5th August 2025
Bentham’s amazingly sophisticated views on property rights as the driver of prosperity
I accidentally came across these views of Bentham and I’m amazed by their sophistication. He wrote this well over 200 years ago.
CHAPTER VIII.
Of Property.
THE better to understand the advantages of law, let us endeavor to form a clear idea of property. We shall see that there is no such thing as natural property, and that it is entirely the work of/law.
Property is nothing but a basis of expectation; the expectation of deriving-certain advantages from a thing, which we are said to possess, in consequence of the relation in which we stand towards it.
There is no image, no painting, no visible trait, which can express the relation that constitutes property. It is not material, it is metaphysical; it is a mere conception of the mind.
To have a thing in our hands; to keep it; to make it; to sell it; to work it up into- something else; to use it;–none of these physical circumstances, nor all united, convey the idea of property. A piece of stuff which is actually in the Indies may belong to me, while the dress I wear, may not.
The aliment which is incorporated into my very body, may belong to another, to whom I am bound to account for it.
The idea of property consists in an established expectation; in the persuasion of being able to draw such or such an advantage from the thing possessed, according to the nature of the case. Now this expectation, this persuasion, can only be the work of law. I cannot count upon the enjoyment of that which I regard as mine, except through the promise of the law which guarantees it to me. It is law alone which permits me to forget my natural weakness. It is only through the protection of law, that I am able to enclose a field, and to give myself up to its cultivation, with the sure though distant hope of harvest.
But it may be asked, what is it that serves as a basis to law, upon which to begin operations, when it adopts objects, which under the name of property, it promises to protect? Have not men, in the primitive state, a natural expectation of enjoying certain things,—an expectation drawn from sources anterior to law?
Yes. There have been from the beginning, and there always will be, circumstances, in which a man may secure himself by his own means, in the enjoyment of certain things. But the catalogue of these cases is very limited. The savage who has killed a deer, may hope to keep it for himself, so long as his cave is undiscovered; so long as he watches to defend it, and is stronger than his rivals; but that is all. How miserable and precarious is such a possession! If we suppose the least agreement among savages to respect the acquisitions of each other, we see the introduction of a principle to which no name can be given, but that of law. A feeble and momentary expectation may result from time to time, from circumstances purely physical; but a strong and permanent expectation can result, only from law. That which in the natural state was an almost invisible thread, in the social state, becomes a cable.
Property and law are born together, and die together. Before laws were made, there was no property; take away laws, and property ceases.
As regards property, security consists in receiving no check, no shock, no derangement to the expectation founded on the laws, of enjoying such and such a portion of good. The legislator owes the greatest respect to this expectation which he has himself produced. When he does not contradict it, he does what is essential to the happiness of society; when he disturbs it, he always produces a proportionate sum of evil.
CHAPTER IX.
Answer to an Objection.
BUT perhaps the laws of property, are good for those who have property, and oppressive to those who have none. The poor man perhaps, is more miserable than he would be without laws.
The laws, in creating property, have created riches only in relation to poverty. Poverty is not the work of the laws; it is the primitive condition of the human race. The man who subsists only from day to day, is precisely the man of nature, the savage. The poor man, in civilized society obtains nothing, I admit, except by painful labor; but in the natural state, can he obtain anything except by the sweat of his brow? Has not the chase its fatigues, fishing its dangers, and war its uncertainties? And if man seems to love this adventurous life; if he has an instinct warm for this kind of perils; if the savage enjoys with delight an idleness so dearly bought;—must we thence conclude that he is happier than our cultivators? No. Their labor is more uniform, but their reward is more sure; the woman’s lot is far more agreeable; childhood and old age have more resources; the species multiplies in a proportion a thousand times greater,—and that alone suffices to show on which aide is the superiority of happiness. Thus the laws, in creating riches, are the benefactors of those who remain in the poverty of nature. All participate more or less in the pleasures, the advantages, and the resources of civilized society. The industry and the labor of the poor, place them among the candidates of fortune. And have they not the pleasures of acquisition? Does not hope mix with their labors? Is the security which the law gives, of no importance to them? Those who look down from above upon the inferior ranks, see all objects smaller; but towards the base of the pyramid, it is the summit which in turn, is lost. Comparisons are never dreamed of; the wish of what seems impossible, does not torment. So that in fact, all things considered, the protection of the laws may contribute as much to the happiness of the cottage as to the security of the palace.
It is astonishing that a writer so judicious as Beccaria, has interposed, in a work dictated by the soundest philosophy, a doubt subversive of social order. The right of property, he says, is a terrible right, which perhaps is not necessary. Tyrannical and sanguinary laws have been founded upon that right; it has been frightfully abused; but the right itself presents only ideas of pleasure, abundance, and security. It is that right which has vanquished the natural aversion to labor; which has given to man the empire of the earth; which has brought to an end the migratory life of nations; which has produced the love of country, and a regard for posterity. Men universally desire to enjoy speedily, to enjoy without labor. It is that desire, which is terrible; since it arms all who have not, against all who have. The law which restrains that desire, is the noblest triumph of humanity over itself.
