" (p. 267 in The Facts on File Dictionary of Proverbs, by Martin H. Manser, found via Google Books)