In this connection it must be remembered that the discoverer or inventor himself rarely reaps the fruit of his sagacity or skill; but his rights, frequently purchased for a song, are made the basis of great business enterprises in which he has little or no share. On such a slender basis have frequently been built up huge monopolies, in which the patent laws have been made the instruments of oppressive exactions, and have become the nucleus of a most complex system of usages and legal decisions, by which the original intent of the laws has been wholly overlaid, and to a great extent nullified. Certainly, there ought to be some limit to the inventor's claims on a grateful people. Admit to the utmost the inventor's merit; rank him in the fore front of the long procession of the great benefactors of the human race; rank him before Faraday, before Volta, and before Newton; rank him before Washington and the Fathers of the Republic; rank him before the patriots and martyrs who have died in the defense of human rights, or in attestation of the truth: and yet, in virtue of these transcendent merits, should he or his representatives be authorized to tax his countrymen millions on millions of dollars a year? Surely, there could not be a greater travesty of our motto, "Noblesse Oblige"; and a system which gives a legal sanction to such abuses will soon force on the public mind that most convincing of all proofs of perversion, the _reductio ad absurdum_. It is not, however, our intention to discuss the abuses of the patent laws, much less to suggest the required remedies. We clearly see the difficulties of the subject, and we perceive that it involves questions, both of political economy and of jurisprudence, with which we are not competent to deal. Our interest is solely to maintain the dignity of scientific culture, and to demand for it the respect to which it is entitled; but which is seriously compromised by the mercenary and utilitarian spirit that the patent laws encourage and make prominent. We are most anxious that the intelligence of our people should fully recognize the fact that, among the students of science in this practical age, there is such a thing as devotion to the truth for the truth's sake; that throughout the length and breadth of these United States may be found many an earnest student of Nature who, under great disadvantages, and often at great personal sacrifice, is devoting the noblest intellectual power, and the highest inventive skill, to the sole end of advancing knowledge: and we rejoice to believe that the time will come when it will be plainly seen by all that these silent workers have been laying broad and deep-enduring foundations, on which national greatness can securely rest. XIII. THE SPIRITUAL LIFE.[Q] We have reached the end of our long journey, and now we are ready to turn back and start for home.