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.
THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY IN IDEAS. 137 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. Measm'es 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 appli- cation 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 ofiice, and a just title to compen- sation 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 inven- tion 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 138 THE EIGHT OF PROPERTY IN IDEAS.
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 percep- tion of justice does this show! What a want of ability to appreciate matters at all removed beyond the sphere of the external senses! 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, and those convicted of it are for ever excluded from society; 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 v?ho may have deprived some comfortable citizen of his pocket-handkerchief, and wiU deal with the young scapegrace at the public expense; but there is no redress for the poverty-stricken schemer who is robbed by some we-althy scamp of that which formed the sole hope of his life. Strong illustrations these of the fact, that the moral sense, when unguided by systematic deduction, fails to find its way through the labyrinth of confused opinion, to a correct code of duty.
As already remarked, it is a common notion, and one more especially pervading the operative classes, that the exclusive use by its discoverer of any new or improved mode of produc- tion, 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 efScient machine, THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY IN IDEAS. 139 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 yoirr goods and chattels, your clothing, your houses, your railway shares,- and your money in the funds? If you are right in the interpre- tation you give to the term ' monopoly,' I do not see why that term should not be applied to the coats upon your backs and the provisions on your dinner tables. With equal reason I might argue that you unjustly ' monopoUze' 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 yom 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. Whilst 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. Tike your wealth, it represents so much accumu- lated labour; ■ and I am liviug 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 monopoUst, so also are you; so also is every man. If I have no right to 140 THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY IN IDEAS.
these products of my brain, neither have you to those of your hands: no one can become the sole owner of any article "what- ever; and ' all property is robbery.' " They fall into a serious error, who suppose that the exclusive right assumed by a discoverer, is something taken from the public. He who in any way increases the powers of production, is seen by all, save a few insane Luddites, to be a general bene- factor who gives rather than takes. The successful inventor makes a further conquest over nature. By him the laws of matter are rendered stiU more subservient to the wants of man- kind. He economises labour— helps to emancipate men from their slavery to the needs of the body — harnesses a new power to the car of human happiness. He cannot, if he would, prevent society from largely participating in his good fortune. Before he can realize any benefit from liis new process or apparatus, he must first confer a benefit on his fellow men — must either offer them a better article at the price usually charged, or the same article at a less price. If he fails to do this, his invention is a dead letter; if he does it, he makes society a partner in the new mine of wealth he has opened. For all the exertion he has had in subjugating a previously un- known region of nature, he simply asks an extra proportion of the fruits. The rest of mankind unavoidably come in for the main advantage — will in a short time have the whole. Meanwhile, they cannot without injustice disregard his claims.
Let us remember, too, that in this, as in other cases, dis- obedience to the moral law is ultimately detrimental to all parties— to those who infringe the rights of the individual as well as to the individual himself. It is a well-proved fact, that that insecurity of material property which results from general dishonesty, inevitably reacts to the punishment of all. The rationale of this is obvious. Industrial energy diminishes just in proportion to the uncertainty of its reward. Those who do THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY IN IDEAS. 141 not know that they shall reap ■will not sow. Instead of em- ploying it in business, capitaUsts hoard what they possess, because productive investments are dangerous. Hence arises a universal straitness of means. Every enterprise is crippled by want of confidence. And from general distrust spring general discouragement, apathy, idleness, poverty, and their attendant miseries, involving ahke all grades of men. Similar in kind, and less only in degree, is the curse attendant upon insecurity of property in ideas. Just in so far as the benefits likely to accrue to the inventor are precarious, wiU he be deterred from carrying out his plans. " If," thinks he to himself, " others are to enjoy the fruits of these wearisome studies and these number- less experiments, why should I continue them? If, in addi- tion to aU the possibilities of failure in the scheme itself, all the time, trouble, and expense of my investigations, all the chances of destruction to my claim by disclosure of the plan, aU the heavy costs attendant upon obtaining legal protection, I am liable to be deprived of my right by any scoundrel who may infringe it in the expectation that I shall not have money or madness enough to institute a chancery suit against him, I had better abandon the project at once." And although such re- flections may often fail to extinguish the sanguine hopes of an inventor — although he may still prosecute his scheme to the end, regardless of all risks, yet after having once suffered the losses which ten to one society wiU inflict upon him, he will take good caie never again to enter upon a sinulai undertaking. Whatever other ideas he may then or subsequently entertain — some of them most hkely valuable ones — will remain unde- veloped and probably die with him. Did mankind know the many important discoveries which the ingenious are prevented from giving to the world by the cost of obtaining legal protec- tion, or by the distrust of that protection if obtained — were people duly to appreciate the consequent check put upon the develop- ment of the means of production — and could they properly estimate the loss thereby entailed upon themselves, they would begin to see that the recognition of the right of property in 142 TH£ RIGHT OF PROPERTY IN IDEAS.- ideas, is only less. important than the recognition of the right of property in goods.
