Evolution of the Mechanic Arts. 207 



not the insider. It is not the man of the guikl who makes 

 the new machine that surpasses the old, but the man whom 

 the guild will not admit and woiild destroy. The new in- 

 vention, in fact, undermines the guild, by displacing its 

 machinery or method ; consequently the guild is always 

 conservative, and always the last to accept improvements 

 or to appreciate them. The books are full of cases in 

 point and proof. 



Although, as Mr. Kimball has shown, the tendency of the 

 improvement of the implements of war is to the destruc- 

 tion of war itself, the lever and the mechanic arts do not 

 alone and unassisted destroy war and contention. As yet 

 they only modify and change them into business competi- 

 tion and rivalry. Between great factories and little ones, 

 the struggle for life continues. Some are equipped with 

 old-fashioned machinery, and others with machinery con- 

 taining all the latest improvements; and the old estab- 

 lishments find their property depreciated in value, their 

 products more costly to make than those of their rivals, 

 and the inevitable destiny of the old machinery is the scrap- 

 heap and that of the company the court of bankruptcy, un- 

 less at a late day it is able to recover itself by calling on 

 the inventor for still later improvements. 



Of course there can be no incentive to anyone to make 

 inventions and improvements unless, Avhen made, they can 

 be held in possession and kept from rivals by means of 

 a good title, or sold, subject to such title, for a proper 

 consideration. The principle involved is not merely a prin- 

 ciple of selfishness, but one of right and justice of prop- 

 erty in fact which even the dog with his bone recognizes 

 and protects, and without which we should probably to-day 

 be still in a savage stage of society. But imperialism 

 which is of the sword has impressed something of its 

 own character upon the nomenclature, the administration and 

 the body of the patent law, thus invading the field of the 

 mechanic arts, with the natural effect of mutilating and 

 deforming them. 



The word monoj>olij, implied in the patent right, is odious 

 because under that title kings disposed of the sole right to 

 sell the necessaries of life to their favorites, Avho thereby 

 oppressed the people. " Letters Patent " was the name 

 given to the documents that sanctioned the monopoly. In 

 securing his patent, and in protecting it afterwards, the in- 



