LETTER II.

Let us suppose, now, that you should move, in the Senate, a resolution
looking to the establishment of the exclusive right of making known the
facts, or ideas, that might be brought to light, and see what would be the
effect. You would, as I think, find yourself at once surrounded by the
gentlemen who dress up those facts and ideas, and issue them in the form
of books. The geographer would say to you: "My dear sir, this will never
do. Look at my book, and you will see that it is drawn altogether from the
works of others, many of whom have sunk their fortunes, while others have
lost their lives, in pursuit of the knowledge that I so cheaply give the
world. You will find there the essence of the works of Humboldt, and of
Wilkes. All of Franklin's discoveries are there, and I am now waiting only
for the appearance of McClure's voyage in the Arctic regions to give a new
edition of my book. Reflect, I beseech you, upon what you are about to do.
Very few persons have leisure to read, or means to pay for the books of
these travellers. A few hundred copies are sufficient to satisfy the
demand, and then their works die out. Of mine, on the contrary, the sale
is ten, fifteen, or twenty thousand annually, and thus is knowledge
disseminated throughout the world, enabling the men who furnish me with
facts to reap _a rich harvest of never dying fame_. Grant them a copyright
to the new ideas they may supply to the world, and at once you put a stop
to the production of such books as mine, to my great injury and to the
loss of mankind at large. Facts and ideas are common property, and their
owners, the public, have a right to use them as they will."