This is what the publisher of the law says, and there is no cause to dispute what he says. I, not even having committed what he explicitly permits, am thereby perfectly vindicated. Someone else wrote: "Everything is more or less plagiarism committed against achievement of culture, the mind, or the imagination. The intellectual upper class, those who possess education and culture to a higher degree, will always, more or less, feed on _one_ reservoir which has been filled by the achievements of other, earlier, greater minds." In issue no. 268 of the "Feder" <pen>, the magazine for authors and journalists, coming out two times per month, it says: "Since it is impossible for author of popularised scientific articles to make something up, everyone has to be also a plagiarist to a certain degree. If the main part of the related thoughts are new, one might very well be justified in using suitable ornaments from already existing works. According to Emerson, _the_greatest_ _genius_is_at_the_same_time_also_the_greatest_borrower._ Here, all depends on how it is done. _You_may_take_what_is_good_wherever_ _you_find_it,_ if you want to achieve great purpose with it; but you must not let it show; something truly new has to be produced from the borrowed material." It is a well known fact that Maeterlinck [a] had simply copied in one of his plays three scenes from Paul Heyse. Heyse protested; but Maeterlinck laughed at him and just had the play published under his name. It is just as well known that the popular song from "Der Freischütz" entitled "Wir winden dir den Jungfernkranz" <we weave for you the bridal wreath> was not written by Weber, but an almost entirely unknown chief conductor from Gotha. Weber heard it and used it in his "Freischütz", without caring about the danger of being described as a plagiarist and a thief. It is generally accepted that Shakespeare was the greatest literary thief we know. If the principles of Father Pöllmann would be applied, even various authors of biblical books would have to be called literary thieves. I could continue listing an even greater number of examples, but want to limit myself to citing Goethe, our very greatest classic, and Alexander Dumas, the most successful novelist of the modern age. Dumas borrowed extraordinary much. He could not exist without outside help and exceeded in this very far beyond what is permissible in literature. For instance, it is known that he has exploited the tale of the "Gold Bug" by Edgar Poe, to create some of the most exciting passages of his "Count of Monte Christo". And as far as Goethe is concerned, I will quote from a short article, which was recently published in several newspapers under the title "Goethe on plagiarism":