into a belief of the pains of invention, ought in justice to try the experiment themselves. Again, in all doubtful and difficult points, the risk is the inventor's; if he fail, the public does not deal with him; but not a bit the less retains his fees. No cure, no pay, is the maxim in one case, and, no money returned, in the other. (In the United States, indeed, a portion of the fee is returned.) Legal miscarriage is fatal to the whole; piracy, before the completion of the patent, irreparable; and all this rigour to save the purchaser that little fraction of the cost of the article which repays the most intellectual of the workmen employed about it; which adds to the cost of wear and tear of machinery, a little for the waste of the brain that contrived it. The cost of a design in calico has been stated in evidence as the 1-352nd of the retail price, and to show how much the manufacturer's path is smoothed by the pioneer, Mr. Babbage (Economy of Manufacture) says, that he reckons a first machine to cost five times as much as a second.

Sometimes the value of the invention is recognised, but not the merit of the possessor, who, it is said, has but come dexterously in to add the last link to the chain, while the savans, who made all the discoveries he employs, go unrewarded. As to this, the public require practical results; a powerful galvanic apparatus may be useless for want of a connecting wire; the public see that the battery, as it stands, is useless, they have no means whatever of knowing how little it wants to complete it. If the constructor does know, and neglects it, the field is open to what the law calls "special occupation;" but, as before said, he probably does not know how to apply his discovery, or shrinks from the labour of completing it. Inexperienced persons, Mr. Babbage remarks, have little idea of the patient industry required in the pursuit of invention. An opponent of patents, at the recent committee,

spoke of an inventor "stereotyping his one idea;" and such mental concentration as this implies is not easy, nor yet agreeable. Take the case of effecting consumption of smoke: practically, no plan has succeeded; yet the thing ought to be easy, for most fires, at certain states of burning, do not emit any smoke. To eliminate this case, and make it constant, is all that is wanted, and has been wanting so long. Science pursued for science's sake, may be worthy of some kind of public patronage, but it is not usually met with in company with the science of art.

Property in general is deemed beneficial, not only with a view to reward the original acquisition of the subjectmatter for society, the discovery of new tracts, and the reclamation of old but waste ones, but also in reference to the order of society, and the cultivation of its territory, by avoiding wasteful competition, and assigning every plot of ground its steward. Patents certainly are not upheld on this ground, though it is not so certain that they might not be.

In concluding the view of the legal, or at least legislative part of the subject, it may be recollected that there is a jus naturale to fall back upon. No man ever stole an idea; no man ever disturbed a continued possession of an idea without a feeling of shame, whatever he might say to the contrary. The opponents of the Ornamental Designs Act justified piracy, but all disclaimed practising it themselves. Among scientific and literary men, analogous cases occur to the patent ones, the evidence being matter of dispute, but never the moral principles; and among respectable tradesmen there is often a "comity" which supplies the place of positive law.

INVENTIONS AND DESIGNS.

The most important distinction we have to notice is that of the principle, as opposed to the form. A roof, for

instance, may be framed on the principle of an arch or a truss, but there are modifications of these forms, depending on the substance they are made out of; if carpentry, acute angles will abound; if cast-iron, the angles will close up with curves; the pitch of the roof will vary with the climate, the mechanical structure being essentially the same. A picture must be translated into lines for engraving, into small squares for worsted work, and so of different sub-varieties of engraving, and of weaving tapestry, &c. In the above cases, the physical form of the thing, i. e., its shape and configuration, varies; but this does not always accompany a variation of the logical "form," which may consist in a substitution of material; as, india rubber for gutta percha; or of movement, as a cylinder for the block in printing, or indeed of any contrivance for another; thus, in Galloway v. Cochrane, (printed case), of a narrow vent for a weighted valve, both being intended to impede the escape of steam. By contemplating a variety of operations or constructions, more or less similar in respect of what is common to all, we get their principle, and the different modifications under which a primary idea can exist, or be carried out, are its form.

Every form yields up to study and investigation its principle, but speculative principles are not always reducible to practical form; a multitude of conditions present themselves, and few ideas succeed in accomplishing them throughout. It seems easy for any one who has taste to design a hundred shapes for a decanter, but some would be too squat to be seen on a crowded table, others too tall for safety; the form must be suited for filling and pouring from, be capable of formation by the glass-blower, and of finish by the polisher's wheel; must exhibit the points of beauty which suit a transparent material, and

So

comply with many points of fashion and association; alter any of the conditions, and the whole must be re-cast. in the superior kinds of machinery, every member is as specially calculated for its peculiar office as the bone which enables the geologist to pronounce on the whole organization of an extinct race. It was said in Crossley v. Beverly (cited Webs. P. C. 146), that there might be innumerable forms of an invention, but, in fact, beyond a limit which is soon reached, variation would make the principle not worth employing; and there is always one best form which supersedes its rivals in the race of competition; deviation from this is injurious in an increasing ratio. The determination of this breadth of principle becomes highly difficult, as the variations exhibit original features of their own. Thus, in Barber's patent (31 Newton Lond. Journ. 434), the claim was to press hosiery between hollow boxes filled with hot water; this was held not to cover a subsequent invention of revolving rollers for the same purpose, heated in the same manner. The continuous action of the latter is certainly far more ingenious than the successive application of the old surfaces: it is the difference between the printing press and the printing machine. But pressing with hot iron was old; this would throw the weight of the former patent upon the heating by water; and this was employed by the defendant, though in a novel form of apparatus. The principle, according to the nature of the subject, may inhere in a certain form, or even in the precise angle at which, for instance, paving stones are arranged, or at which a diamond will cut glass; it may consist in definite chemic proportions, or exhibit itself according to the substances raised, in whatever proportions; but always it must be referred to a practical standard. Thus, in Heath's patent (10 M. & W. 684), the claim was for an applica

tion of carburet of manganese, which, as chemists well know, is a combination of manganese and carbon; but in practice, a substance and its separate elements are by means known equivalents; and the use of the latter was held to be a distinct process.

The most serious condition is commercial merit, the cost at which the article can be produced, or the work executed; and this often resolves itself into the state of contemporary art. Printing depends in a high degree on paper making; the latter on woven rags, and so on; there is a peculiarity about this condition, that it is a human limit, not a law of nature. What is impossible at one period may be valuable a century after; and, though forgotten, the record of the prior inventor may be recoverable, and, if quite identical, frustrate a subsequent claim by an independent inventor, as patent law recognises no extinction by disuse.

Only it must be observed, that form and principle, like genus and species, are relative terms. An art includes various styles or orders; a style various patterns (see Tennant on Copyright), varieties, and sub-varieties. Each of these may derive from a main stem, adding a quantum of originality. An oscillating engine is a form of steam engine in general, but it has its principle in reference to which particular forms may exist. At the present day, most of the valuable patents are obviously special improvements, on more general inventions; and such sub-inventions have been considered as evidence of the value of the parent stock. The relation between such prior and posterior inventions is divisible into improvements or modifications of one predecessor; and combination, founded on parts, or the whole of several. The legal competency of each of these for patent right was questioned, the former on Coke's authority, before Lord Mansfield (Webs. P. C.