CHAPTER XIII. 



INVENTIONS AND PATENT LAWS 



" All things, rare or gross, own one common Father. 

 Truly spake Wisdom, There is nothing new under the sun : 

 We only arrange and combine the ancient elements of all things. 

 Invention is activity of mind, as fire is air in motion. 

 A sharpening of the spiritual sight, to discern hidden aptitudes. 

 From the basket and acantlius, is modeled the graceful capital : 

 The shadowed profile on the wall helpeth the limner to his likeness: 

 The footmarks stamped in clay, lead on the thoughts to printing ; 

 The strange skin garments cast upon the shore suggest another hemisphere: 

 A falling apple taught the sage pervading gravitation ; 

 The Huron is certain of his prey, from tracks upon the grass ; 

 And shrewdness-, guessing on the hint, followeth on the trail : 

 But the hint must be given, the trail must be there, or the keenest sight is as blindness." 



Proverbial Philosophy. 



It is no easy matter either to ascertain or define what it is 

 that constitutes an invention, or makes one an inventor, either 

 in the eyes of the law or in fact. The law requires that in order 

 that an individual shall be entitled to a patent, the thing discov- 

 ered must be both new and useful. It is extremely difficult 

 to determine what constitutes novelty, and also difficult to 

 determine what is useful, before the invention has been sub- 

 mitted to the test of time and experience ; as regards novelty, 

 all that man can do is to form new combinations, and make 

 new applications of substances and things that are old. It is 

 a mistaken idea with many, that the invention of an improve- 

 ment consists in the first vague idea of it. It takes far more 

 than that to entitle one to the merit of an invention, for, between 

 the bare conception of an idea, and the demonstration of the 

 practicability and utility of the thing conceived, there is almost 