CHAPTER X.
Analysis of the Evils which result from Attacks upon Property.
WE have already seen that subsistence depends upon the laws which assure to the laborer the produce of his labor. But it is desirable more exactly to analyze the evils which result from violations of property. They may be reduced to four heads.
1st. Evil of non-possession. If the acquisition of a portion of wealth is a good, it follows that the non-possession of it is an evil, though only a negative evil. Thus, although men in the condition of primitive poverty, may not have specially felt the want of a good which they knew not, yet it is clear that they have lost all the happiness which might have resulted from its possession, and of which we have the enjoyment. The loss of a portion of good, though we knew nothing of it, is still a loss. Are you doing me no harm, when by false representations you deter my, friend from conferring upon me a favor which I did not expect? In what consists the harm? In the negative evil which results from not possessing that, which but for your falsehoods, I should have had.
2d. Pain of losing. Every thing which I possess, or to which I have a title, I consider in my own mind, as destined always to belong to me. I make it the basis of my expectations, and of the hopes of those dependent upon me; and I form my plan of life accordingly. Every part of my property may have in my estimation, besides its intrinsic value, a value of affection, as an inheritance from my ancestors, as the reward of my own labor, or as the future dependence of my children. Every thing about it, represents to my eye that part of myself which I have put into it;—those cares, that industry, that economy, which denied itself present pleasures to make provision for the future. Thus our property becomes a part of our being, and cannot be torn from us, without rending us to the quick.
3d. Fear of losing. To regret for what we have lost, is joined inquietude as to what we possess, and even as to what we may acquire. For the greater part of the objects which compose subsistence and abundance being perishable matters, future acquisitions are a necessary supplement to present possessions. When insecurity reaches a certain point, the fear of losing prevents us from enjoying what we possess already. The care of preserving, condemns us to a thousand sad and painful precautions, which yet are always liable to fail of their end. Treasures are hidden or conveyed away. Enjoyment becomes sombre, furtive, and solitary. It fears to show itself, lest cupidity should be informed of a chance to plunder.
4th. Deadening of industry. When I despair of making myself sure of the produce of my labor, I only seek to exist from day to day. I am unwilling to give myself cares which will only be profitable to my enemies. Besides, the will to labor is not enough; means are wanting. While waiting to reap, in the mean time, I must live. A single loss may deprive me of the capacity of action, without having quenched the spirit of industry, or without having paralyzed my will. Thus the three first evils affect the passive faculties of the individual, while the fourth extends to his active faculties, and more or less benumbs them.
It appears from this analysis, that the two first evils do not go beyond the individual injured; while the two latter spread through society, and occupy an indefinite space. An attack upon the property of an individual, excites alarm among other proprietors. This sentiment spreads from neighbor to neighbor, till at last the contagion possesses the entire body of the state.
Power and will must unite for the development of industry. Will depends upon encouragement; power upon 4 means. These means are, what is called in the language of political economy, productive capital. When the question relates only to an individual, his productive capital may be annihilated by a single loss, while his spirit of industry is not extinguished, nor even weakened. When the question is of a nation, the annihilation of its productive capital is impossible; but a long time before that fatal term is approached, the evil may infect the will; and the spirit of industry may fall into a fatal lethargy, in the midst of natural resources offered by a rich and fertile soil. The will, however, is excited by so many stimulants, that it resists an abundance of discouragements and losses. A transitory calamity, though great, never destroys the spirit of industry. It is seen to spring up after devouring wars which have impoverished nations, as a robust oak, mutilated by tempests, repairs its losses in a few years and covers itself with new branches. Nothing is sufficient to deaden industry, except the operation of a domestic and permanent cause, such as a tyrannical government, bad legislation, an intolerant religion which drives men from the country, or a minute superstition which stupifies them.
A first act of violence, produces immediately a certain degree of apprehension; some timid spirits are already discouraged. A second violence, which soon succeeds, spreads a more considerable alarm. The more prudent begin to retrench their enterprises, and little by little, to abandon an uncertain career. In proportion as these attacks are repeated, and the system of oppression takes a more habitual character, the dispersion increases. Those who fly are not replaced; those who remain, fall into a state of languor. Thus the field of industry, beaten by perpetual storms, at last, becomes a desert.
Asia Minor, Greece, Egypt, the coasts of Africa, so rich in agriculture, in commerce, and in population, at the flourishing epoch of the Roman empire, what have they become under the absurd despotism of the Turkish government? Palaces have been changed into cabins, and cities into hamlets. That government, odious to every thinking man, has never known that a state cannot grow rich except by an inviolable respect for property. It has never had but two secrets of statesmanship,—to sponge the people, and to stupify them. Thus the finest countries of the earth, wasted, barren, and almost abandoned, can hardly be recognised under the hands ‘of barbarous conquerors.
