“I feel certain of it; I have felt it very strongly, and it always struck me as surprising that it was not seen by everybody else; but we have so long been in the habit of considering that the granting of an exclusive privilege to a man who invents a thing is just and fair, that I do not think the public have ever considered whether it was, after all, advantageous to him. My feeling is, that it is very injurious to him. “My impression is, that in every class of inventions you would practically in the end have a more rapid supply and increase of inventions than you have now; I believe that men of science, and all those who do it for pleasure as well as for profit, would produce more, they would be less interfered with by existing Patents, and they would really produce more; I believe that the working class, the smaller class of inventors, would introduce very much more. With respect to that class of inventions, which I believe to be very few in number, though they are talked of very much, which really involve long-continued expenses, I believe they would probably be brought about in a different manner. I wish, however, to have it understood that I limit my observations to the present state of things. I do not wish to express any opinion as to what might have been formerly the effects of Patents, or whether they did originally encourage inventions or not. I believe that in the first place they are very prejudicial, on the whole, to a large class supposed to exist of inventors, and principally from these circumstances: the present state of things is this, that in all branches, whether in manufactures or arts of any sort, we are in such an advanced state, and every process in every production consists of such a combination of the results of the improvements which have been effected within the last twenty or thirty years, that a good invention now is rarely a new idea.” So likewise Mr. James Spence:— “The evils of the present system are serious. There is a charm in the name of a Patent which entices large numbers of men to neglect their own affairs in pursuit of some phantom. Where intellectual power exists of an inventive character, it will develop itself without any spur; it is, indeed, irrepressible in its nature. To such minds the stimulus of a Patent is superfluous.