A
LETTER
TO
AND
ON
THESCIENCE OF JUSTICE, AND THEIR RIGHT OF
PERPETUAL
PROPERTY IN THEIR DISCOV-
ORIES
AND INVENTIONS.
BOSTON:
CUPPLES, UPHAM & CO
283 WASHINGTON STREET
1884.
[*3]
LETTER.
SECTION
I.
To Scientists and Inventors:
You are the great producers and diffusers of knowledge and wealth. Your scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions are the great, almost the only. instrumentalities by which the world at large is enlightened or enriched. You, Scientists, explore Nature for her facts and laws, which, violated through ignorance or design, bring upon mankind want, disease, misery, and death; but which, known and accepted as guides, bring to them not only great material wealth, but also life, health, and strength of both body and mind. And you, Inventors, devise and explain to us the application of mechanical forces, by which men’s powers of providing for, and satisfying, their wants and desires, are multiplied a thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand fold.
Your
discoveries and inventions, the value of which no man can measure, are not,
like our material wealth, consumed, or worn out, by use, nor do they decay by
lime. They are not, like our material wealth, local and limited in their nature;
but each and all of them can be diffused all over the globe, and be utilized by
all peoples, not only without conflict, but with mutual and universal benefit.
For
the want of your discoveries and inventions, mankind, through many thousands of
years, have remained savage, barbarous, or, if in any degree civilized, still
poverty-stricken, shortlived, feeble, ignorant, superstitious, enslaved in both
body and mind. And such is the condition of more than a thousand millions of
the world’s people to-day. And such it will remain for [*4] thousands of years
to come, unless they can have the benefit of such discoveries and inventions as
you are making, and offering to them; and such as they would accept and
utilize, if their governments did not deprive them of all power to do so.
In
spite of all the obstacles which these governments have constantly placed in
their way, these discoveries and inventions have, of late years, and in some
portions of the world, made progress. And nobody knows so well as yourselves, how
much greater this progress would be, if all men of scientific and inventive
minds, all over the world, had all the inducements and means that they might
have, and ought to have, for prosecuting their investigations and experiments.
Your
own rights and interests, and the rights and interests of mankind at large, are
identical in this matter. It is your own right, and for your own interest, that
you should have all the inducements and means that you honestly can have, for
prosecuting your investigations and experiments, and producing all the
discoveries and inventions that you are capable of. It is also the right, and
for the interests, of mankind at large, that you should have all those
inducements and means, because it is only through the greatest number of
discoveries and inventions, that mankind are to be most highly enlightened and
enriched.
What,
then, are these inducements and means, which you need, and have a right to, and
which it is the right, and for the interests, of mankind at large, that you should
have? They are these:
I. The same right of perpetual property in the products of your brains, that all other
men are justly entitled to have in the products of their hands.
2. The same protection, by both civil and
criminal law, for the products of your brain labor, that other men are justly
entitled to have for the products of their hand labor.
3. The same right of perpetual property in
your discoveries and inventions, in all the other countries of the world, as in
your own.
4. It is the right, and for the interests, of all past
discoverers and inventors, and of their heirs, to recover their natural right
of perpetual property in their
discoveries and inventions, which has [*5] hitherto been denied or withheld by
the ignorant and tyrannical governments that have heretofore existed, and now
exist, in the world.
5. It is also the right, and for the interests, of mankind at large, that
the right of perpetual property, in their discoveries and inventions, should be
restored to all past discoverers and inventors, and to their hurt, so far as they can now be ascertained.
6. It is your right to have all the money
you need, and honestly can have- that is, all the money that freedom in banking
would give you - not only for making your discoveries and inventions, but also
for carrying them all over the world, and putting them into actual operation.
7. It is your right, and for your
interests, as well as their own, that all mankind, all over the world, should
have all the money they need, and honestly can have-that is, all the money that
freedom in banking would give them - to enable them to utilize your discoveries
and inventions as fast as they are made, and to distribute to consumers all the
wealth that your discoveries and inventions will enable them to create.