In consequence of the probability, or perhaps we may say the certainty, that the causes leading to the evolution of a new idea in our mind, wiU eventually produce a hke result in some other mind, the claim above set forth must not be admitted without hmitation. Many have remarked the tendency that exists for an important invention or discovery to be made by independent investigators nearly at the same time. There is nothing really mysterious in this. A certain state of knowledge, a recent advancement in science, the occurrence of some new social want, — these form the conditions under which minds of similar characters are stimulated to like trains of thought, ending as they are prone to do in the same result. Such being the fact, there arises a qualification to the right of property in ideas, which it seems difficult and even impossible to specify definitely. The laws of patent and copyright, express this quahfication by confining the inventor's or author's privilege within a certain term of years. But in what way the length of that term may be found with correctness there is no saying. In the mean time, as already pointed out (p. 110), such a difficulty does not in the least mihtate against the right itself.
CHAPTEK XII.
THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY IN CHARACTER.
Could we accurately analyze the stimulus by which men are usually impelled to action — could we determine the proportions of the several motives which go to make up that stimulus, we should prohahly find that amongst those classes removed from the absolute pressure of bodily wants, its chief component is a desire for the good opinion, regard, or admiration of others. Whether we observe this feeling as shown by the tattooed savage in his willingness to undergo torture that he may ob- tain a character for fortitude, and to risk auy amount of danger that he may be called brave; or whether, turning to civihzed life, we contemplate that ambition so universally exhibited by poets, orators, statesmen, artists, soldiers, and others known to fame; or whether, by taking off its disguises, we discover the true nature of that insane eagerness with which people pursue wealth; we are alike instructed in the fact that, after those instincts immediately connected with the preservation of life, love of approbation exercises the greatest influence over human conduct.
Reputation therefore, as a thing which men strive so inces- santly to acc[uire and preserve, may be regarded as property. Earned like other property by labour, care, and perseverance — similarly surrounding its owner with facihties for securing bis ends, and affording him as it does a constant supply of food for divers of his desires; the esteem of others is a possession, having many analogies with possessions of a more palpable nature. An estate in the general good-will, appears to many of more worth than one in land. By some great action to have 144 THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY IN CHARACTER.
bought golden opinions, may be a richer source of gratification than to have obtained bank stock or railway shares. There are those to whom a crown of bay leaves would be a gi-eater treasure than a fat legacy. Titles had once a definite pounds, shillings and pence price; and if they are now becoming depre- ciated in value when compared with the honours spontaneously awarded by the public voice, it is that they do not represent so large an amount of genuine approbation. Men therefore who cultivate character, and live on the hai-vests of praise they reap — men who have invested their labour in noble deeds, and receive by way of interest the best wishes and cordial greetings of society, may be considered as having claims to these rewards of good conduct, resembling the claims of others to the rewards of their industry. Of course this is true not only of such as are distinguished by unusual worth; it is true of all. To the degree in which each has shown probity, kindness, truth or other virtue, and has gained amongst his fellows a reputation for it, we must hold liim entitled to the character he has thus fairly won, as to a species of property; a species of property too, which, without quoting the hackneyed saying of lago, may be described as of greater value than property of any other kind.
Those who hesitate to admit that a good name is property, should remember that it has really a money value. To be ac- counted honest is to be preferred as one with whom commer- cial dealings may be most safely carried on. Whoso is said to be pai-ticularly industrious, is likely, other tilings being equal, to get better pay than his competitors. The celebrity attending great intellectual capacity, introduces those possessing it to re- sponsible and remunerative situations. It is quite allowable therefore, to classify reputation under this head, seeing that, like capital, it may bring its owner an actual revenue in hard cash.
The position that a good character is property being granted, a right to the possession of it when fairly earned, is demon- THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY IN CHARACTER. 145 strable by arguments similar to those used in the two preceding chapters. Such character is attainable ■without any infringe- ment of the freedom of others; is indeed a concrete result of habitual regard for that freedom; and being thus a source of gratification which its owner legitimately obtains — a species of property, as we say — it can no more be taken away from him without a breach of equity, than property of other kinds can. This conclusion manifestly serves as the foundation for a law of hbel.
