1854] WRITINGS OF JOSEPH HENRY. 331 



forth from the teeming press of our day. The public mind 

 is distracted amidst a multiplicity of teachers and asks in 

 vain for truth. But few persons can devote themselves so 

 exclusively to abstract science as fully to master its higher 

 generalizations, and it is only such persons who are properly 

 qualified to prepare the necessary books for the instruction 

 of the many. I cannot for a moment subscribe to the opin- 

 ion which is sometimes advanced that superficial men are 

 best calculated to prepare popular works on any branch of 

 knowledge. It is true that some persons have apparently 

 the art of simplifying scientific principles; but in the great 

 majority of cases this simplification consists in omitting 

 all that is difficult of comprehension. There is no task more 

 responsible than that of the preparation of an elementary 

 book for the instruction of the community, and no one 

 should embark in such an undertaking who is not prompted 

 by a higher motive than a mere love of notoriety, or the 

 more general incentive, a hope of commercial success. He 

 should love the subject upon which he intends to write, 

 and by years of study and habitual thought have become 

 familiar with its boundaries, and be enabled to separate the 

 true and the good from that which is merely hypothetical 

 and plausible. 



In this connection I may mention the evils which result 

 from literature and science becoming objects of merchandise, 

 and yet not amenable to the laws of trade. I allude to the 

 international copyright system. The tendency of the pres- 

 ent condition of copyright law between England and Amer- 

 ica is greatly to debase literature, to supply cheap books, and 

 not to impart profound wisdom or sound morality. English 

 books are republished in this country and American books 

 are reprinted in England because they are cheap, and not be- 

 cause they are good. Literary and scientific labor must be 

 properly remunerated or the market will be supplied with 

 an inferior article. The principles of free trade are fre- 

 quently improperly applied to this question. The protection 

 required and demanded by the literary man is not that of 

 a premium on his work, but the simple price which it ought 



