Besides, is it certain that the greater part of patentees have had an idea of their own, and that they have discovered anything which deserves this name? Of the great majority of patentees this may be doubted, for various reasons. The law does not impose on the individual who applies for a Patent the obligation of proving that he is really the inventor. Whoever has taken out a Patent may very easily turn it against the real inventor; this has occurred more than once. Besides, the law lays it down as a principle that it is not an idea that is patented, and constitutes the invention valid; and thus it excludes from the benefit of patenting the _savants_ who make the discoveries, of which Patents are only the application. It is by the advancement of human knowledge that manufactures are perfected, and the advancement of human knowledge is due to _savants_. These are the men prolific in ideas; it is they who ought to be rewarded, if it were possible, and not the patentees, who are most frequently only their plagiarists. M. Michel Chevalier does not desire systematically to depreciate patentees. Among them there are certainly many honourable men. The inventions, real or pretended, which they have patented are supposed to be new and ingenious uses or arrangements [dispositions], by help of which we put in practice some one or more specialities of manufacture; true discoveries are always due to the _savants_. But in general these arrangements, represented as new, have no novelty. In the detailed treatises on Mechanics, Physics, and Chemistry, in books of technology, with their accompanying illustrations, such as are now published, we find an indefinite quantity of combinations of elementary apparatus, especially of mechanical arrangements, and very often the work of professional patentees consists in searching through these so numerous collections for uses and arrangements, which they combine and group. What right of property is there in all this, at least in the greater number of cases? Against the pretended right of property alleged by the defenders of Patents there will be much more to say. There exists in the greater number of cases much uncertainty about the inventors, even when true and important discoveries are in question. Is it known with certainty who invented the steam-engine, who invented the aniline dyes, or photography, even? Different nations are at variance on these points, as formerly they were on the birthplace of Homer. The fact is, that the majority of inventions are due to the combined working [_collaboration_] of many men separated by space, separated by great intervals of time.