These evils ought not to be attributed to foreign causes. Civil wars, invasions, natural scourges, may dissipate wealth, put the arts to flight, and swallow up cities. But choked harbors are opened again; communications are reestablished; manufactures revive; cities rise from their ruins. All ravages are repaired by time, while men continue to be men; but there are no men to be found in those unhappy countries, where the slow but fatal despair of long insecurity, has destroyed all the active faculties of the soul.
If we trace the history of this contagion, we shall see its first attacks directed against that part of society which is easy and well off: Opulence is the object of the first depredations. Apparent superfluity vanishes little by little. Absolute need makes itself be obeyed in spite of obstacles, We must live; but when man limits himself to living, the state languishes, and the lamp of industry throws out only a dying flame. Besides, abundance is never so distinct from subsistence, that one can be destroyed without a dangerous blow at the other. While some lose only what is superfluous, others lose a part of what is necessary for by the infinitely complicated system of economical connections, the opulence of a part of the citizens is the only fund upon which a part more numerous, depends for subsistence.
But another picture may be traced, more smiling and not less instructive. It is the picture of the progress of security, and of prosperity its inseparable companion. North America presents to us a most striking contrast. Savage nature may be seen there, side by side with civilized nature. The interior of that immense region offers only a frightful solitude, impenetrable forests or sterile plains, stagnant waters and impure vapors; such is the earth when left to itself. The fierce tribes which rove through those deserts without fixed habitations, always occupied with the pursuit of game, and animated against each other by implacable rivalries, meet only for combat, and often succeed in destroying each other. The beasts of the forest are not so dangerous to man, as he is to himself. But on the borders of these frightful solitudes what different sights are seen. We appear to comprehend in the same view, the two empires of good and evil. Forests give place to cultivated fields; morasses are dried up, and the surface grown firm is covered with meadows, pastures, domestic animals, habitations, healthy and smiling. Rising cities are built upon regular plans; roads are constructed to communicate between them; every thing announces that men, seeking the means of intercourse, have ceased to fear and to murder each other. Harbors filled with vessels, receive all the productions of the earth, and assist in the exchange of all kinds of riches. A numerous people, living upon their labor in peace and abundance, has succeeded to a few tribes of hunters, always placed between war and famine. What has wrought these prodigies? Who has renewed the surface of the earth? Who has given to man this domain over nature—over nature. embellished, fertilized, and perfected? That beneficent genius is Security. It is security which has wrought this great metamorphosis. And how rapid are its operations? It is not yet two centuries since William Penn landed upon those savage coasts with a colony of true conquerors, men of peace, who did not soil their establishments with blood, and who made themselves respected by acts of beneficence and justice.
2nd August 2025
Notes in preparation of a writeup for my TOI blog on CO2 sequestration in limestone
(a placeholder post; I might add info even after the TOI piece is published)
According to NASA (the web page on “the carbon cycle”)
Most of Earth’s carbon—about 65,500 billion metric tons—is stored in rocks. The rest is in the ocean, atmosphere, plants, soil, and fossil fuels.
According to NASA (the web page on “slow carbon cycle”)
The movement of carbon from the atmosphere to the lithosphere (rocks) begins with rain. Atmospheric carbon combines with water to form a weak acid—carbonic acid—that falls to the surface in rain. The acid dissolves rocks—a process called chemical weathering—and releases calcium, magnesium, potassium, or sodium ions. Rivers carry the ions to the ocean.
In the ocean, the calcium ions combine with bicarbonate ions to form calcium carbonate, the active ingredient in antacids and the chalky white substance that dries on your faucet if you live in an area with hard water. In the modern ocean, most of the calcium carbonate is made by shell-building (calcifying) organisms (such as corals) and plankton (like coccolithophores and foraminifera). After the organisms die, they sink to the seafloor. Over time, layers of shells and sediment are cemented together and turn to rock, storing the carbon in stone—limestone and its derivatives.
Only 80 percent of carbon-containing rock is currently made this way. The remaining 20 percent contain carbon from living things (organic carbon) that have been embedded in layers of mud. Heat and pressure compress the mud and carbon over millions of years, forming sedimentary rock such as shale. In special cases, when dead plant matter builds up faster than it can decay, layers of organic carbon become oil, coal, or natural gas instead of sedimentary rock like shale.
According to British Geological Survey
More than 99 per cent of the carbon in the carbon cycle is found in the Earth’s crust. Most of this has a biological origin, deposited on the ocean floor from the remains of the many marine creatures that use calcium carbonate in their skeletons and shells. After consolidation, these deposits may form a rock known as limestone.
