Scientific American Supplement, No. 470, January 3, 1885Various
Science
Scientific American Supplement, No. 470, January 3, 1885
Various
Science -- Periodicals
summit of the known to the confines of the possible, when, having learnt
and appreciated what predecessors had accomplished, it went earnestly to
work to solve the next problem, to remove the next obstacle on the path
which to them had proved insurmountable.
More beneficial than any other change whatever in our legislation would be
a full and cordial recognition, a complete and efficient protection, of
property created by thought. Then the humblest individual in the land
might have confidence that he could call into existence property not
inferior in value to that of the richest landowner, the most successful
merchant, or the most wealthy manufacturer, in the whole world. As an
instance of this Admiral Selwyn mentioned two prominent cases arising out
of the pursuit of two widely differing branches of knowledge, in the one
case by an outsider, in the other by a specialist. He referred to Sir H.
Bessemer, one of his valued colleagues in the vice-presidency of the
institute, and Mr. Perkins, the discoverer of aniline dyes. In each of
these instances, whatever might have been the results to the inventors,
and he hoped they had been satisfactory, a sum which might be estimated at
twenty millions sterling annually, constantly on the increase, and never
before existing, had been added to the income-tax-paying wealth of the
country. With such a result arising from the development of only two
inventions, he thought it would be seen that he must be a most ignorant,
foolish, or obstinate Chancellor of the Exchequer who would refuse to
allow such property to be created by requiring heavy preliminary payments,
or in any way discourage or fail to encourage to the utmost of his power
the creation of property which was capable of producing such a result--a
result which he would in vain seek for did he rely on landed property
alone, since this, in the hands of whomsoever it might be, never could
largely increase in extent, and was subject at this moment to serious
depreciation in tax-paying power.
The exertion of intelligence, combined with a sense of security in its
pecuniary results, was in itself opposed to loose notions of proprietary
rights, and tended to diminish that coveting of neighbors' goods which was
the fertile source of vice and crime, and which was capable of breaking
down the strongest and most wealthy community if indulged, till at last
society was resolved into its elements, and when nothing else was left as
property, man, the savage, coveted the scalp of his fellow man, and
triumphed over a lock of hair torn from his bleeding skull.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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