Possibly this reasoning wiU be thought inconclusive. The position that character is property may be considered open to dispute; and it must be confessed that the propriety of so classifying it is not proveable with logical precision. Should any urge that this admission is fatal to the argument, they have the alternative of regarding slander as a breach, not of that primary law which forbids us to trench upon each other's spheres of activity, but of that secondary one which forbids us to inflict pain on each other. If the destruction of a fellow- man's deserved reputation does not amount to a trespass against the law of equal freedom, then the flagitiousness of such an act remains to be treated of in that supplementary department of morals elsewhere generalized under the term negative beneficence. Of these alternatives each must make his own choice; for there seems to be no way of deciding between them with certainty. And here indeed we meet with an illustration of a remark previously made (p. 70), namely, that the division of morality into separate sections, though needful for our due comprehension of it, is yet artificial; and that the hues of demarcation are not always capable of being maintained.
CHAPTEE XIII.
THE RIGHT OF EXCHANGE.
Freedom to exchange his property for the property of others, is manifestly included in a man's general freedom. In claim- ing this as his right, he in no way transgresses the proper limit put to his sphere of action hy the Hke spheres of action of others. The two parties in a trade transaction, whilst doing all that they will to do, are not assuming more liberty than they leave to others. Indeed their act ends with themselves — does not affect the condition of the bystanders at all — leaves these as much power to pursue the objects of their desires as before. Hence, exchanges may be made in complete conformity with the law of equal freedom.
Possibly it will be said, that in cases where several men are wishing to deal with the same man, and a bargain is ultimately made between him and one of them, the rest are by this event excluded from a certain prospective field for the fulfilment of their wants, which was previously open to them; and that consequently they have had the liberty to exercise their facul- ties diminished by the success of their competitor. This, however, is a distorted view of the matter. Let us for a moment turn back to first principles. What is it that we have to do? We have to divide out equally amongst all men, the whole of that freedom which the conditions of social existence afford. Observe, then, in respect of trade relationships, how much falls to the share of each. Evidently each is free to ofier; each is free to accept; each is free to refuse; for each may do these to any extent without preventing his neighbours from THE RIGHT OF EXCHANGE. 147 doing the like to the same extent, and at the same time. But no one may do more; no one may force another to part with his goods; no one may force another to take a specified price; for no one can do so without assuming more Tiherty of action than the man whom he thus treats. If, tlierefore, every one is entitled to offer, to accept, and to refuse, but to do nothing more, it is clear that, under the circumstances above put, the closing of an agreement between two of the parties impUes no infringement of the claims of the disappointed ones; seeing that each of them remains as free as ever, to offer, accept, and refuse.
To say that, as a corollary from thisj all interference between those who would traf&c with each other amounts to a breach of equity, is hardly needful. Nor is there any occasion here to assign reasons why the recognition of liberty of trade is expe- dient. Harmonizing as it does with the settled convictions of thinking people, the foregoing conclusion may safely be left to stand unsupported. Some remarks upon the limits it puts to legislation are indeed called for. But these wiU come in more appropriately elsewhere.
CHAPTEE XIV.
3 THE RIGHT OF FREE SPEECH.
The utterance of thought being one species of action, there arises from the proposition that every man is free -within specified bounds to do what he wills, the self-evident corollary, that, with the like qualification, he is free to say what he wills; or, in other words, as the rights of his fellow-men form the only legitimate restraint upon his deeds, so Kkewise do they form the only legitimate restraint upon his words.
There are two modes in which speech may exceed the or- dained limits. It may be used for the propagation of slander, which, as we have seen in a foregoing chapter, involves a dis- regard of moral obligation; or it may be used in inciting and directing another to injure a third party. In this last case, the instigator, although not personally concerned in the trespass proposed by him, must be considered as having virtually com- mitted it. We should not exonerate an assassin who pretended that his dagger was guilty of the murder laid to his charge rather than himself. We should reply, that the having moved a dagger with the intention of taking away life, constituted his crime. Following up the idea, we must also assert that he who, by bribes or persuasion, moved the man who moved the dagger, is equally guilty with his agent. He had just the same intention, and similarly used means for its ftdfilment; the only diiference being that he produced death through a more com- plicated mechanism. As, however, no one will argue that the interposing of an additional lever between a motive force and its ultimate effect, alters the relationship between the two, so neither can it be said that he who gets a wrong done by proxy, is less guilty than if he had done it himself. Hence, whoso THE RIGHT OF FREE SPEECH. 149 suggests or urges the infraction of another's rights, must be held to have transgressed the law of equal freedom.
Liberty of speech, then, like Hberty of action, may be claimed by each, to the fullest extent compatible ■with the equal rights of all. Exceeding the limits thus arising, it becomes immoral. Within them, no restraint of it is permissible.