According to Ian Plimer (Heaven and Earth)
1. We remove CO2 from the atmosphere into limestone, a rock that was very rare before 2500 Ma and a rock that has greatly increased in volume over time. This is why the atmospheric CO2 has been decreasing over time and will continue to decrease.
2. Most of the planet’s CO2 is held in rocks and the smallest amount of planetary CO2 is currently held in the atmosphere.
3. The oceans continually remove dissolved CO2 by shell formation, limestone formation and chemical reactions with rocks and sediments. The more CO2 dissolves in the oceans, the more CO2 is removed.
4. [Oceans] are rich in floating photosynthetic microorganisms that remove CO2 from the atmosphere and water. Floating organisms in the oceans also remove calcium carbonate to build shells. Shells accumulate as fossil-bearing sediments and limestones. Chemical reactions between seawater and submerged rocks remove CO2 from the oceans. This is why the oceans stay alkaline.
5. The world’s oceans contain about 39,000 billion tonnes of carbon; soils, vegetation and humus contain about 2000 billion tonnes of carbon, and carbonate rocks such as limestone contain 65,000,000 billion tonnes of carbon. There is more carbon in soil than the total amount of carbon in the atmosphere and living matter. Arctic soils especially are a huge sink of carbon. The atmosphere contains only 0.001% of the total carbon present in the atmosphere-ocean-upper crust system. This figure is probably an underestimate.
6. Over the last 4567 million years, the Earth has degassed about half of its estimated CO2 by geological processes. This CO2 has not been lost to space, it is stored in rocks (such as limestone) and life.
7. Burial of carbon compounds was accelerated at about 400 Ma after the evolution of terrestrial vascular plants. Forests grew quickly, there was a removal of CO2 from the atmosphere and carbon was not recycled as atmospheric CO2 because it was buried as coals, carbonaceous sediments, limey sediments and limestone reefs. There were times, such as the Carboniferous, when there was an explosion of plant life on Earth. There was a massive removal of CO2 from the atmosphere, further oxygenation and storage of recycled carbon in Northern Hemisphere coals.
Ian Plimer’s article in The Australian 2009
The original source of atmospheric CO2 is volcanoes. The Earth’s early atmosphere had a thousand times the CO2 of today’s atmosphere. This CO2 was recycled through rocks, life and the oceans.
Through time, this CO2 has been sequestered into plants, coal, petroleum, minerals and carbonate rocks, resulting in a decrease in atmospheric CO2.
The atmosphere now contains 800 billion tonnes of carbon as CO2. Soils and plants contain 2000 billion tonnes, oceans 39,000 billion tonnes and limestone 65,000,000 billion tonnes. The atmosphere contains only 0.001 per cent of the total carbon in the top few kilometres of the Earth.
From Geology: A Complete Introduction by David Rothery
calcium carbonate is the main rock-forming mineral in many sedimentary environments. The main reason for its ubiquity is biological, rather than physical or chemical, processes. A rock made mostly of calcium carbonate is called limestone, which is much the most abundant non-silicate rock type. Deposition of calcium carbonate is an important part of the rock cycle – calcium that was dissolved during weathering and the bicarbonate by-product of hydrolysis come out of solution in tandem, maybe thousands of kilometres from where the calcium was dissolved. Calcium carbonate is most commonly found as the mineral known as calcite, but there is also a polymorph called aragonite.
Seashells found on the beach are made of calcium carbonate, and some limestones are made of accumulations of such shells, or of shell fragments. More important globally are microscopic (generally single-celled) plants and animals that live in the sea. Most drift around near the sea surface where there is plenty of sunlight. These are referred to as plankton. Less abundant forms live on the sea floor. The most important animal forms are foraminiferans, which are simple organisms similar to the amoeba except for having multi-chambered calcareous shells, commonly up to about a millimetre across. The most important plant variety is the coccolithophores. These are smaller and, rather than having a simple shell, they are covered in an array of disc-like plates called coccoliths, typically only 20 micrometres in diameter, that separate after death.
When microscopic plankton like these die, their shelly remains sink slowly towards the sea floor. If conditions are gentle enough, they can settle to form extensive deposits. England’s famous White Cliffs of Dover are cut into a 70-million-year-old accumulation of coccoliths that was deposited on the floor of a calm, shallow sea that had no major rivers discharging muddy sediments into it (otherwise the cliffs would not be so white). This rather special kind of limestone is called chalk. Deposits of fine-grained calcium carbonate derived from the shells of marine plankton cover much of the ocean floor in places far from land where there is little other sediment supply.
