for the benefit of the public at large. But in thus attempting to escape from one difficulty, they do but entangle themselves in another. Such an explanation overlooks the fact that the use and abuse of a faculty (whatever the etymology of the words may imply) differ only in degree; whereas their assumption is, that they differ in kind. Gluttony is an abuse of the desire for food; timidity, an abuse of the feeling which in moderation. produces prudence; servility, an abuse of the sentiment that generates respect; obstinacy, of that from which firmness springs in all of which cases we find that the legitimate manifestations differ from the illegitimate ones, merely in quantity, and not in quality. So also with the instinct of accumulation. It may be quite true that its dictates have been, and still are, followed to an absurd excess; but it is also true that no change in the state of society will alter its nature and its office. To whatever extent moderated, it must still be a desire for personal acquisition. Whence it follows that a system affording opportunity for its exercise must ever be retained; which means, that the system of private property must be retained; and this presupposes a right of private property, for by right we mean that which harmonizes with the human constitution as divinely ordained.

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§ 5.

There is, however, a still more awkward dilemma into which M. Proudhon and his party betray themselves. For if, as they assert, 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, amongst 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 their absorption 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-can have no valid title to himself-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.

§ 6.

Further argument appears to be unnecessary. We have seen that the right of property is deducible from the law of equal freedom-that it is presupposed by the human constitutionand that its denial involves absurdities.

Were it not that we shall frequently have to refer to the fact hereafter, it would be scarcely needful to show that the taking away another's property is an infringement of the law of equal freedom, and is therefore wrong. If A appropriate to himself something belonging to B, one of two things must take place: either B does the like to A, or he does not. If A has no property, or if his property is inaccessible to B, B has evidently no opportunity of exercising equal freedom with A, by claiming from him something of like value; and A has therefore assumed a greater share of freedom than he allows B, and has broken the law. If again, A's property is open to B, and A permits B to use like freedom with himself by taking an equivalent, there is no violation of the law; and the affair practically becomes one of barter. But such a transaction will never take place save in theory; for A has no motive to appropriate B's property with the intention of letting B take an equivalent: seeing that if he really means to let B have what B thinks an equivalent, he will prefer to make the exchange by consent in the ordinary way.

The only case simulating this, is one in which A takes from B a thing that B does not wish to part with; that is, a thing for which A can give B nothing that B thinks an equivalent; and as the amount of gratification which B has in the possession of this thing, is the measure of its value to him, it follows that if A cannot give B a thing which affords B equal gratification, or in other words what he thinks an equivalent, then A has taken from B what affords A satisfaction, but does not return to B what affords B satisfaction; and has therefore broken the law by assuming the greater share of freedom. Wherefore we find it to be a logical deduction from the law of equal freedom, that no man can rightfully take property from another against

his will.

CHAPTER XI.

THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY IN IDEAS.

§ 1.

It is tolerably self-evident that no violation of the law of equal freedom is committed in the acquisition of knowledge-that knowledge, at least, which is open to all. A man may read, hear, and observe, to as great an extent as he pleases, without in the least diminishing the liberty of others to do the like—in fact, without affecting the condition of others in any way. It is clear, too, that the knowledge thus obtained may be digested, re-organized, or combined afresh, and new knowledge educed from it by its possessor, without the rights of his fellows being thereby trespassed upon. And it is further manifest, that the moral law permits a man who has by his intellectual labour obtained such new knowledge, to keep it for his own exclusive use, or claim it as his private property. He who does this, in no degree exceeds the prescribed limits of individual freedom. He abridges no one's liberty of action. Every other person retains as much scope for thought and deed as before. And each is free to acquire the same facts-to elaborate from them, if he can, the same new ideas—and in a similar manner employ those new ideas for his private advantage. Seeing, therefore, that a man may claim the exclusive use of his original ideas without overstepping the boundaries of equal freedom, it follows that he has a right so to claim them; or, in other words, such ideas are his property.

Of course the argument used in the last chapter to show that material property cannot be taken from its possessor without a breach of the law, is applicable to property of this kind also.

§ 2.

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 trade policy. "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 manufactures." 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." It is on the ground of commercial statesmanship that they are approved; and not as being necessary for the administration of justice.

The prevalence of such a belief is by no means creditable to the national conscience, and indicates a sad bluntness of moral feeling. To think that the profits which a speculator makes by a rise in the share-market, should be recognised 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