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their mental work? There may be some insignificant exceptions to the rule that mental excellence and the qualities requisite to the ownership of capital do not unite in the same person; but the rule is thereby only confirmed. For whenever a great and useful invention or discovery or improvement in industry has been thought out, it can—if the community does not furnish the means for its realization—be carried out only by an investment of capital, and private capitalists must be called in to aid. But they would be slow to embark in an outlay of capital for hazardous purposes. They want the lion's share in the profits, if they can be convinced that the new scheme promises well; their incredulity prevents many a useful new scheme from being carried out; their greed appropriates many an invention into the secrets of which they had to be initiated, and robs the inventor of either his honor or reward, or of both. Among our greatest American inventors Eli Whitney, Robert Fulton, the Brothers Goodyear, McCormick, Morse, and the unknown inventor of the sewing-machine, died poor. Thousands of others of minor rank in merit have died poor, broken-hearted, insane, and almost all the well-paying patents have not inured to the benefit of the really deserving men. Among our greatest discoverers and scientists a long list might be given of such as have not derived any great reward or even any reward at all for their meritorious work. hey were compensated by the thought that they had benefited mankind, and had discharged in this way a debt of gratitude which they owed to all previous thinkers and workers. For, what would even the most eminent inventor or discoverer be, if there had not a long series of thinkers and workers preceded him, each of whom advanced by a little the store of wisdom, knowledge, and power of mankind? Already in the earliest, darkest ages were invented the arts of weaving and spinning, of tanning hides and melting ores, of striking fire and cooking, of taming domestic animals and improving plants, of navigating and wagoning, and many more, of whose inventors no name has come down to us, so that all mankind must be taken as the creator of all of these. And last, but not least, the origin and very gradual improvement of spoken, and later, of written language, this most important means of progress, is it not the common work of all men that ever lived? Is it, therefore, not a sacred truth that all the means of progress and wealth are a common inheritance of mankind, because they are produced by its common work and gradual self-development? Is it not a thievish undertaking to fence in, as it were, Sciences, Arts, Knowledge and Skill, and their fruits, for the exclusive appropriation of a minority of men,