… Coral reefs are familiar to many people through marine wildlife television documentaries. If the substrate they have colonized is subsiding, they can build upwards so as to keep pace and thereby maintain the living part of the reef close to sea level. Charles Darwin realized this in his explanation for coral atolls, which are rings of reef made of robust, wave-resistant coral sheltering a shallow lagoon that hosts more delicate corals (Figure 9.13). Drilling has shown that the volcanic basement to some atolls has sunk to more than 1000 m below sea level. Mururoa atoll in the Pacific (which achieved notoriety in the mid-1990s as the site of French underground nuclear testing) is of this type.
From Geology by James Geikie (2022)
Molluscs, crustaceans, corals, and the like, secrete from the ocean the carbonate of lime of which their hard shells and skeletons are composed, and these hard parts go to the formation of limestone. The most remarkable masses of modern limestone occur within intertropical regions. These are the coral reefs of the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
From Encyclopedia of Geography (Barney Warf, ed. 2010)
- Fossiliferous limestone is formed from fossil shells and coral and is the most common
biochemical sedimentary rock.
2. The slow precipitation of limestone (CaCO3) on the ocean floor provides the only long-term storage for carbon and forms the largest pool of carbon on earth.
3. Today, [CO2] makes up more than 98% of the atmospheres on Mars and Venus but only 0.03% of that of Earth. The missing atmosphere is found sequestered into rocks, such as the limestone rocks that cover an eighth of the planet’s land surface, and in all the other organic rocks and sedimentary layers. Most limestone rocks are constructed of small shells. It is life that has buried Earth’s excess CO2.
From Geological History of Earth by Jaheim Hackett
The high eustatic sea level and warm climate of the Cretaceous meant a large area of the
continents was covered by warm shallow seas. The Cretaceous was named for the
extensive chalk deposits of this age in Europe, but in many parts of the world, the
Cretaceous system consists for a major part of marine limestone, a rock type that is
formed under warm, shallow marine circumstances. Due to the high sea level there was
extensive accommodation space for sedimentation so that thick deposits could form.
Because of the relatively young age and great thickness of the system, Cretaceous rocks
crop out in many areas worldwide.
Typically on an annual basis only about 0.03 gigatonnes of carbon is extracted from the atmosphere and goes into limestone which goes into long-term geologic storage. It adds up there and has ended up to be the largest carbon reservoir of all on our planet. But day to day year by year it’s a very small drawdown. Nonetheless numbers add up even when they’re small and even at that slow rate the drawdown of CO2 from our atmosphere by shell building organisms … would completely exhaust the atmosphere of CO2 in less than a million years.
Peter Ward et al
In their 2002 book, The life and death of planet Earth, Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee showed how the overall biological productivity of the planet was higher in the past and will come to an end in 200-500 million years from now.
WHY? BECAUSE OF THE END OF CO2 FROM THE ATMOSPHERE.
PAPERS
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301926807001234
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301926824003024
27th June 2025
A quick further note on Charles Blount
In 2016 I had extracted a significant discussion from Macaulay’s History of England on the role played by Charles Blount in ending censorship.
I’ve had occasion to study his work a little further.
In his 1693 pamphlet against state licensing/ censorship, Charles Blount traced censorship (and licensing) to the Inquisition.
This Project of Licencing crept out of the Inquisition. After the Emperors became Christian, the Books of those whom they took to be grand Hereticks, were examined, refuted and condemned in the General Councils; and not until then were prohibited or burnt by Authority of the Emperor. The Primitive Councils and Bishops were wont to declare what Books were not commendable, passing no further, but leaving it to each one’s conscience to read or lay by; till after the Year 800, as observed by Padre Paolo [Sarpi], the great Unmasker of the Trentine Council. After which time the Popes of Rome engrossing what they pleased of political role into their own hands, extended their Dominion over men’s eyes, as they had before over their Judgments; burning and prohibiting to be read , what they fancied not.
That he was a great plagiarist is very clear:
BLOUNT: Till then, Books were ever as freely admitted into the World as any other birth; the issue of the Brain was no more stifled than the issue of the Womb: no envious Junillo(?) sate cross-legg’d over the Nativity of any Man’s Intellectual Off-spring; but if it prov’d a Monster, who denies but that it was justly burnt?
BUT THIS IS VIRTUALLY A REPLICA OF JOHN MILTON (1644):
Till then books were ever as freely admitted into the world as any other birth; the issue of the brain was no more stifled than the issue of the womb: no envious Juno sat cross-legged over the nativity of any man’s intellectual offspring; but if it proved a monster, who denies but that it was justly burnt, or sunk into the sea?
Macaulay was right to question his moral character. But there seems to be no doubt that he played a crucial role in bringing an end to censorship in the UK.
BUT BLOUNT IS RELEVANT EVEN TODAY
Despite his plagiarism, his persistence in pushing for liberty of speech is an important contribution
https://x.com/sabhlok/status/1938734763952742906
I wanted to check if Charles Blount had really said this: “Liberty is the Nursery of Science”. And it is true.
