510 Thoughts Suggested by Patent Rights. [October, 



(or copyright) extends only to the form. We do not call 

 this an argument at all. A literary work frequently has its 

 chief, sometimes its only beauty, in the form. What is a 

 poem or a drama without the artistic form and form of ex- 

 pression, or what is any work of fiction or historical work 

 apart from it? If a writer uses expressions from Dickens 

 or from Carlyle — both men whose style is peculiar — it does 

 not diminish the value of their works ; on the contrary, it 

 excites the desire in many to see them, and renders the 

 copyright more valuable. Every author delights in being 

 copied and imitated, and if it should be done secretly others 

 have a delight in showing it clearly. In the copyright law we 

 have given literary men a right as definable as the right of 

 land ; are we to refuse a similar right to those who work in 

 the applications of science ? 



To our mind the only defensible objection to patents would 

 lie in the impossibility of defining them if this existed. We 

 throw aside as pure rubbish the objections made by manu- 

 facturers in the necessity of paying for patent rights, as we 

 throw aside the arguments of the Americans, who object to 

 pay for our copyrights, and so pirate our books. It may be 

 difficult to define, but law itself is a difficulty daily in- 

 creasing, and the rights of workmen of every class, even the 

 rights of the House of Lords itself, are continually under 

 discussion. Yet the work of law must be done, unless we 

 fail in our interests and make outlaw classes from sheer in- 

 ability to tell how to protect them. To examine this sup- 

 posed difficulty connected with patents, we must recur to 

 the supposition that there are many persons at one moment 

 rushing on an invention, and that by the laws of progress it 

 comes without special merit of one individual. We can 

 easily imagine this to be the opinion of men not thoroughly 

 conversant with the whole subject. There are a class of 

 secondary inventions of which this is strictly true. Let us 

 take for example a very remarkable discovery, marking dis- 

 tinctly an era not long past — that of the first aniline colour 

 by Perkin. If he did not deserve to have that preserved to 

 himself, it is hard to see how any man ought ever to have 

 any possession whatever. Let us imagine for a moment 

 that part of the work was accidental, that does not matter ; 

 it is such an accident as does not happen to fools. Besides, 

 if it were wholly accidental, we may say it is perhaps by an 

 accident that a man becomes a king, or a wise man, or an idiot; 

 but he is no less such, and we leave such in pretty firm 

 possession of their characteristics, although their rights are 

 variously disputed. This first discovery by Perkin may be 



