Contradictions of contradictions!" Genius is the great leveller of the world," cries M.de Lamartine; "then genius should be a proprietor.Literary property is the fortune of democracy."This unfortunate poet thinks himself profound when he is only puffed up.His eloquence consists solely in coupling ideas which clash with each other: ROUND SQUARE, DARK SUN, FALLEN ANGEL, PRIEST and LOVE, THOUGHT and POETRY, GUNIUS {???}, and FORTUNE, LEVELING and PROPERTY.Let us tell him, in reply, that his mind is a dark luminary; that each of his discourses is a disordered harmony; and that all his successes, whether in verse or prose, are due to the use of the extraordinary in the treatment of the most ordinary subjects.
"Le National," in reply to the report of M.Lamartine, endeavors to prove that literary property is of quite a different nature from landed property; as if the nature of the right of property depended on the object to which it is applied, and not on the mode of its exercise and the condition of its existence.But the main object of "Le National" is to please a class of proprietors whom an extension of the right of property vexes: that is why "Le National" opposes literary property.Will it tell us, once for all, whether it is for equality or against it?
6.OBJECTION.--Property in occupied land passes to the heirs of the occupant."Why," say the authors, "should not the work of genius pass in like manner to the heirs of the man of genius?"M.Wolowski's reply: "Because the labor of the first occupant is continued by his heirs, while the heirs of an author neither change nor add to his works.In landed property, the continuance of labor explains the continuance of the right."Yes, when the labor is continued; but if the labor is not continued, the right ceases.Thus is the right of possession, founded on personal labor, recognized by M.Wolowski.
M.Wolowski decides in favor of granting to authors property in their works for a certain number of years, dating from the day of their first publication.
The succeeding lectures on patents on inventions were no less instructive, although intermingled with shocking contradictions inserted with a view to make the useful truths more palatable.
The necessity for brevity compels me to terminate this examination here, not without regret.
Thus, of two eclectic jurists, who attempt a defence of property, one is entangled in a set of dogmas without principle or method, and is constantly talking nonsense; and the other designedly abandons the cause of property, in order to present under the same name the theory of individual possession.
Was I wrong in claiming that confusion reigned among legists, and ought I to be legally prosecuted for having said that their science henceforth stood convicted of falsehood, its glory eclipsed?
The ordinary resources of the law no longer sufficing, philosophy, political economy, and the framers of systems have been consulted.All the oracles appealed to have been discouraging.
The philosophers are no clearer to-day than at the time of the eclectic efflorescence; nevertheless, through their mystical apothegms, we can distinguish the words PROGRESS, UNITY, ASSOCIATION, SOLIDARITY, FRATERNITY, which are certainly not reassuring to proprietors.One of these philosophers, M.Pierre Leroux, has written two large books, in which he claims to show by all religious, legislative, and philosophical systems that, since men are responsible to each other, equality of conditions is the final law of society.It is true that this philosopher admits a kind of property; but as he leaves us to imagine what property would become in presence of equality, we may boldly class him with the opponents of the right of increase.
I must here declare freely--in order that I may not be suspected of secret connivance, which is foreign to my nature--that M.
Leroux has my full sympathy.Not that I am a believer in his quasi-Pythagorean philosophy (upon this subject I should have more than one observation to submit to him, provided a veteran covered with stripes would not despise the remarks of a conscript); not that I feel bound to this author by any special consideration for his opposition to property.In my opinion, M.Leroux could, and even ought to, state his position more explicitly and logically.But I like, I admire, in M.
Leroux, the antagonist of our philosophical demigods, the demolisher of usurped reputations, the pitiless critic of every thing that is respected because of its antiquity.Such is the reason for my high esteem of M.Leroux; such would be the principle of the only literary association which, in this century of coteries, I should care to form.We need men who, like M.
Leroux, call in question social principles,--not to diffuse doubt concerning them, but to make them doubly sure; men who excite the mind by bold negations, and make the conscience tremble by doctrines of annihilation.Where is the man who does not shudder on hearing M.Leroux exclaim, "There is neither a paradise nor a hell; the wicked will not be punished, nor the good rewarded.
Mortals! cease to hope and fear; you revolve in a circle of appearances; humanity is an immortal tree, whose branches, withering one after another, feed with their debris the root which is always young!" Where is the man who, on hearing this desolate confession of faith, does not demand with terror, "Is it then true that I am only an aggregate of elements organized by an unknown force, an idea realized for a few moments, a form which passes and disappears? Is it true that my mind is only a harmony, and my soul a vortex? What is the ego? what is God?
what is the sanction of society?"
In former times, M.Leroux would have been regarded as a great culprit, worthy only (like Vanini) of death and universal execration.To-day, M.Leroux is fulfilling a mission of salvation, for which, whatever he may say, he will be rewarded.