Here’s the fuller extract. Given Macaulay’s caution about Blount, I’m not ruling out plagiarism here but I’ll leave that question to others to work out. For now, I’m QUITE IMPRESSED. Remember, this is 1679! J.S. Mill’s On Liberty was to come nearly 200 years later.
==
5. It reflects upon our Church and Clergy, of whose labours we should hope better, and of the proficiency which their Flock reaps by them; then alter all this Light of the Gospel, this continual Preaching, they should be still frequented with such an un-principled, un-edify’d and Laick rabble, as that the Whiff of every new Pamphlet should stagger them out of their Catechism and Christian walking. This may have much reason to slagger and to discourage the Ministers, when such a low conceit is had of all their Exhortations, and the benefiting of their Hearers, at that they are not thought fit to be turned loose to three Sheets of Paper, without a License; that all the Sermons, all the Lectures Preached, Printed and Vented in such numbers and such Volumes, should not be Armour sufficient against one single Enchyridion Unlicensed: I am confident that a Kingdom governed by the rules of Justice and Fortitude, or a Church built and founded upon the rock of Faith and true Knowledge, cannot be so Pusillanimous. That all freedom of Writing should be thus restrained with the proud curb of an Imprimatnr, must needs administer cause of doubt, and discouragement to all Learned and Religious men, who may justly suspect the Reason and Power of that cause which durst not stand a Tryal of Skill. Every Author Writes either Truth or Falshood; If he Writes Truth, why should he be oppressed or stifled? And if he delivers what is False, let him be confuted by Answer, whereunto every Author is subject; since no cause ever suffered by being answered, only by Fire and Faggot. That Liberty is the Nursery of Science, appears in that there is nothing hath so much clouded and discouraged the Italian Wits, as their Inquisition; which restraining all manner of Philosophick freedom, hath for these many years produced nothing but obsequious flattery: In which Country the Famous Galileo was oppressed under the Inqusitions Tyranny, for thinking otherwise in Astronomy, then the Dominican and Franciscan Licensers thought
16th June 2025
John Locke’s 1694 advocacy for copyright for authors
This is from Peter King’s 1829 The life of John Locke, with extracts from his correspondence, journals, and common-place books
TEXT BELOW, ANNOTATED IN COLOUR BY ME.
The following copy of the objectionable clauses of the act, with Locke’s observations upon each separate clause, will be found very interesting, as a record of the existence of a censorship in England, accompanied by the comments of so competent a judge, who had witnessed both the beginning and the end of that most arbitrary measure. These notes were probably written at the time when the Printing Act was last under consideration in Parliament, in 1694. If the unanswerable objections which Locke stated against every part of that act contributed in any degree to prevent its farther re-enactment, his exertions may be regarded as no small service rendered to the cause of liberty and truth.
“An Act for preventing abuses in Printing seditious, treasonable, and unlicensed Books and Pamphlets, and for regulating Printing and Printing- presses.”
“§ 2. Heretical, seditious, schismatical, or offensive books, wherein any thing contrary to Christian faith, or the doctrine or discipline of the Church of England, is asserted; or which may tend to the scandal of religion, or the church, or the government, or governors of the church, state, or of any corporation, or particular person, are prohibited to be printed, im- ported, published, or sold.”
Some of these terms are so general and comprehensive, or at least so submitted to the sense and interpretation of the governors of church and state for the time being, that it is impossible any book should pass but just what suits their humours. And who knows but that the motion of the earth may be found to be heretical, as asserting Antipodes once was?
I know not why a man should not have liberty to print what-ever he would speak; and to be, answerable for the one, just as he is for the other, if he transgresses the law in either. But gagging a man, for fear he should talk heresy or sedition, has no other ground than such as will make gives necessary, for fear a man should use violence if his hands were free, and must at last end in the imprisonment of all whom you will suspect may be guilty of treason or misdemeanour. To prevent men being undiscovered for what they print, you may prohibit any book to be printed, published, or sold, without the printer’s or bookseller’s name, under great penalties, whatever be in it. And then let the printer or bookseller, whose name is to it, be answerable for whatever is against law in it, as if he were the author, unless he can produce the person he had it from, which is all the restraint ought to be upon printing.
“§ 3. All books prohibited to be printed that are not first entered in the register of the Company of Stationers, and licensed.”
Whereby it comes to pass, that sometimes, when a book is brought to be entered in the register of the Company of Stationers, if they think it may turn to account, they enter it there as theirs, whereby the other person is hindered from printing and publishing it; an example whereof can be given by Mr. Awnsham Churchill. [Sanjeev: Here’s a hint of Locke’s belief that the book belongs to the author]
“§ 6. No books to be printed or imported, which any person or persons by force, or virtue of any letters patent, have the right, privilege, authority, or allowance, solely to print, upon pain of forfeiture, and being proceeded against as an offender against this present act, and upon the further penalty and forfeiture of six shillings and eight-pence for every such book or books, or part of such book or books imported, bound, stitched, or put to sale, a moiety to the King, and a moiety to the informer.”
