matter whether due endeavour has or has not been made to obtain them. Nay more, it necessitates an absolute violation of the principle of equal freedom. For when we assert the entire liberty of each, bounded only by the like liberties of all, we assert that each is free to do whatever his desires dictate, within the prescribed limits-that each is free, therefore, to claim for himself all those gratifications, and sources of gratification, attainable by him within those limits-all those gratifications, and sources of gratification, which he can procure without trespassing on the spheres of action of his neighbours. If, therefore, out of many starting with like fields of activity, one obtains, by his greater strength, greater ingenuity, or greater application, more gratifications and sources of gratification than the rest, and does this without trenching upon the equal freedoms of the rest, the moral law assigns him an exclusive right to all those extra gratifications and sources of gratification; nor can the rest take them from him without claiming for themselves greater liberty of action than he claims, and thereby violating that law. Whence it follows, that an equal apportionment of the fruits of the earth among all, is not consistent with pure justice.

If, on the other hand, each is to have allotted to him a share of produce proportionate to the degree in which he has aided production, the proposal, while it is abstractedly just, is no longer practicable. Were all men cultivators of the soil, it would perhaps be possible to form approximately true estimates of their several claims. But to ascertain the respective amounts of help given by different kinds of mental and bodily labourers, towards procuring the general stock of the necessaries of life, is an impossibility. We have no means of making such a division save that afforded by the balancing of supply and demand, and this the hypothesis excludes.

If, as M. Proudhon asserts, "all property is robbery "if no one can equitably become the exclusive possessor of any

article, or, as we say, obtain a right to it-then, among other consequences, it follows that a man can have no right to the things he consumes for food. And if these are not his before eating them, how can they become his at all? As Locke asks, "when do they begin to be his? when he digests? or when he eats? or when he boils? or when he brings them home?" If no previous acts can make them his property, neither can any process of assimilation do it: not even absorption of them into the tissues. Wherefore, pursuing the idea, we arrive at the curious conclusion, that as the whole of his bones, muscles, skin, &c., have been thus built up from nutriment not belonging to him, a man has no property in his own flesh and blood-has no more claim to his own limbs than he has to the limbs of another; and has as good a right to his neighbour's body as to his own! Did we exist after the same fashion as those compound polyps, in which a number of individuals are based upon a living trunk common to them all, such a theory would be rational enough. But until Communism can be carried to that extent, it will be best to stand by the old doctrine.

THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY IN IDEAS.

THAT a man's right to the produce of his brain is equally valid with his right to the produce of his hands, is a fact which has yet obtained but a very imperfect recognition. It is true that we have patent laws, a law of copyright, and acts for the registration of designs; but these, or at any rate two of them, have been enacted not so much in obedience to the dictates of justice, as in deference to the suggestions of tradepolicy. "A patent is not a thing which can be claimed as a right," we are told by legal authorities, but is intended to "act as a stimulus to industry and talent." It is not because the piracy of patterns would be wrong that legislators forbid it, but because they wish to afford "encouragement to manufacturers." Similar also are the current opinions. Measures of this nature are commonly considered by the public as giving to inventors a certain "privilege," a "reward," a sort of modified "monopoly."

The prevalence of such a belief is by no means creditable to the national conscience. To think that the profits which a speculator makes by a rise in the share-market, should be recognized as legally and equitably his property, and yet that some new combination of ideas, which it may have cost an ingenious man years of application to complete, cannot be "claimed as a right" by that man! To think that a sinecurist should be held to have a "vested interest" in his office, and a just title to compensation if it is abolished, and yet that an invention over which no end of mental toil has been

spent, and on which the poor mechanic has laid out perhaps his last sixpence-an invention which he has completed entirely by his own labour and with his own materials-has wrought, as it were, out of the very substance of his own mind-should not be acknowledged as his property! To think that his title to it should be admitted merely as a matter of convenience-admitted even then only on payment of some £400-and, after all, quashed on the most trifling pretences! What a thick-skinned perception of justice does this show! One would think that equity afforded no guidance. beyond transactions in material things-weights, measures, and money. Let a shop-boy take from his master's till a visible, tangible, ponderable sovereign, and all can see that the rights of ownership have been violated. Yet those who exclaim with such indignant virtue against theft, will purchase a pirated edition of a book, without any qualms of conscience concerning the receipt of stolen goods. Dishonesty, when shown in house-breaking or sheep-stealing, is held up to eternal infamy; but the manufacturer who steals his foreman's improved plan for the spinning of cotton, or the building of steam engines, continues to be held in high respect. The law is active enough in apprehending the urchin who may have deprived some comfortable citizen of his pocket-handkerchief; but there is no redress for the povertystricken schemer who is robbed by some wealthy scamp of that which formed the sole hope of his life.

It is a common notion that the exclusive use by its discoverer of any new or improved mode of production, is a species of monopoly, in the sense in which that word is conventionally used. To let a man have the entire benefit. accruing from the employment of some more efficient machine, or better process invented by him; and to allow no other person to adopt and apply for his own advantage the same plan, they hold to be an injustice. Nor are there wanting philanthropic and even thinking men, who consider

that the valuable ideas originated by individuals — ideas which may be of great national advantage-should be taken out of private hands and thrown open to the public at large.

"And pray, gentlemen," an inventor might fairly reply, "why may not I make the same proposal respecting your goods and chattels, your clothing, your houses, your railway shares, and your money in the funds? If you are right in the interpretation you give to the term 'monopoly,' I do not see why that term should not be applied to the coats on your backs and the provisions on your dinner tables. With equal reason I might argue that you unjustly 'monopolize' your furniture, and that you ought not in equity to have the 'exclusive use' of so many apartments. If 'national advantage' is to be the supreme rule, why should we not appropriate your wealth, and the wealth of others like you, to the liquidation of the State-debt? True, as you say, you came honestly by all this property; but so did I by my invention. True, as you say, this capital, on the interest of which you subsist, was acquired by years of toil-is the reward of persevering industry: well, I may say the like of this machine. While you were gathering profits, I was collecting ideas; the time you spent in conning the prices current, was employed by me in studying mechanics; your speculations in new articles of merchandise, answer to my experiments, many of which were costly and fruitless; when you were writing out your accounts, I was making drawings; and the same perseverance, patience, thought, and toil, which enabled you to make a fortune, have enabled me to complete my invention. Like your wealth, it represents so much accumulated labour; and I am living upon the profits it produces me, just as you are living upon the interest of your invested savings. Beware, then, how you question my claim. If I am a monopolist, so also are you; so also is every man. If I have no right to these products of my brain, neither have you to those of your hands. No one can become the