1875.) The Rights of the Thinker. 297 
former climate of high latitudes, and the absence of any 
sound arguments or proofs against such changes, lead to the 
conclusion that the obliquity of the ecliptic not only may 
have, but has, varied in former times considerably, having 
been both greater and less than it now is. 
That a far less obliquity would give us the uniform climate 
of the Miocene, &c., whilst a greater obliquity would give us 
the conditions of the Glacial epoch, is undoubtedly true. It 
is also undeniable that the course now traced by the earth’s 
axis, if carried back into the past for 13,000 years, would 
bring about conditions corresponding exactly to those indi- 
cated by the geological evidence of the Glacial epoch. 
That this same curve should be traced in endless gyrations 
is not, however, probable, and is in reality impussible, when 
any elevation or depression of the land occurs; and as such 
changes have occurred, we must trace—from geological evi- 
dences of climate—what the former course of the earth’s 
axis probably was. 
In conclusion, therefore, we must state that the evidence 
is considerably in favour of great changes having occurred 
in the obliquity in past times, that there is no sound mathe- 
matical objection to such change, and that the solution of 
geological paradoxes is probably to be found in this problem. 
And that the singular opposition offered to its reception by 
a certain class arises entirely from their not having examined 
all the preliminary data, and from a praiseworthy adherence 
to their early teaching. 
Poet RIGHTS OF THE THINKER. 
tas NEW Patent Law is before Parliament, and ques- 
ye tions regarding literary copyright have lately been 
“> put before the Prime Minister: it is clear, there- 
fore, that some people are interested in defending the men 
of thought and invention, but it is equally clear from the 
discussions that neither the lawyers nor the laity have 
arrived at any clear ideas of the right of property which a 
man has in his own thoughts. If discovery in the Arts is 
spoken of, we still have men telling us that they are all the 
result of accident ; scholars have still some floating idea of 
glass being invented at the casual sight of it formed under 
the fire made for cooking on some Pheenician river; and 
Newton’s apple accidentally falling seems to be an argument 
