But  the  objection  vanishes,  when  it  is  considered  that  the
Court  does  not  afilect  to  act  as  a  censor  morum,  or  to  punish
or  restrain  injuries  to  society  generally.  It  simply  withholds
its  aid  from  those,  who,  upon  their  own  showing,  have  no  title
to  protection,  or  to  assert  a  property  in  things  which  the  law
will  not,  upon  motives  of  the  highest  concern,  permit  to  be
deemed  capable  of  founding  a  just  title  or  property.^

§  9S8.  The  soundness  of  this  general  principle  can  hardly
admit  of  a  question.  The  chief  embarrassment  and  difficulty
lie  in  the  application  of  it  to  particular  cases.^  If  a  Court  of
Equity,  under  color  of  its  general  authority,  is  to  enter  upon
all  the  moral,  theological,  metaphysical  and  political  inquiries,
which,  in  the  past  times,  have  given  rise  to  so  many  contro-
versies, and  in  the  future  may  well  be  supposed  to  provoke
many  heated  discussions,  and  if  it  is  to  decide  dogmatically
upon  the  character  and  bearing  of  such  discussions,  and  the
rights  of  authors,  growing  out  of  them ;  it  is  obvious,  that  an
absolute  power  is  conferred  over  the  subject  of  literary  prop-
erty, which  may  sap  the  very  foundations  on  which  it  rests,
and  retard,  if  not  entirely  suppress,  the  means  of  arriving  at
physical,  as  well  as  at  metaphysical  truths.  Thus,  for  example,
a  Judge,  who  should  happen  to  believe  that  the  immateriality  of
the  soul,  as  well  as  its  immortality,  was  a  doctrine  clearly
revealed  in  the  scriptures,  (a  point  upon  which  very  learned
and  pious  minds  have  been  greatly  divided,)  would  deem  any
work  antichristian  which  should  profess  to  deny  that  point,  and
would  refuse  an  injunction  to  protect  it.     So,  a  Judge,'  who


1  Jeremy  on  Eq.  Jurisd.  B.  3,  ch.  2,  §  1,  p.  321,  322 ;  Cooper,  Eq.  PI.  157 ;
Walcot  V.  Walker,  7  Ves.  1 ;  Southey  v.  Sherwood,  2  Meriv.  R.  435  ;  Lawrence
o.  Smith,  Jacob,  R.  471 ;  Id.  474,  note;  6  Peterad.  Abridg.  Copyright,  p.  557,
560.