How
are all these propositions to be realized? In other words, how are they all to be established as law, in all the different
countries of tile world ?
The
general answer to this question is, that these propositions are all to be
established as law, all over the world, by showing their truth and justice to
all peoples; and also by showing, not Only their adaptation, but their
necessity, for promoting the highest enlightenment, and the greatest
enrichment, of all the peoples of the earth.
But
a more particular answer is needed. And it will now be given, by showing not
only the truth and justice of the several propositions themselves, and their
adaptation and necessity to produce all that is now claimed for them, but also by showing that at Scientists and
inventors have it in their own power, while promoting their own highest
interests, to accomplish the whole work. [*6]
SECTION
II.
Before
proceeding to the consideration of the preceding propositions, it is your
right, and for your interests, to have this one question decided, viz.: Whether your scientific
discoveries and mechanical inventions, by which, incomparably beyond all other
men, you are enlightening and enriching mankind, are, in their nature, an equally legitimate property, and entitled to
the same legal protection, as are the products of men’s manual labor? Or
whether that mere pittance of protection, which is allowed to them in a few
countries, and not at all in others, is all the reward to which your labors are
entitled?
When
this question shall be rightly answered, all the other questions must
necessarily be rightly answered, too. And
this question is really and finally answered by the single fact that knowledge
is property.
That
knowledge is wealth - and wealth, too, of the greatest. value - no man of sense
will deny. Why, then, is it not property? And subject to all the laws of
property?
Knowledge
is property. It is a property that is really acquired only by labor of mind, or
body, or both; oftentimes only by great labor of both body and mind. It is also
a property that is extensively bought and sold, like other property, in the
market.
It
is true that a vast amount of knowledge - knowledge, too, of great intrinsic
value - is so common, from having been acquired by each one’s own experience
and observation, that it bears no price in the market; but that does not affect
the principle, that all knowledge, that will bring a price in free and open
market, is as legitimate a subject of bargain and sale as is any material
commodity whatever.
Even
so common and simple a knowledge as that of the alphabet has its market value,
and is rightfully bought and sold. The young girl, who knows the alphabet, is
rightfully paid for imparting that knowledge to those younger, or less
enlightened than herself.
On
the other hand, the highest kinds of knowkdge - or. at least, what passes for
such in this ignorant world - s constantly and openly bought and sold, oftentimes at enormous prices. [*7]
Thus
legislators, judges, lawyers, editors, teachers of all kinds, physicians,
priests, and soldiers, are continually selling their knowledge - and, perhaps,
quite as frequently their ignorance and falsehoods - for money.
Legislators
are continually selling such knowledge - or, rather, Sun) ignorance and
falsehoods as these, viz.: That they themselves are rightfully invested with
absolute and irresponsible dominion over the property, liberty, and lives of
their fellow men; that their
discretion, in the exercise of this power, can rightfully be restrained by no
natural principles of justice; that their commands are authoritative and final,
and the only imperative rule of action for all whom they call their subjects;
that resistance to their laws, as they call them, is the greatest of crimes,
and may rightfully, and must necessarily, be punished with confiscation,
imprisonment, and death. In all ages, the mass of mankind have been compelled
to pay, with their property, liberty, and, in vast numbers of cases with their
lives, for such knowledge - or, rather, for such monstrosities absurdities, and
falsehoods - as these.
Under
the name of knowledge, judges, lawyers, and editors are Constantly affirming,
repeating, and reiterating these monstrosities, absurdities, and falsehoods of
the legislators; and are taking their pay for so doing, as if they were really
selling the most valuable commodities.
Surely
it does not lie in the mouths of these legislators, judges, lawyers and
editors, who live and flourish by selling such falsehoods as these, to say that
the scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions, which are every day
demonstrating their power to enlighten, enrich, and liberate all mankind, are
not legitimate property, that may rightfully be bought and sold.
