74 8 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



gree wild and discordant. All sorts of 

 projects and crotchets were thrust for- 

 ward on all sorts of pretexts. A law- 

 yer was there to represent the Harpers, 

 who opposed international copyright, 

 but for reasons which he admitted would 

 carry with them the destruction of all 

 copyright. He presented a letter from 

 the publishers for whom he was argu- 

 ing, in which they said the claims of au- 

 thors were not to be considered, but 

 only the interests of the people at large. 

 But why the people, having taken the 

 communistic hint, and plundered the 

 authors for their own benefit, might not 

 go through the Franklin Square estab- 

 lishment and help themselves, in the 

 interest of cheap knowledge, was not 

 stated. The idea that there was any 

 principle of right in the matter, which 

 it was the duty of Congress to recog- 

 nize, seemed to be quite lost sight of. 

 The game of defeating the measure for 

 an author's copyright (which it was 

 feared at first might succeed) consisted 

 in bringing up a great number of rival 

 projects to bewilder the question, and 

 the game succeeded. The committee re- 

 ported against any congressional action, 

 on the ground that it was not called for 

 by equity, while those who professed to 

 be in favor of the measure could come 

 to no agreement in regard to a plan. 



It may be added that, while we 

 made no statement before the com- 

 mittee as to English authors being poor- 

 ly paid, there was a comparison of the 

 American method of payment by a per- 

 centage on the sales, with the English 

 system of giving the author half-profits. 

 The American method was commend- 

 ed and the English declared to be one 

 from which their authors suffered ; for, 

 while by the percentage plan the author 

 always gets something if there are any 

 sales, on the English plan he gets noth- 

 ing unless there are profits. And as, 

 first, on the great mass of books there 

 are no profits, and as, second, the 

 making up of the " cost " is entirely in 

 the hands of the publisher, the authors 



are liable to be victimized by the policy. 

 In proof of this, and in explanation of 

 how badly the half-profit system works 

 for authors, we read from a pamphlet 

 by James Spedding, an English author, 

 in which the whole thing is exposed. 

 He wrote it as two magazine articles, 

 and could not get them published, be- 

 cause the editors said they should there- 

 by make enemies of the publishers. So 

 Spedding published the papers himself. 

 We, however, made no absurd attempt 

 to get up sympathy for English authors 

 because they may be badly used by 

 some of their publishers at home. 



TEE ORDER OF NATURE. 



Some of the questions propound- 

 ed to us through the columns of the 

 Tribune by the Rev. Dr. Deems we an- 

 swered in the preceding nufnber of 

 the Monthly, and postponed, for lack 

 of space, the consideration of the fol- 

 lowing: 



" The professor says that ' Prof. 

 Huxley's antagonists hold that the in- 

 flexible order of Nature may be as- 

 serted, perhaps, in astronomy, but they 

 deny it in biology.' Will he be good 

 enough to refer me to one of the pro- 

 fessor's antagonists who 'holds' that 

 opinion ? " 



We here made an affirmation con- 

 cerning a class, and Dr. Deems chal- 

 lenges us to produce a single instance 

 in which it is true, which may be taken 

 as an emphatic way of expressing his 

 disbelief in what we said. Recurrence 

 to the matter satisfies us that, besides 

 being true, the proposition is more 

 broadly true than we affirmed it to be. 

 That the order of Nature is a principle 

 accepted only in part, is a view held, 

 not only by those who are ranked as 

 antagonists of Huxley, but by the great 

 mass of people, including even the 

 largest proportion of scientific men. 

 We have received, from Mr. W. H. 

 Walworth, of Monticello, Iowa, a letter 

 of inquiry that so clearly brings out the 



