(xii.) JUSTICE CONSIDERED IN RELATION TO THE WILL.

It was shown in detail in Book III., that the Will was the essential aspect of morality, and the conclusions there arrived at may be repeated here. In the analysis of moral action it was shown that a man was not to be accounted good or bad unless his will co-operated in a certain line of conduct. If an action is not agreeable to the agent, the character of that act is accidental: it may in its outward consequences be good or evil, but it is impossible to infer from it the state of the agent.

There are two conditions essential to voluntariness: (1) knowledge, and (2) power. The agent must know the circumstances of his action, its tendency and the various conditions which determine its nature. He must also have moral freedom, and act without compulsion except from his own conscience. Otherwise the act is involuntary, and its character accidental.

The injuries therefore which men do will fall under three classes :

1. Wrongs which are done through ignorance of the circumstances, and which are errors or mishaps, as when he is unaware of the instrument he is using, and who it is that he is striking.

2. Wrongs which are done with an evil intent and maliciously.

3. Wrongs which are unintentional though the agent was not unconscious of what he was doing; such as are the wrongs done through passion.

These different kinds of wrongs will be regarded with different degrees of censure. Some are pardonable and others are not. Acts are pardonable which are done through an error, or ignorance of the circumstances, or through justifiable passion. Acts are not pardonable when done in consequence of a state of mind which is neither natural nor worthy of

man.

(1) Can the Will consent to the suffering of a wrong?

There seems a contradiction of terms in supposing that the suffering of injury can be a voluntary act. Yet there is a difficulty in understanding how certain acts can be otherwise than voluntary. Perhaps the solution of the difficulty may be found in the fact that there is a difference between being injured and suffering an injury. Just as a man may do unjust things either voluntarily or involuntarily, though no one can act unjustly except by deliberate choice; so, too, a man may suffer what is unjust, voluntarily or involuntarily, though no one can suffer unjustly except against his will. In the proper sense of the term therefore, the suffering of injury is always an involuntary act. Glaucus gives an exchange with Diomede which is unequal, he is not acting against his own will, though he suffers loss. Nor again is the sensualist injured voluntarily: what he suffers is against his reason and real wish.

(2) In an unjust distribution, who is unjust?

Is the man who makes an unjust distribution unjust, or rather the man who profits by it? The man who makes the distribution has the responsibility of originating the action, and he is to blame rather than the man who receives the distribution: his will is free, whereas the

will of the man who receives the distribution is not free.

The latter

simply is the recipient of what is assigned to him, and the fault does not lie at his door.

Is the man who assigns to himself less than his due thereby wronged? Certainly not: though he appears to receive less of external goods, in fact, he is no loser. The loss which he appears to undergo is compensated for by far more precious advantages. He gains the praise of moderation, of scrupulosity, of generosity, and of kindred virtues. He conciliates the goodwill of his neighbours who trumpet his liberality.

(xiii.) DIFFICULTY OF THE ATTAINMENT OF JUSTice.

Men commonly think that it is an easy thing to be just for the reason that the opposite, injustice, is within our own power and dependent on our own will. But Justice is not simply the performance of just actions, but the performance of them with a certain intention, and as the outcome of a certain frame of mind. It requires therefore a certain mental habit, or formed disposition of character, which only the discipline of many years can instil into us.

Men think again that it is not difficult to know what is just and what is unjust, since the requirements of justice are comprised in legal codes which are published for all men to read and digest. But Justice does not depend upon the knowledge of abstract principles, but rather in the details of action, in the fine distinctions of circumstance which have to be moulded and adjusted according to those abstract principles.

Justice applies only to those who are equal.

There are some who are immeasurably beyond ourselves, and to whom therefore we can never assign too much of worldly honour and dignity such are the magistrates, or our parents. There are others who are correspondingly below us, such as convicts and others, who are so degraded that we can never assign them too little, lest they should abuse such things to their own destruction. Those to whom Justice, as the principle of equality, must be shown, are such as are sharers in common burdens and have an equal claim to the honours of the state, and neither a greater nor a less claim than ourselves.