The
knowledge of the soldier - such as it is - is in great demand. To him who knows
how to kill the greatest number of men, in the shortest time, and for the most
frivolous or unjust causes, his knowledge is his fortune. Legislators are so
Constantly dependent upon it for
their very existence as legislators, that they pay enormous sums for it - but
always out of other people’s money. [*8]
Physicians,
in all ages, have been freely selling their knowledge - or, more commonly,
their ignorance and falsehoods; and the purchasers have been paying for them
with their property, their health, and their lives.
Does
it lie in the mouths of these physicians to deny that scientific truths and
mechanical inventions are legitimate subjects of property?
Priests
have for ages been selling, under the name of knowledge, absurd dogmas and
creeds, which they described as sure to carry the believer in them to a future
world of eternal and indescribable happiness, and as equally sure to carry all
unbelievers in them to a future world of eternal and indescribable woe. And
they, in conspiracy with legislators who needed their aid, have compelled the
mass of mankind to pay for this so called knowledge, under the alternatives of
imprisonment, torture, and death. But they have never demonstrated the truth of
their dogmas. No one of their number has ever gone to the future world, and
brought back the information that their so-called knowledge was anything other
than ignorance and falsehood.
Does
it lie in the mouths of these priests to say that scientific discoveries and
mechanical inventions, whose truth and utility are being constantly
demonstrated before all the world, are not legitimate subjects of property? or,
consequently, of free bargain and sale?
Will
the people themselves, whose ancestors, for thousands of years, have been
swindled out of their common sense, their property, health, liberty, and lives,
by these venders of ignorance and falsehood, under the name of knowledge-and
who are now being swindled in the same way themselves - will they deny that
such veritable realities as scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions -
discoveries and inventions that have demonstrated their power to fill the earth
with knowledge, and health, and wealth, and liberty - are legitimate subjects of
property, that may freely and rightfully be bought and sold? Will they choose
to pay - as they and their ancestors hitherto have done -with their property,
health, liberty, and lives, for such ignorance, falsehood, oppression, robbery,
and ruin, as have hitherto been dealt out to them, rather [*9] than for such
health, wealth, truth, justice, and liberty as scientists and inventors offer
them?
And,
finally, will not scientists and inventors themselves, while establishing their
own rights to their own property, give themselves to the work of establishing
justice, as a science, in place of
the absurdities, the falsehoods, the chicanery, the usurpations, and the
arbitrary, irresponsible power of the ambitious, rapacious, and unprincipled
men, by whom the world is now ruled, and who make mankind their dupes and their
prey?
If
they will but do this, the work will soon be accomplished.
SECTION
III.
Assuming
it now to be settled that your discoveries and inventions are, in their nature, a legitimate property,
the first of the Propositions before mentioned to be established is this, viz.:
That, in truth and justice, scientists and inventors have the same right of perpetual property in the products of
their brain labor, that other men have in the products of their hand labor.
This
proposition is established by the simple facts that knowledge is property, and
is, in its nature, durable, vendible, and transferable; for all property, in
things durable, vendible, and transferable, is, in its very nature, perpetual,
and a legitimate subject of devise and inheritance. And no formal will or
testament is necessary to convey a man’s property, at his decease, to his
so-called natural heirs - such as his wife and children - or, in the absence of
such, to his nearest blood relations. The facts that, during his life, his
moral duty and natural affection prompt him to acquire wealth, and expend it
for the support and happiness of these so-called natural heirs, rather than for
others whom he does not know, or, knowing, does not love, furnishes a
sufficient proof, or at least a sufficient presumption, that, at his death, he
desires them to possess the property he leaves behind him; and nothing but the
clearest proof to the contrary is allowed to defeat that presumption. And for a
government to confiscate, after his death, [*10] this property, which be had
produced or accumulated for their support or benefit, would be as gross and
cruel an act of tyranny and robbery, as it would be to confiscate it during his
lifetime. And the common sentiments of mankind have concurred in this opinion.