By this clause, the Company of Stationers have a monopoly of all the classical authors; and scholars cannot, but at excessive rates, have the fair and correct edition of those books printed beyond seas. For the Company of Stationers have obtained from the Crown a patent to print all, or at least the greatest part, of the classic authors, upon pretence, as I hear, that they should be well and truly printed; whereas they are by them scandalously ill printed, both for letter, paper, and correctness, and scarce one tolerable edition is made by them of any one of them. Whenever any of these books of better editions are imported from beyond seas, the Company seizes them, and makes the importers pay 6s. 8d. for each book so imported, or else they confiscate them, unless they are so bountiful as to let the importer compound with them at a lower rate. There are daily examples of this; I shall mention one, which I had from the sufferer’s own mouth. Mr. Samuel Smith, two or three years since, imported from Holland Tully’s Works, of a very fine edition, with new corrections made by Gronovius, who had taken the pains to compare that which was thought the best edition before with several ancient MSS., and to correct his by them. These, Tully’s Works, upon pretence of their patent for their alone printing Tully’s Works, or any part thereof, and by virtue of this clause of this act, the Company of Stationers seized and kept a good while in their custody, demanding 6s. 8d. per book: how at last he compounded with them I know not, but by this act scholars are subjected to the power of these dull wretches, who do not so much as understand Latin, whether they shall have any true or good copies of the best ancient Latin authors, unless they pay them 6s. 8d. a book for that leave. [Sanjeev: This indicates that publishers had authority to use VIOLENCE to enforce their monopoly]
Another thing observable is, that whatever money, by virtue of this clause, they have levied upon the subject, either as forfeiture or composition, I am apt to believe not one farthing of it has ever been accounted for to the King, and it is probable considerable sums have been raised. [Sanjeev: Locke is articulating the PRINCIPLE that the king (government) is ENTITLED to a share of the proceeds – not only the monopolist, in this case the publisher]
Upon occasion of this instance of the classic authors, I demand whether, if another act for printing should be made, it be not reasonable that nobody should have any peculiar right in any book which has been in print fifty years, but any one as well as another might have the liberty to print it; for by such titles as these, which lie dormant, and hinder others, many good books come quite to be lost. But be that determined as it will, in regard of those authors who now write and sell their copies to booksellers, this certainly is very absurd at first sight, that any person or company should now have a title to the printing of the works of Tully, Caesar, or Livy, who lived so many ages since, in exclusion of any other; nor can there be any reason in nature why I might not print them as well as the Company of Stationers, if I thought fit. This liberty, to any one, of printing them, is certainly the way to have them the cheaper and the better; and it is this which, in Holland, has produced so many fair and excellent editions of them, whilst the printers all strive to out-do one another, which has also brought in great sums to the trade of Holland. Whilst our Company of Stationers, having the monopoly here by this act, and their patents, slobber them over as they can cheapest, so that there is not a book of them vended beyond seas, both for their badness and dearness; nor will the scholars beyond seas look upon a book of them now printed at London, so ill and false are they; besides, it would be hard to find how a restraint of printing the classic authors does any way prevent printing seditious and treasonable pamphlets, which is the title and pretence of this act.
“§ 9. No English book may be imprinted or imported from beyond the sea. No foreigner, or other, unless a stationer of London, may import or sell any books of any language whatsoever.”
This clause serves only to confirm and enlarge the Stationers’ monopoly.
“§ 10, In this §, besides a great many other clauses to secure the Stationers’ monopoly of printing, which are very hard upon the subject, the Stationers’ interest is so far preferred to all others, that a landlord, who lets a house, forfeits five pounds if he know that his tenant has a printing-press in it, and does not give notice of it to the masters and wardens of the Stationers’ Company. Nor must a joiner, carpenter, or smith, &;c. work about a printing-press, without giving the like notice, under the like penalty.”
Which is greater caution than I think is used about the presses for coinage to secure the people from false money.
“By §11. The number of master-printers were reduced from a greater number to twenty, and the number of master-founders of letters reduced to fewer; and upon vacancy, the number to be filled by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, and to give security not to print any unlicensed books.”
This hinders a man who has served out his time the benefit of setting up his trade, which, whether it be not against the right of the subject, as well as contrary to common equity, deserves to be considered.
Ҥ 12. The number of presses that every one of the twenty master- printers shall have are reduced to two. Only those who have been masters, or upper-wardens of the Company may have three, and as many more as the Archbishop of Canterbury or Bishop of London will allow.
§ 13. Everyone who has been master, or upper-warden of the Company, may have three; every one of the livery two; and every master-printer of the yeomanry but one apprentice at a time.”
