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Morillot on the author's right, Paris (1878)
Source: Bibliothèque universitaire de Poitiers (SCD) : Revue critique de législation et de jurisprudence, XXVIIe année, nouvelle série, tome VII
Citation:
Morillot on the author's right, Paris (1878), Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900), eds L. Bently & M. Kretschmer, www.copyrighthistory.org
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112
§ 1. In our opinion, the right of authorship may not be considered
a form of property in the judicial sense of the term, for a very simple
reason which we are astonished to see contested or ignored by eminent
jurists.
The right of property, which is only the relationship between a
person and a thing, necessarily supposes a person, who is its subject,
and a material thing, which is its object. Now in the matter of
intellectual works, this object is quite absent.
For indeed we must distinguish between the work and the manuscript,
canvas, sketch or machine which is its sign. It would be a crude error
to confuse the work and its tangible manifestation. The work, like the
operation which produces it, is purely intellectual. It is gradually
refined in the mind of the author, until it is finally conceived by him
in a form that lends it an intensity of life and a trueness which is
superior to reality itself. From this moment, even though it is not yet
perceivable by the public gaze, the work is complete. It may remain this
way indefinitely without ceasing to exist, losing neither its reality
not its life. I will go further: even as the author, yielding to a natural
need for expression, labours to make the work perceivable to the public,
nothing is added to it; the work only loses by being expressed. The author
who means to translate his idea will never find a worthy form for it; the
thought will always remain superior to the expression. The more elevated
the conception, the greater will be the gap separating it from its material
representation. It is a common truth, proclaimed by the greatest of the
Latin poets, that the artist, even the artist of genius, can never quite
give to his work that admirable form his intelligence has dreamed of for
it. Matter, which is the sign of the work, will never adequate to the idea,
which alone constitutes the work itself; they are two mutually repulsive
and irreconcilable elements. Even where it appears most intimate, their
union is imperfect and factitious; aesthetic analysis always discerns the
idea as it caresses and brushes against the material, from which it frees
itself as from humiliating fetters, and which it proudly dominates. If this
is the case, the work is in and of itself intangible and inexpressible,
No Transcription available.
Source: Bibliothèque universitaire de Poitiers (SCD) : Revue critique de législation et de jurisprudence, XXVIIe année, nouvelle série, tome VII
Citation:
Morillot on the author's right, Paris (1878), Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900), eds L. Bently & M. Kretschmer, www.copyrighthistory.org
Back | Record | Images | No Commentaries
Translation only | Transcription only | Show all | Bundled images as pdf
§ 1. In our opinion, the right of authorship may not be considered
a form of property in the judicial sense of the term, for a very simple
reason which we are astonished to see contested or ignored by eminent
jurists.
The right of property, which is only the relationship between a
person and a thing, necessarily supposes a person, who is its subject,
and a material thing, which is its object. Now in the matter of
intellectual works, this object is quite absent.
For indeed we must distinguish between the work and the manuscript,
canvas, sketch or machine which is its sign. It would be a crude error
to confuse the work and its tangible manifestation. The work, like the
operation which produces it, is purely intellectual. It is gradually
refined in the mind of the author, until it is finally conceived by him
in a form that lends it an intensity of life and a trueness which is
superior to reality itself. From this moment, even though it is not yet
perceivable by the public gaze, the work is complete. It may remain this
way indefinitely without ceasing to exist, losing neither its reality
not its life. I will go further: even as the author, yielding to a natural
need for expression, labours to make the work perceivable to the public,
nothing is added to it; the work only loses by being expressed. The author
who means to translate his idea will never find a worthy form for it; the
thought will always remain superior to the expression. The more elevated
the conception, the greater will be the gap separating it from its material
representation. It is a common truth, proclaimed by the greatest of the
Latin poets, that the artist, even the artist of genius, can never quite
give to his work that admirable form his intelligence has dreamed of for
it. Matter, which is the sign of the work, will never adequate to the idea,
which alone constitutes the work itself; they are two mutually repulsive
and irreconcilable elements. Even where it appears most intimate, their
union is imperfect and factitious; aesthetic analysis always discerns the
idea as it caresses and brushes against the material, from which it frees
itself as from humiliating fetters, and which it proudly dominates. If this
is the case, the work is in and of itself intangible and inexpressible,
No Transcription available.