And this principle is plainly as applicable to intellectual, as to material,
property. And the fact that this principle has heretofore been wholly, or
partially, disregarded in its application to intellectual property, is only a
proof of the ignorance, or villainy, of the governments that have ruled the
world.
But
let us look further into this right of perpetual property.
When
a man digs into the earth, and finds, and takes possession of, a diamond, he
thereby acquires a supreme right of property in it, against all the world; and
this right of property becomes perpetual in his heirs and assigns.
So,
also, when a man dives into the sea, and brings up a pearl, he thereby acquires
a supreme right of property in it, against all the world; and this right of
property becomes perpetual in his heirs and assigns.
This
right of perpetual property is the reward that nature offers to those who take
upon themselves the labor of discovering her secret wealth, and making it available
for man’s use.
By
the same rule, when the scientist, in his laboratory, discovers that, in
nature, there exists a substance, or a law, that was before unknown, but that
may be useful to mankind, he thereby acquires a supreme right of property in that
knowledge, against all the world; and he may either use it himself, or sell it,
or lend it to others for use, the same as he might rightfully do with any
material property. This is the reward that nature offers him for his labor.
And
this right of property Is as much a perpetual one, as is the right of property
in the case of the diamond, or the pearl.
And
to deprive him of this right of property after a given number of years, is as much
an act of pure usurpation and robbery, as it would be to take from the diamond
digger and the pearl diver, the products of their labor, after a given number
of years.
So,
too, the inventor, who acquires a knowledge of mechanical forces, and then
applies and combines them in a manner before [*11] unknown, and so as to
produce a machine that will perform the labor of a hundred, a thousand, or ten
thousand men, thereby acquires a supreme right of property in his invention,
and may rightfully hold it against all the world. He may either use it himself,
or sell it, or lend it to others for use, at his pleasure. This right of
property is, in its nature, a perpetual one in himself, his heirs, and assigns;
and to deprive him of it, after a given number of years, is as much an act of
usurpation and robbery, as it would be to rob the diamond digger, or the pearl
diver, of his property, after a given number of years.
It
is for the highest Interests of all mankind, that this right of perpetual
property, in the scientist and inventor, should be acknowledged and maintained.
It
is for the highest interests of all mankind, that each and every man should
have a right of perpetual property in the products of his own labor; because it
is this right alone that can stimulate every man to the highest exercise of his
wealth-producing faculties of both body and mind. And the more a man produces
for himself, the more he produces for all other men; for in that division of
labor which science and invention give rise to, each man usually consumes but a
very small portion of the particular wealth he produces. The surplus he gives
to other men in exchange for the various kinds of wealth they produce
respectively. The more, therefore, each one produces, the more all finally
receive for their own consumption.
How
many diamonds would ever have been digged from the earth, or how many pearls
would ever have been taken from the sea, if they had all been confiscated in a
few years after they had been obtained? How much gold, or silver, or copper, or
iron, or any other metal, would ever have been taken out of the earth, for the
benefit of mankind, if they had all been confiscated in a few years after they
had been mined? How many farms would have ever been reclaimed from the forest,
and brought under cultivation, and made to produce food for man, if they had
all been confiscated in a few years after they had been made productive? How
many comfortable dwellings would ever have been built, if they had all been
confiscated soon after they had been made fit for habitation? [*12]
How
many factories would ever have been built, and filled with machinery, for the
production of a thousand, or ten thousand, different kinds of wealth, if they
had all been confiscated soon after they were fitted for the, uses for which
they were designed.
The
same arguments, both of justice and expediency, which are applicable in favor
of the right of perpetual property in material things, are applicable in favor
of the same right of perpetual property in all the scientific discoveries ‘and
mechanical inventions that the human mind is capable of producing. And it. is
because no such - nor indeed any other special - right of property has, until
recently, been acknowledged, that the world has heretofore been, and, for’ the
most part, still is, so nearly destitute of all the sciences and inventions by
which it would otherwise have been enlightened and enriched.