By which restraint of presses, and taking of apprentices, and the prohibition in § 14, of taking or using any journeymen except Englishmen and freemen of the trade, is the reason why our printing is so very bad, and yet so very dear in England. [Sanjeev: here Locke is objecting to the socialist policies implemented for publishing]. They who are hereby privileged to the exclusion of others, working and setting the price as they please, whereby any advantage that might be made to the realm by this manufacture is wholly lost to England, and thrown into the hands of our neighbours; the sole manufacture of printing bringing into the Low Countries great sums every year. But our Ecclesiastical laws seldom favour trade, and he that reads this act with attention will find it upse* ecclesiastical. The nation loses by this act, for our books are so dear, and ill printed, that they have very little vent among foreigners, unless now and then by truck for theirs, which yet shows how much those who buy the books printed here are imposed on, since a book printed at London may be bought cheaper at Amsterdam than in Paul’s Church-yard, notwithstanding all the charge and hazard of transportation: for their printing being free and unrestrained, they sell their books at so much a cheaper rate than our booksellers do ours, that in truck, valuing ours proportionably to their own, or their own equally to ours, which is the same thing, they can afford books received from London upon such exchanges cheaper in Holland than our stationers sell them in England. By this act England loses in general, scholars in particular are ground, and nobody gets, but a lazy, ignorant Company of Stationers, to say no worse of them; but any thing, rather than let Mother Church be disturbed in her opinions or impositions by any bold inquirer from the press.
* A low word, derived from the Dutch upzee, signifying highly.
“§ 15. One or more of the messengers of his Majesty’s chamber, by warrant under his Majesty’s sign-manual, or under the hand of one of his Majesty’s principal secretaries of state, or the master and wardens of the Company of Stationers, taking with them a constable and such assistance as they shall think needful, has an unlimited power to search all houses, and to seize upon all books “which they shall but think fit to suspect.”
How the gentry, much more how the peers of England came thus to prostitute their houses to the suspicion of any body, much, less a messenger upon pretence of searching for books, I cannot imagine. Indeed, the House of Peers, and others not of the trades mentioned in this act, are pretended to be exempted from this search, § 18, where it is provided they shall not be searched but by special warrant under the King’s sign-manual, or under the hands of one of the Secretaries of State. But this is but the shadow of an exemption, for they are still subject to be searched, every corner and coffer in them, under pretence of unlicensed books, a mark of slavery which, I think, their ancestors would never have submitted to. They so lay their houses, which are their castles, open, not to the pursuit of the law against a malefactor convicted of misdemeanour, or accused upon oath, but to the suspicion of having unlicensed books, which is, whenever it is thought fit to search his house to see what is in it.
“§ 16. All printers offending any way against this act are incapacitated to exercise their trade for three years. And for the second offence, perpetual incapacity, with any other punishment not reaching to life or limb.”
And thus a man is to be undone and starved for printing Dr. Bury’s case, or the History of Tom Thumb unlicensed.
“§ 17. Three copies of every book printed are to be reserved, whereof two to be sent, to the two Universities by the master of the Stationers’ Company.”
This clause, upon examination, I suppose, will be found to be mightily, if not wholly neglected, as all things that are good in this act, the Company of Stationers minding nothing in it but what makes for their monopoly. I believe that if the public libraries of both Universities be looked into, (which this will give a fit occasion to do,) there will not be found in them half, perhaps not one in ten of the copies of books printed since this act.
§ Last. This act, though made in a time when every one strove to be forwardest to make court to the Church and Court, by giving whatever was asked, yet this was so manifest an invasion of the trade, liberty, and property of the subject, that it was made to be in force only for two years. From which, 14 Car. 2, it has, by the joint endeavour of Church and Court, been, from time to time, received, and so continued to this day. Every one being answerable for books he publishes, prints, or sells, containing any thing seditious or against law, makes this or any other act for the restraint of printing very needless in that part, and so it may be left free in that part as it was before 14 Car. 2. That any person or company should have patents for the sole printing of ancient authors is very unreasonable and injurious to learning; and for those who purchase copies from authors that now live and write, it may be reasonable to limit their property to a certain number of years after the death of the author, or the first printing of the book, as, suppose, fifty or seventy years. This I am sure, it is very absurd and ridiculous that any one now living should pretend to have a propriety in, or a power to dispose of the propriety of any copy or writings of authors who lived before printing was known or used in Europe.”
This act, which had been renewed once since the Revolution, was suffered finally to expire in 1694. It may appear extraordinary that the same Parliament which passed the Act of Settlement, and embodied the Declaration of Rights in our statutes, should also have subjected the press to the fetters imposed upon it by the former printing acts of Charles and James II. But as the Revolution was effected by the assistance of the Church, the new government might perhaps wish to avoid giving offence to that powerful party by too sudden a repeal of this their favourite act.