M. Wolowski has by no means exhausted
the difficulties which the question involves. And first, is it just that
MM. Cousin, Guizot, Villemain, Damiron, and company, paid by the State
for delivering lectures, should be paid a second time through the
booksellers?--that I, who have the right to report their lectures,
should not have the right to print them? Is it just that MM. Noel and
Chapsal, overseers of the University, should use their influence in
selling their selections from literature to the youth whose studies they
are instructed to superintend in consideration of a salary? And, if
that is not just, is it not proper to refuse literary property to every
author holding public offices, and receiving pensions or sinecures?

Again, shall the privilege of the author extend to irreligious and
immoral works, calculated only to corrupt the heart, and obscure the
understanding? To grant this privilege is to sanction immorality by law;
to refuse it is to censure the author. And since it is impossible, in
the present imperfect state of society, to prevent all violations of the
moral law, it will be necessary to open a license-office for books as
well as morals. But, then, three-fourths of our literary people will
be obliged to register; and, recognized thenceforth on their own
declaration as PROSTITUTES, they will necessarily belong to the public.
We pay toll to the prostitute; we do not endow her.

Finally, shall plagiarism be classed with forgery? If you reply "Yes,"
you appropriate in advance all the subjects of which books treat; if
you say "No," you leave the whole matter to the decision of the judge.
Except in the case of a clandestine reprint, how will he distinguish
forgery from quotation, imitation, plagiarism, or even coincidence? A
savant spends two years in calculating a table of logarithms to nine
or ten decimals. He prints it. A fortnight after his book is selling
at half-price; it is impossible to tell whether this result is due to
forgery or competition. What shall the court do? In case of doubt, shall
it award the property to the first occupant? As well decide the question
by lot.

These, however, are trifling considerations; but do we see that, in
granting a perpetual privilege to authors and their heirs, we really
strike a fatal blow at their interests? We think to make booksellers
dependent upon authors,--a delusion. The booksellers will unite against
works, and their proprietors. Against works, by refus