1871.3 Our Patent Laws. 97 



making a machine to cut the corn, he is to give the benefit of 

 his labour to mankind. A speaker at the Social Science 

 Congress tells us that if a man discovers anything of benefit 

 to mankind he ought to give the result of his discovery as 

 an act of benevolence. Will any one give his land or his 

 crops out of benevolence ? And yet these come to many 

 men without labour. People imagine that discoveries are 

 floating fancies and are caught by some men as readily as 

 such, whereas they are almost invariably the result of much 

 labour — to some more and to some less, exactly as property 

 falls to some men more and to some less easily. 



Since certain of the speakers on patents have ventured to 

 bring them in as opposed to natural law, they must be 

 contradicted. Arguments they do not give, so we are saved 

 much trouble. There is a property in ideas ; and if we 

 consider for a moment we find there is no perfectly stable 

 property except in ideas. You may have property in land, 

 but some one may come and dispossess you. Your property 

 in ideas, however, you have power to retain against kings, 

 armies, and barristers. We do know, and it is sadly true for 

 humanity, that such property is so entirely in the power of 

 a man that he can take it with him out of the world. This 

 he cannot do with land, and yet a man is found to say that 

 there is no property in ideas. 



Now this is no quirk or fancy. The property is real in 

 the fullest sense ; and it is valuable ; it can be exchanged for 

 all the various goods of the world, and it can be made by 

 labour whilst it cannot be made without it. The property 

 in ideas has all the essential characteristics of other property. 

 And the world must not give up its rights ; it must hold good 

 the title-deeds to ideas, because without such justice it will 

 suffer more than is consistent with prosperity. Knowledge 

 must have its rights as well as the mere possession of matter, 

 and the world must agree to this as a law. 



The reasoning adopted for free trade seems to solve the 

 question to some minds ; they do not seem to consider that 

 neither Adam Smith, Cobden, nor Bright ever defended the 

 right of a man to trade with another's property. These thinkers 

 object to protection, but they never object to protect a man 

 in the possession of his own house, and certainly never advise 

 anyone to thrust his hand into another's pocket and take 

 value from it, still less to take the very secrets of another's 

 mind and sell them for selfish purposes. Honour forbids it ; 

 when, however, men are all honourable neither patents nor 

 policemen will be required. 



We were very much surprised to see that even a law 



VOL. VIII. (O.S.) VOL. I. (N.S.) O 



