iSS 3 .] 
Patent-Right and Patent-Law 
257 
working naturalists, and finds its opponents chiefly among 
those who know it by hearsay or by dipping into the “ Origin 
of Species.” The charge of intolerance comes with a sin- 
gularly bad grace. We know of no Evolutionist writer, 
even the “ less distinguished,” who has sought to rival the 
adherents of the Old School in the use of offensive language, 
in appeals to passion and prejudice, in misrepresentation, or 
in personalities. Every year that passes seems but to 
strengthen the evidence in favour of Evolutionism, and to 
win for it more general acceptance^ among patient searchers 
for the truth. 
II. PATENT RIGHT AND PATENT-LAW.* 
By An Old Technologist. 
HE question of patent-right and copy-right is at present 
in a most unsatisfactory condition. Experts, or per- 
sons who at least profess themselves such, differ not 
merely as to details and points of expediency, but as to first 
principles. 
We cannot even agree whether a Patent is the registra- 
tion of an inventor’s property in his own ideas, or the grant 
of an especial privilege which the State may confer, but 
which is still a phase of “ monopoly ” and a sin against our 
modern English deity, “ free trade.” To me it seems that 
in this discussion the ideas of monopoly, protection, and 
free trade are essentially foreign. It any property is to be 
held sacred, surely that of a man in the creation of his own 
brains must hold that position. A new book or a new in- 
vention is something which heretofore had no existence. 
The author or the inventor has not appropriated to his 
private and exclusive use something which previous was 
common and open to the public. He has not limited the 
* The Government Patent Bill of 1883. 
The Patent Bills of 1883 : Private Aims and Public Claims. By R. A. 
Macfie, F.R.S.E. Edinburgh : T. and T. Clark. 
Copyright and Patents for Inventions. Vol. II. By R. A. Macfie, 
Edinburgh : T. and T. Clark. 
