It is obvious, however, that the endowment of professorships and fellowships will be of no value to the community unless it is understood that the incumbents are set apart for their special work; and the suggestion that such positions could be used to favor private ends, or as the basis of mercantile transactions, is sufficient to show how inconsistent such a practice is with the true conception of scientific culture. Our patent laws have a very marked and not altogether a beneficial influence on the scientific culture of the country. It is true that they foster mechanical ingenuity and inventive talent in certain directions, but they also set before the people a very low and mercenary standard of scientific attainment, upon which the popular notion of the utilitarian tendency of scientific studies is to a great extent based. No one can question that the discoverer of a new process, or the inventor of a new machine, has a right to keep his knowledge to himself, and to make the best use he can of his good fortune to increase his wealth. But certainly the motto at the head of this essay points to a more excellent way, and it is at least an open question whether it is for the interest of the community at large to encourage by its laws the more selfish course. The argument by which the patent laws are usually defended by legal writers--that it is for the benefit of the community to encourage and therefore to protect inventive talent--is by no means so unanswerable as it appears _prima-facie_. In the first place, it may be questioned whether, in the present condition of our patent laws, they do not hinder more than they foster invention. Any one who has attempted to perfect a machine, or improve a chemical process, knows to what extent he is hampered on every side by patent rights, which often have no value to the holders except that which the new improvement may give to them. Again, the inventions which the patent laws foster are only those having an immediate pecuniary value, and it is often exceedingly simple contrivances--like the needle of a sewing-machine or a gaudy toy--which yield the greatest return; simply because they have been accommodated to present emergencies or to passing popular fancy. Such contrivances usually manifest no extended knowledge and no special talent, and the inventor owes his good luck to the sole circumstance that he was in a position to recognize the want.