Concerning the Suppressed Book. 571 



that having been, and being now, absolutely indifferent to profit in 

 the matter, I shall decline to accept any portion of the returns. 



" Ever sincerely yours, 



" Herbert Spencer." 



Several points in this correspondence, especially in its 

 opening letter, require some notice in this place ; but, before 

 making the critical corrections that seem to be required, I 

 desire to say a few words on the peculiar circumstances of 

 American publication which have an important bearing 

 on the present case. 



Mr. Frederic Harrison took offence at the American re- 

 print in a book of some review articles of his, and pro- 

 nounces it "a case of piracy." The organs of English 

 opinion, in commenting upon these letters, take the same 

 view. The London Times, after referring to the grace- 

 ful and honourable termination of the disagreeable dif- 

 ference between Mr. Harrison and Mr. Spencer, devotes 

 a leading editorial to the discussion of American piracy 

 on the basis of the fresh and striking illustration of it 

 here afforded. Speaking of the effect of the " tolerably 

 rigid copyright law " of England, the Times says : " But so 

 far as America is concerned it is different. To the English 

 author that country seems to answer very much to Hobbes's 

 idea of a state of nature. Foreign authors are fair prey; 

 for them there is or need be no selling or buying of copy- 

 rights, and a good book is to be dealt with as a part of the 

 common elements of Nature. If any laws govern the mat- 

 ter, it is only those which regulate the capture and reduc- 

 tion into possession of wild annnals." The case is cer- 

 tainly bad enough, but this is an exaggeration. 



At the outset I admit that on the question of interna- 

 tional copyright, or the claims of foreign authors to prop- 

 erty in their books, the English are right and the Ameri- 

 cans wrong — so flagrantly wrong as to justify much of the 