Even
in those small portions of the earth in which some encouragement has, of late years, been given to science and
invention, we doubtless have very little, almost no, conception of what would
be the increased number of discoveries and inventions, if the right of
perpetual property in them were acknowledged and protected, in the same manner
as is the right of property in material things.
SECTION
IV.
The
second proposition to be established is this, viz.: That scientists and inventors are justly entitled to have the
same protection, by both civil and criminal law, for the products of their
brain labor, that other men are justly entitled to have for the products of
their hand labor.
The
truth and justice of this proposition are too nearly self-evident to need much
argument in their support.
If
a man’s scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions are as truly his
property as are his houses or lands, then it is plain that any trespass upon
them is as clearly a crime as is a trespass upon his houses or lands. And there
is the same practical necessity [*13] for punishing criminally trespasses
against a man’s intellectual property, as there is for punishing criminally
trespasses against his material property.
What
security could any man have for the quiet possession of his house or his farm,
if every other man, who coveted them, but had no color of right the owner to
carry on an expensive and protracted civil suit against each one of these the
owner to carry on an expensive and protracted civil suit against each one of
these trespassers? It is plain that it would cost him more to defend his house
and farm than they were worth; and that his right of property in them would be
practically destroyed. This argument is just as strong in favor of punishing
criminally trespasses upon intellectual property, as it is for punishing
criminally trespasses upon material property.
SECTION
V.
The
third proposition to be established is this: That scientists and inventors
should have the same right of perpetual property in their discoveries and
inventions, in all the other countries of the world, as in their own.
This
proposition, like the preceding one, is too nearly self-evident to need much
argument in its support.
The
natural, and only real, right of property is the same throughout the world; and
it is only the ignorance and tyranny of the different governments of the world,
that make the practical right of property different in different countries.
When
justice, as a science, shall be established, as the one only law, in all the
countries in the world, the right of property in scientific discoveries and
mechanical inventions, as well as in material things, will be one and the same
all over the world. [*14]
SECTION
VI.
The
fourth proposition to be established is this, viz: That it is the right, and
for the interests, of all past discoverers and inventors (where their patents
have expired), and of their heirs, to recover
their natural right of perpetual property in their discoveries and
inventions, which has hitherto been denied or withheld by the ignorant and
tyrannical governments that have hitherto existed, and now exist, in the world.
This
proposition, too, like the preceding ones, is too nearly self-evident to
require much argument.
Plainly,
scientists and inventors have never voluntarily parted with their natural right
of property in their discoveries and inventions. They have never forfeited
their right to them by crime. Those who have had the benefit of them, and are
now using them, have never bought them, or paid for them, or made any kind of
contract with the owners for the use of them. The only reason why the authors
of them (or their heirs or assigns) are not now in the full enjoyment of their
right of property in them, is that governments, in their ignorance or villainy,
have refused either to acknowledge or protect the right at all, or to protect
it beyond a limited time; and have thus practically licensed all trespassers to
make free plunder of what was the rightful private property of the discoverers
and inventors.
To
this free plunder of their property, the discoverers and inventors have been
obliged to submit, for the time being. But their true and natural right of
property has not been lost, or affected, thereby. They have the same true and
natural right of property in their discoveries and inventions that they ever
had. And they have now the same right to demand the recognition and protection
of their rights, that other men have to demand the recognition and protection
of their rights to their material property.
Where
the discoverers and inventors have died, their descendants have the same
natural right of inheritance in their discoveries and inventions, as other
men’s descendants have in the material property of their ancestors. [*15]
That
the immense value of their discoveries and inventions should now unite all
scientists and inventors, (whose patents have expired,) and their heirs, in the
effort to recover their rights to them, is too plain to need argument.
SECTION
VII.
The
fifth proposition to be established is this, viz.: That it is the right, and/or the interests, of mankind at large, that
the right of perpetual property in their discoveries and inventions, should be
restored to all past discoverers and inventors, and to their heirs, so far as
they can now be ascertained.
