II.
Doubtless invention, as M. le Hardy de Beaulieu remarks, consists in the discovery of a new scientific principle; but we cannot admit, with the learned Professor, that the new application of a principle already known, that the discovery of a natural agent hitherto unknown, or of new properties or other modes of action of natural agents, or of materials previously discovered, are inventions.
It is probable that coal was known long before any one thought of putting it in a stove to be used as fuel. It is certain that stone was known long before any one thought of employing it in the construction of walls.
To pretend that the discovery of the combustible quality of coal, or of the use to which stone might be put, gave a right to the discoverer to exact from his neighbours the payment of a royalty before employing this fuel, or this material for construction, is also to grant that he who, centuries before, had thought of burning wood to warm himself, or of seeking the shelter of a cave, ought also to be recompensed for the trouble he had in discovering, appropriating, and working out either this source of heat or this means of shelter.
Invention, we acknowledge, consists in the discovery of a new scientific principle; it can often place, as M. le Hardy de Beaulieu says, new gratuitous forces at the disposal of the community; but does it follow that the inventor has an exclusive right in the property of this discovery? We think not. The inventor of the compass, whoever he was, has rendered an immense service to the community; but could his invention be claimed as private property? Does it not, on the contrary, enter with perfect justice into the public domain?
Napier, the discoverer of logarithms, has rendered the most signal service to calculators and navigators; but can his invention, the knowledge of which may, either orally or by the printing-press, be extended indefinitely—which any one may use privately, in the quiet of the study—be put upon the same footing as landed property, which a single man may cultivate—as house property, which may belong to one or several, and which cannot be seized upon without its being observed, and to the great scandal of all? Evidently not.
And if the law has never tried to appropriate inventions of this class, it is because there must be something tangible, limited, and final, giving the power to regulate its employment or possession.
It is not correct to say, besides, that the inventor does not deprive the community of any portion of the common property which it possessed before the invention. Before the invention the thing discovered existed in embryo—in nature. This germ was multiple; it existed as frequently as there were men; and the inventor pretends, by the property in it which he claims, to deny it to all others and to hinder its germination.
The right of the inventor is limited to that of working out his idea; it is identical with that of a man who has discovered and cleared a field; but it is not, like his, exclusive. He who invents and he who clears can possess their property as long as they like and as they like; but there is this difference between the field and the invention: the first can be cultivated only by one without doing an injury to the proprietor, while the invention may be used by several without hindering, diminishing, or suppressing the working of it by the inventor.
I have cleared a field, and cultivate it; if one of my neighbours desires also to cultivate the same field, he hinders me from exercising my right—he interferes with my working—he dispossesses me.
I have discovered the combustible nature of coal: in what way does my neighbour, who cooks his food on a coal fire, hinder me from exercising my right, or interfere with the working of my faculties? of what does he dispossess me?