M. le Hardy de Beaulieu further adds, that “the inventor, in taking exclusive possession of his idea, harms no one, since he leaves all which previously existed in the same condition in which he found it, without in any way lessening the social capital on which he drew.” We should require, however, to come to an understanding as to what may be called the social capital; for if the exclusive property of invention had existed from the germination of the idea which led to the construction of the first hut to the making of the earliest weapons, tools, and furniture, it is difficult to know where we should find it. By putting property in invention on the same footing as property in the soil, all that man uses or consumes would belong to the descendants of the first inventors, and every one would require to pay a sort of rent for its use. The inventor of the wheelbarrow would have to pay a royalty to the inventor of wheels, and the maker of the plainest pump would pay an annual rent to the inventor of the lever or piston; there would not, there could not, be any social capital. But it is wrong to say that the exclusive possession of an idea hurts no one, because it leaves what previously existed in the same condition. I, or my neighbour, might put together ideas to form the basis of an invention; this faculty of combination belongs to each of us; with exclusive possession it belongs only to one. It cannot be said, then, that no one is hurt, and that everything remains in the same position. After having said that the property of invention is in every respect similar to property in the soil, M. le Hardy de Beaulieu places, nevertheless, boundaries to the extent and duration of the first. He says: “It is not meant precisely that property in an invention ought to extend over the globe, nor that its duration should have no limit in time; all property, in fact, is bounded by the cost of preservation, maintenance, and working, which it requires, already, long before the limit of space or time when the produce of the property no longer covers the expense, the proprietor does not require to defend it against seizure, and from that time it becomes public property.” It follows that property of invention is not identical with property in land or other material objects. A diamond which belongs to me in any corner of the globe, the cotton stuffs which I have sent to Bombay or Saïgor, are still my property until I have voluntarily ceded them. My descendants, or those of some rightful owner, will cultivate in four or five hundred years or more the field which I may now possess. There is no limit of time nor of space for real property; it remains for ever. V.