EDITOR'S TABLE. 



531 



former pretensions have been worth. 

 This northern gust will blow the dust 

 away from many people's eyes. 



But the American people ought not 

 to have waited for this. It should 

 have been settled on grounds of justice 

 for the benefit of the national charac- 

 ter. It is a serious question and a plain 

 one^not easy to adjust, but still wholly 

 practicable. It is one of those palpa- 

 ble matters in which where there is a 

 will there is certain to be found a way. 

 One of the worst things about it is that 

 our practice shows to the world the 

 low and disgraceful state of American 

 morality. We have published the evi- 

 dence of Huxley, Tyndall, and Spencer 

 before the English Commission on 

 Copyright, and every one who has read 

 it will be struck by the clear and ele- 

 vated ethical tone that pervades it. 

 These men are thought by many to be 

 very bad, but they are men who know 

 what is right and believe in it and main- 

 tain it unflinchingly. Has the occu- 

 pant of one American pulpit ever been 

 known to call attention to this great 

 national disgrace ? International copy- 

 right is one of those questions that 

 measure the degree of civilization. It 

 indicates the high-water mark of the 

 public conscience, the strength of the 

 sense of justice, and how far it is over- 

 borne by the dictates of self-interest. 

 It is a case in which wrong may be 

 perpetrated with apparent impunity. 

 More obtrusive questions which arise 

 between people of different countries 

 are liable to be complicated with fear, 

 and justice is often extorted by a dread 

 of the consequences of withholding it, 

 rather than by the simple force of the 

 conviction of right. But authors can't 

 fight for their rights, nor will govern- 

 ments protect them by the force of 

 arms. They must be content, there- 

 fore, to appeal to the moral sense and 

 the sentiment of public honor. Mili- 

 tary redress being out of the question, 

 there remains only the resort to those 

 civil agencies by which private rights 

 are protected, and the vigor with 



which these act under the inspiration 

 of public feeling tests the degree of 

 civil progress or the condition of civ- 

 ilization. From this point of view the 

 American Eepublic occupies the lowest 

 place among the leading nations of the 

 civilized world; and from the scorn of 

 all honest men we can only escape by 

 setting this matter right by some form 

 of national action. 



And the naked right of the case is 

 palpable enough, though, from the ob- 

 tuseness or indifference of the popular 

 mind upon the subject, it can not be 

 too frequently or too forcibly presented. 

 What we have written elsewhere upon 

 this point we now repeat, that it may 

 have a more permanent record : 



The basis of an author's right of prop- 

 erty in the book he makes is the same as the 

 farmer's right in the wheat he raises. They 

 are each the product of capital and labor. 

 In one case capital is invested in land, im- 

 plements, and stock ; in the other it is in- 

 vested in education, books, and suitable ar- 

 rangements for literary life ; while in both 

 the product is the direct result of work 

 done. The property in his work belongs to 

 an author because there has been expense in 

 its preparation, and because he has produced 

 it by his immediate personal exertion. It 

 is his to possess and to profit by its pro- 

 ceeds, by all the principles of justice which 

 confer the ownership of any property. 

 Questions may arise respecting acquired 

 rights in literary property ; but the original 

 right of him who called it into existence by 

 his own labor is clear and beyond question. 



It is often said that ideas are ethereal 

 things, and belong to the spiritual world, 

 and therefore can not become subject to 

 ownership ; that is, not being material prop- 

 erty, they can not be real property. Others, 

 again, curiously affirm that ideas may be 

 property while yet in the thinker's mind, 

 but cease to be so the moment tliey are sent 

 forth and made useiul to others ; or that 

 thought until expressed or published is the 

 property of the thinker ; when given to the 

 world, like light, it is free to all. Now 

 there is, of course, a profound difference 

 between ideas and material commodities, 

 but there is no such difference as is here 

 implied. They are both products of human 

 exertion. A sonnet is as much the result 

 of bodily effort as a horseshoe. The author 

 works with one material instrument, the 