The
truth of this proposition rests, in the first place, upon this basis, viz.: That it is only when all men are
protected in their natural right of property in the products of their labor,
that all men are stimulated to the production of the greatest amount of wealth
they are capable of producing, and each and every man is consequently enabled
to give the greatest amount of wealth in exchange for the wealth produced by
others. It is, therefore, the right, and for the interests, of every man, who
produces any kind of wealth for sale, that
all other men, who are to buy his wealth, should be enabled to produce as much
as possible themselves, and thus be enabled to give as much as possible in
exchange for his.
Every
man, who believes in men’s natural right of property in the products of their
labor, will acknowledge the truth of this principle, as applicable to the future. But perhaps some will be so unwise, as
well as dishonest, as to dispute the principle in its applicable to the future and will say that the world having
once got possession of a vast amount of intellectual property for nothing, it
would now be foolish to give it back to its true owners.
There
is some difficulty in reasoning with men who do not believe that honesty is the
best policy in all cases whatsoever; men who believe in theft and robbery,
whenever they are strong enough to practice them with impunity. But inasmuch as
there are a great many such men in the world, and inasmuch as they are [*16]
now, and always have been, the ruling powers of the world - that is, the chief governors of the world and
inasmuch as they arc the class who will most powerfully oppose the rights of
all scientists and inventors, both past and future, it becomes necessary to
show to others, if not to themselves, that this policy is as shortsighted as it
is dishonest.
It has always been the policy of these bands of robbers, who have called
themselves governments - in fact, it has in reality been the sole objects of
their organizations, as governments - to rob all the producers of wealth,
whether intellectual or manual laborers, of all the products of their labor, as
fast as they were produced; leaving nothing in the hands of the producers that
would enable them to produce more, or that would even enable them to produce
their daily food, except as the servants, and by the permission, of these
tyrants. And this is the reason - and not the want of scientific and inventive
faculties - why, after so many thousands of years, there is so little of either
science or invention in the world today; and why there is so little of any
thing, for the mass of mankind, except poverty, ignorance, and slavery.
It
is only within a very recent time - say a single century, or a little more -
that any governments have secured to either scientists or inventors any really
valuable rewards for their labors. And even within that time, they have only offered
such mere temporary, and even trivial, rewards, as were thought sufficient to
inspire their hopes, and induce them to produce something valuable, of which
they could be robbed. And as soon
almost as they hate produced anything valuable, they have been robbed of it.
Such is to-day the state of the laws under those few governments that alone
profess to secure to scientists and inventors any rewards at all for their
discoveries and inventions. And this state of things is likely to continue, and
is almost certain to continue, until scientists and inventors themselves
undertake the work of vindicating and establishing their own natural rights of
property In their discoveries and inventions.
But
the scientists and inventors themselves will see at once that they cannot
consistently advocate their own rights to the [*17] products of their own
labor, in the future, unless they
acknowledge and maintain the same rights for all past scientists and inventors,
and their heirs, so far as they can
now be ascertained. Every admission on their part, that all past scientists and inventors, or their heirs, may rightfully be robbed
of their property, would be a. practical confession that all future scientists and inventors may also
be rightfully robbed of theirs. No future
scientist or inventor, therefore, can consistently claim any rights of
property for himself, except such as he is willing to accord to all past scientists and inventors.
But,
secondly, it would be very bad policy for either present or future scientists
or inventors to make any compromise with their enemies, or to attempt to secure
any rights, or purchase any favors, for themselves, by repudiating the rights
of any past scientists or inventors, or
their heirs. In order to establish their own rights, they will need all the
influence, and all the financial capital,
they can enlist in the enterprise. And the pecuniary value of past
discoveries and inventions is so immense, that its power can hardly be
overrated.
Estimate
- if that be possible - what would be the actual market value of all the
scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions now extant (whose paternity
can now be established), if the right
of properly in them was made perpetual,
all over the world!
Can
any present or future scientist or inventor be so idiotic as to imagine that he
is to gain anything for his particular discovery or invention, by denying, or
conceding away, the rights of the real owners of all this vast property in past
discoveries and inventions? Or that be can vindicate or establish his own
rights more easily, without enlisting the aid of all this capital, than he can
by making common cause with it?
