EDITOR'S TABLE. 



123 



Bat, instead of strengthening the case, 

 he shifts its ground in such a way as 

 completely to surrender it. It was not 

 at all necessary to his argument from 

 " delicacy " that he should deny the 

 bearing of moral considerations upon 

 the question ; but this he has done in a 

 way that, so far as it has any influence 

 at all, will strengthen the hands of the 

 inveterate enemies of copyright. He 

 intensifies the discords upon a subject 

 which many seem bent upon befogging 

 and distracting by all the arts of in- 

 genious sophistry. He professes to be 

 friendly to copyright, and then reasons 

 his way to the destruction of all copy- 

 right by denying that there is any right 

 or wrong in the matter. This reason- 

 ing is as follows : " Now, for me tho 

 matter is simplified by my believing 

 that men, if they go into their own 

 minds and deal quite freely with their 

 own consciousness, will find that they 

 have not any natural rights at all. And 

 as it so happens with a difficult matter 

 of dispute, so it happens here : the dif- 

 ficulty, the embarrassment, the need for 

 drawing subtile distinctions and for de- 

 vising subtile means of escape from them 

 when the right of property is under 

 discussion, arise from one's having first 

 built up the idea of natural right as a 

 wall to run one's head against. An au- 

 thor has no natural right to a property 

 in his production. But then neither has 

 he a natural right to anything whatever 

 which he may produce or acquire. What 

 is true is, that a man has a strong in- 

 stinct making him seek to possess what 

 he has produced or acquired, to have it 

 at his disposal ; that he finds pleasure 

 in so having it, and finds profit. The in- 

 stinct is natural and salutary, although 

 it may be over-stimulated and indulged 

 to excess. One of the first objects of 

 men in combining themselves in society 

 has been to afford to the individual, in 

 his pursuit of this instinct, the sanction 

 and assistance of the laws so far as may 

 be consistent with the general advan- 

 tage of the community. The author, 



like other people, seeks the pleasure 

 and the profit of having at his own dis- 

 posal what he produces. Literary pro- 

 duction, wherever it is sound, is its 

 own exceeding great reward ; but that 

 does not destroy or diminish the au- 

 thor's desire and claim to be allowed 

 to have at his disposal, like other peo- 

 ple, that which he produces, and to be 

 free to turn it to account." 



Mr. Arnold here discredits as ground- 

 less and illusory that whole order of 

 ethical conceptions which we have been 

 wont to regard as fundamental in rela- 

 tion to human conduct. Whether he 

 scouts all morality does not appear, but 

 he denies it at least in one class of hu- 

 man actions. Though dealing with 

 transactions between man and man 

 which involve the ideas of "posses- 

 sion," " appropriation of property," 

 "robbery," "criminality," "penalty," 

 etc., he never refers to such things as 

 "justice," " equity," "duty," "right," 

 and " wrong," or any principles of ob- 

 ligation. Though all men recognize 

 these conceptions, though the govern- 

 ment of society is founded upon them, 

 and though men are fined, imprisoned, 

 and strangled, accordingly as their ac- 

 tions fail to conform to these funda- 

 mental ideas, yet Mr. Arnold airily 

 waives them all aside as irrelevant and 

 impertinent in relation to the subject 

 he is discussing. The reader will no- 

 tice the wordy circuits by which he 

 avoids all the moral elements of the 

 inquiry. To get rid of any question of 

 rights in this matter, he plucks up by 

 the roots and casts to the winds all 

 natural rights. To him who claims a 

 right to life he virtually says: "Oh! 

 no; you have an instinct to live, which 

 is natural and salutary. You find plea- 

 sure in life, but it is its own exceeding 

 great reward, and society graciously 

 allows you to have it at your disposal ; 

 but you have no natural right in the 

 matter." He maintains that a man has 

 no right of property in his productions, 

 except " so far as the law may choose 



