we throw away? Should we grudge the runnings over from the brimming cup of knowledge which heaven puts into the hand, and the froth at the top which the wind blows away?” Heathens are pleased to even work at what is good for all according to opportunity. The fact is, the right of inventors is too shadowy to have any recognisable existence where there is not a submissive society to vend to or trample on, and a complaisant state to compel their submission. If he were a member this night present with us, I would appeal to Mr. Mill as a philosopher. Seeing that the world is so framed that whereas acquisitions of material property or things cannot be possessed in common without the share or enjoyment of each person being lessened or lost, it is universally possible that any number of persons, however many, can possess and use, without any diminution of individual enjoyment, knowledge or ideas in common, do not wisdom and humanity justly interpret this as an indication that to interfere is to oppose the order of nature? Let me appeal to him as a moralist. Seeing that to so interfere with the communication and enjoyment of knowledge or ideas by limiting the power and right to apply inventions to use is to withhold that whereby one man, without loss to himself, may benefit his fellows, do not ethics favour the philanthropic course which accords with the course that Nature indicates? I appeal to Mr. Mill as a political economist. Seeing that the order of nature and the promptings of philanthropy are favourable to the communication of inventions and their free use, is it the part of a State to provide for the gratification of the selfish principle in man by legislation framed to endorse, and facilitate, and almost to necessitate it? I appeal to Mr. Mill as a statesman, and ask, Is it consistent with enlightened policy to place manufacturers in such a position, that they are constantly tempted to conceal improvements they are using, from fear to discover that they are infringing? Does he know so little of mankind, that he expects them, the poorest as well as the richest, to employ (and this would be requisite) suitable agents to search whether any improvement they mean to adopt is already the subject of a Patent that renders its adoption illegal, and also to institute inquiries as to who, and where, in the wide world, is the holder of the Patent or Patents, whom in that case he must first negotiate with and sue for a licence? Does Mr. Mill think a manufacturer’s time is so free from absorbing occupations that he can attend to the daily transactions of the Patent-office, so as to inquire whether such and such a mysterious application is an unintended, it may be, but in result an effectual, ousting him from use of a process that he is about to introduce or has already in operation? Yet these are the superhuman efforts and gifts which compliance with, and subjection to, any Patent system presupposes and requires.