Page:History of the Royal Society.djvu/97

Rh deal. Well then, if this Disposition be so universal, why should we think, that the Inventors will be only tender and backward to the Royal Society; from which they will not only reap the most solid Honour, but will also receive the strongest Assurances of still retaining the greatest part of the Profit? But if all this should fail, there still remains a Refuge, which will put this whole Matter out of Dispute: and that is, that the Royal Society will be able by Degrees to purchase such extraordinary Inventions, which are now close lock'd up in Cabinets; and then to bring them into one common Stock, which shall be upon all occasions expos'd to all Men's Use. This is a most heroick Intention: For by such Concealments, there may come very much Hurt to Mankind. If any certain Remedy should be found out against an Epidemical Disease; if it were suffer'd to be ingross'd by one Man, there would be great Swarms swept away, which otherwise might be easily sav'd. I shall instance in the Sweating-Sickness. The Medicine for it was almost infallible: But, before that could be generally publish'd, it had almost dispeopled whole Towns. If the same Disease should have return'd, it might have been again as destructive, had not the Lord Bacon taken Care, to set down the particular Course of Physick for it, in his History of Henry the Seventh, and so put it beyond the Possibility of any private Man's invading it. This ought to be imitated in all other sovereign Cures of the like Nature, to avoid such dreadful Casualties. The Artificers should reap the common Crop of their Arts; but the Publick should still have Title to the miraculous Productions. It should be so appointed, as it is in the Profits of Men's Lands; where the Corn, and Grass, and Timber, and some coarser Metals belong to the Rh