A
scientist or inventor who should seek to curry favor for his own discovery or
invention, by consenting to the confiscation of all other men’s discoveries and
inventions, would justly be regarded as the criminal confederate of the robbers
and tyrants who now confiscate the discoveries and inventions of all other
[*18] men, whose labors and products are as worthy of protection as his own.
But
perhaps these remarks are unnecessary. It is certainly to be hoped, and, I
think, reasonably to be expected, that there can be few so foolish, or so
unjust, as to consent to the robbery of all past scientists and inventors, as a
condition of having their own rights acknowledged.
The
study of science tends to make men not only truthful and just, but also
far-seeing; and to lift them above all temptation to practice the meannesses
and crimes of those who now rule the world by laws designed to rob one class of
men for the benefit of another. And scientists and inventors have now such
power, and such inducements, as men never had before, to crush out all the
petty, temporary, local, selfish, and criminal schemes that now occupy existing
governments; and to establish the reign of justice in their stead.
But
we are taking too narrow a view of this subject.
It
is not true that mankind at large - or more than one third, or perhaps even a
fourth, of all mankind - are in practical
possession of the scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions that
have been made, and are now in use, in the most enlightened parts of the world
- say, Western Europe and the United States. What practical knowledge of these
discoveries and inventions have the seven or eight hundred millions of Asia,
the two hundred millions of Africa, or the fifty or one hundred millions
scattered elsewhere on the globe? Or what
practical knowledge will they ever have of them, unless the discoveries and
inventions themselves are carried to them, and put in use among them, &y
persons from outside of these destitute countries? And who has any sufficient
motive to carry them into, and put them into operation in these destitute
countries, unless it &e the owners of the discoveries and inventions
themselves?
The
peoples of these destitute countries have, therefore, substantially the same
motives for paying for the use of all these past
discoveries and inventions, as they have for paying for those that are to
be made in the future. That motive is to get the practical use of the
discoveries and inventions, and to get it at the earliest [*19] possible time.
Of what importance is the small amount they will have to pay for the use of
them, compared with the benefits to be derived from them ?<fn1>
But,
furthermore. The sooner these past discoveries and inventions are carried into
the destitute portions of the world, and the better the use of them is paid for
there, the sooner the peoples of those countries will be enabled and stimulated
to produce discoveries and inventions themselves; and their discoveries and
inventions will come back to us, and add to our wealth, in the same way, and,
with an immaterial difference, to the same degree, as if made by ourselves.
Now, these vast countries, containing
a thousand millions of people, contribute, almost literally, nothing to our wealth, or we to theirs.
They are constantly so near to starvation themselves, that they have scarcely
anything they can give in exchange for anything we have to offer to them. They
do indeed spare us a little tea, rice, indigo, opium, jute, etc., etc. But if
they were to give us one really useful invention, it would be worth more to us
than all these articles together. And if they were enlightened and enriched -as
they would be by our carrying our discoveries and inventions to them, and
putting them in practical operation - they would then become scientists and
inventors themselves; and the commerce between us, in discoveries and
inventions, would be worth millions of times more, both to them and to us, than
the present petty commerce in material things.
Still
further. The sooner this vast foreign field is opened to our scientists and
inventors, the sooner they will be enabled and stimulated to the production of the
greatest possible amount of discoveries and inventions for use at home.
And
since this foreign field is not at all likely to be soon opened for our
scientists and inventors, unless they open it themselves, it would be as
impolitic, as it would be dishonest, to deprive all past scientists and
inventors, and their heirs, of all motive and [*20] all power to carry their
discoveries and inventions into the destitute countries, that are perishing for
the want of them.
SECTION
VIII.
A
few words, now, as to the prospective increase of scientific discoveries and
mechanical inventions, if their authors’ right of perpetual property in them
should be established.
