To the tanning of hides they add currying, shamming, graining, polishing, &c. Are these services which cannot be sufficiently rewarded in the free working of the idea? Are they services which exceed by a hundred cubits those rendered by great manufacturers, large capitalists, intrepid seamen, or profound thinkers? And if, carrying out the argument of M. le Hardy de Beaulieu, we should say, credit being necessary to the progress of the community, and being realisable only on condition of a just and ample remuneration for the exceptional labour which it requires, and of a recompense proportionate with the risks incurred, the community ought to grant to the bankers exceptional rewards, or assure to them a special and perpetual privilege,—should we not be going on the premisses of the learned Belgian Professor? No doubt that branch of credit, the issue of notes, is at present allowed in many countries to the great privileged banks; but may not the same arguments apply to discount, the receiving of deposits, quite as well as to the issue of notes? VI. To admit, with M. le Hardy de Beaulieu, “that the rights of inventors are useful even to non-inventors,” we must allow that the progress of invention would be stopped if the privileges guaranteed by Patents were withdrawn. Now, we have already said that all human history up to a very recent period demonstrates the weakness of the assertion. Man has invented from the time he began to think and compare, and he will continue to invent while he exists on this planet. Invention is nothing else than thought. If, as M. le Hardy de Beaulieu says—but which we doubt—there be no fear that property in invention allows the inventor to exact for his services a higher price than they are worth, neither need it be feared that the absence of this right of property would hinder the inventor from obtaining by his discovery all the profit which he has a right to expect from it. This fear would only be justified in the event of his being deprived by law of the right of using his own discovery. Now, this right remains intact; only it is not exclusive. If the inventor saves labour or outlay, the inventor will profit by this saving, like his neighbours; he will profit by it before his neighbours; he will profit by it exclusively so long as he can keep his secret, and while his opponents are establishing rival works on the same principle. M. le Hardy de Beaulieu tells us that the inventor can never take advantage of his property to hold an unjust and injurious monopoly.