442 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



right law as you have been discussmg would be disadvantageous to 

 literature of the graver kind ? 



A. I think I have. " First Principles " was published in 1863, and 

 in the course of some years the doctrine it contains underwent, in my 

 mind, a considerable further development, and I found it needful to re- 

 organize the book. I spent five months in doing this ; canceled a large 

 number of the stereotype plates ; and was thus at considerable cost of 

 time and money. As I have already pointed out, the work being now 

 in its fourth thousand, has had a degree of success such that there 

 might, under the proposed arrangement, very possibly have been a rival 

 edition at the time I proposed to make these alterations. Had there 

 been such a rival edition, this cost of reorganization to me would have 

 been more serious even than it was ; since the difTerence between the 

 original and the improved edition, adequately known only to those who 

 bought the improved edition, would not have prevented the sale of the 

 rival edition ; and the sale of the improved edition would have greatly 

 diminished. In any case the errors of the first edition would have been 

 more widely spread ; and, in the absence of ability to bear considerable 

 loss, it would have been needful to let them go and become permanent. 

 A kindred tendency to the arrest of improvements would occur with 

 all scientific books and all books of the higher kind, treating of subjects 

 in a state of growth. 



Q. With the object of rendering useful books as accessible as pos- 

 sible to the public, do you think that those engaged in their production 

 and distribution should be restrained from making what might be called 

 undue profits ? 



A. In answer to the first part of the question I hope to say some- 

 thing presently, showing that the advantage of increased accessibility 

 of books is by no means unqualified ; since greater accessibility may be 

 a mischief, if it tells in favor of worthless books instead of valuable 

 books. But, passing this for the present, I would comment on the 

 proposition, which I perceive has been made before the commission, 

 that it is desirable to secure for books "• the cheapest possible price con- 

 sistent with a fair profit to those concerned." I here venture to draw 

 a parallel. What is now thought so desirable respecting books was in 

 old times thought desirable respecting food — " the cheapest possible 

 price consistent with a fair profit to those concerned." And to secure 

 this all-essential advantage, more peremptory, indeed, than that now to 

 be secured, there were regulations of various kinds extending thi'ough 

 centuries — alike in England and on the Continent — forbiddina: of ex- 

 ports, removing of middlemen, punishing of forestallers. But I need 

 hardly recall the fact that all these attempts to interfere with the ordi- 

 nary course of trade failed, and after doing much mischief were abolished. 

 The attempt to secure cheap books by legislative arrangements seems 

 to me nothing less than a return to the long-abandoned system of trade 

 regulations ; and is allied to the fixing of rates of interest, of prices, 