As
fast as mankind at large shall become enlightened and enriched by science and
invention, and by a knowledge of justice as a science, the oppressions and
wars-by which, in all past time, a few men have plundered, starved, enslaved,
and butchered so large a portion of their fellow men, and made all progress in
knowledge and wealth impossible-will necessarily cease; because the many being
enlightened and enriched, the few will then be no longer able to deceive,
conspire against, and overpower them, as they hitherto have done. Mankind will,
therefore, not only live out their days, and enjoy the fruits of their labor,
but they will also have much greater health and strength of both body and mind,
and be capable of much greater physical and mental labor than they are now.
Each successive generation will also have the benefit of all the scientific
discoveries and mechanical inventions, that shall have preceded them, and they
will, of course, produce a correspondingly greater number of such discoveries
and inventions themselves.
Experience
shows that each new discovery and invention generally gives rise to several,
oftentimes to many, others. Thus discoveries and inventions will forever go on
increasing in geometrical ratio.
But
even this is not all. The earth, when cultivated with the aid of such science,
implements, and machinery as men are capable of producing, can probably be made
to sustain a hundred times its present population. And the increase of
population will naturally go on, as men increase their means of subsistence,
and [*21] cease to starve and destroy each other. And this increase of
population will, of itself, naturally
bring a corresponding increase of scientific discoveries and mechanical
inventions. Who, then, can set any limit to the future progress of mankind in
knowledge and wealth?
Under
the stimulus of this principle of property, mankind will soon become a very
different, an almost wholly different, race of beings from what they now are.
They will learn - what so few of them seem now to understand - not only that
they have brains, but also what their brains were designed for, and are capable
of. When these lessons shall have been learned, the knowledge that will be
accumulated in consequence. will become the great wealth of the world.
SECTION
IX.
It is plainly to be seen, by those who choose to see, that science and
invention are bringing, and are destined to bring, all the peoples of the earth
together, and show them their power to promote each others’ welfare, and their
duty to live together in peace.
The only obstacle this great movement has now to meet, is that presented
by ignorant, hostile, and tyrannical governments. It is plain that if all
mankind are to live together in peace, and contribute their utmost to each
other’s welfare, they must get rid of their existing governments, and all live
under one and the same, and only one and the same, law. That one law is the law
of justice. This is the one only law the world needs, or can endure. Whatever
other laws (so called) are either more, less, or other than justice itself, are
necessarily unjust, and are therefore to be resisted and abolished.
Whenever, in any case whatever, this one law of justice is repudiated,
violence and fraud arc necessarily licensed in its stead. [*22]
But this one law of justice is a natural principle, and not any thing
that any human power can make, unmake, or modify. Being a natural principle, It
is a subject of science, and is to be learned like all other sciences. It is
also the same in all places, and in all times; and will remain the same in all
places, and among all peoples, so long as the world shall stand.
The
want of this one law is the only obstacle, not only in the way of your carrying
your present discoveries and inventions all over the world, but also to such a
multiplication of discoveries and inventions as doubtless mankind at large-nor
even the most far-seeing of them - have ever conceived of.
You,
above all other men, (I repeat) have the power and the inducements to carry
this law all over the world, and establish its authority in opposition to all
the adverse laws and governments that now exist.
In
subsequent letters, and other separate publications. If scientists and inventor shall favor me enterprise, I
purpose to show that it is perfectly feasible and easy to establish, all over the world, their right of perpetual property in their discoveries
and inventions. In fact, unless scientists and inventors can maintain their own
rights of property, and establish justice in the place of such transparent
conspiracies and villanies as all the principal governments of the world now
are, it is plain that, instead of claiming to be the great lights and
benefactors of mankind, they ought to write themselves down as imbeciles,
cowards, and slaves.
1.
The probability is, I think, that if the right of property in all scientific
discoveries and mechanical Inventions, past and future, were made perpetual all over the world, the discoverers and
inventors themselves, and their heirs and assignes would get not more
than one per cent of all the wealth created by means of them. Return