Twain isn't simply saying that luck matters—he's suggesting that rigidity of purpose can actually blind us to discovery. The inventor who sets out to solve Problem A misses the miraculous solution to Problem B that appears in his laboratory. Consider penicillin: Fleming wasn't searching for an antibiotic when a contaminated petri dish changed medicine forever. The real sting of Twain's wit lies in naming Accident as the *greatest* inventor, which demotes our celebrated engineers and scientists to mere operators of an indifferent universe, forever trailing behind what chance has already devised.