(xiv.) RELATIONS BETWEEN EQUITY AND JUSTICE DETERMINED.

It is evident that the equitable is not identical with the just, because we praise the equitable man as being morally better than the just man when the equitable man yields something of his strict rights, which the just man will not do; and, further, the equitable man is spoken of synonymously with the good man. But neither is Equity contrary to Justice: both alike are estimable and meet with the approbation of the moral sense.

The differences between Equity and Justice are mainly these. Equity is better than legal Justice: it softens the absolute rigour of written law and amends the wrongs which abstract right might cause. It does not depend upon written words and the letter which killeth,' but upon

the moral sense and educated perception of the good man. It does not deal with universals, but with particulars-not with general propositions, but with actual circumstances. Written law is of necessity sometimes at fault. The nature of circumstances presenting an ever-changing aspect cannot be always anticipated: the variations of the conditions of actual life baffle such generalization. Again, laws are always framed as universal propositions; and must, in fact, become a kind of equity if they are to be applied honestly to particular cases.

It follows that Equity is a supplementing or rectifying of the omissions of the law or of provisions which are not adequate to meet the complications of particular circumstances. The equitable man interprets the intention of the legislator in framing the law; and applies the same principle in spirit to the determination of his duty in the actual circumstances before him. He endeavours to place himself in the position of the legislator, and to act as he would have acted had he foreseen such contingencies.

Equity may, therefore, be defined as a rectification of legal enactments in such aspects where the law fails in a particular case owing to its universality. The equitable man accordingly is one whose desire is to waive his own strict rights, though the law would justify his claim, and whose temper leads him to interpret the law to his own hindrance rather than to that of his neighbours.

(XV.) FURTHER SOLUTION OF TWO QUESTIONS RELATING TO JUSTICE.

(1) Can a man injure himself?

The arguments already advanced will have made it evident that a man cannot injure himself. There are, however, writers, who produce the case of the suicide as evidence that a man can injure himself. "The suicide," they say, "does an evil deed tacitly forbidden by law-since law forbids all slaughter which it does not expressly enjoin. Moreover, the suicide has no injury to requite, but deliberately does an evil deed; and of course against himself." Nay, but it is not the man himself who suffers harm (since it was shown that no man is injured of his own will), but rather the State; and it is the State consequently which inflicts a penalty upon him, depriving him of sepulture.

There are yet other arguments to show that suicide is not self-injury. (1) Injustice implies relations with others: a man cannot isolate one part of himself against another, so as to fulfil this condition of Justice. (2) A man cannot be agent and patient in one. (3) A man cannot be injured voluntarily. (4) All crime is harm to others: a man cannot harm himself. (5) The whole theory of the voluntary' is at variance with such an idea.

(2) Is it worse, to do an injury or to receive one?

Both alike, as departures from the ideal of the mean, are evils, but the doing of injury is associated with a depravity in the agent, and is therefore, per se, the greater evil.

TRANSLATION.

L.-JUSTICE.

i.-General conceptions of Justice and of Injustice.

(a) PROVISIONAL DEFINITION OF JUSTICE AND OF INJUSTICE.

Scope of the inquiry, and explanation of terms.

In treating of Justice and of Injustice the points which we have to consider are: (1) what kinds of actions they are in which Justice and Injustice are displayed, (2) what kind of a 'mean' justice is, as an ideal frame of mind, and (3) what are the extremes between which Justice, as abstract right,' lies. will be carried on according to the same plan as investigations.

The inquiry our previous

We see at once that all men are willing to define Justice as a state of mind of such a complexion, that in consequence thereof men are enabled to do just deeds, and in fact do deal justly and have a desire for what is just;' (and that contrariwise Injustice is ' a state of mind which leads men to act unjustly, and to desire what is unjust.')

This view of Justice may, at starting, be assumed as indicating in outline its real nature.

Justice a formed tendency (is), not a capacity (δύναμις).

[Justice is described as a frame of mind,' not a mere capacity, because the conditions involved in a 'frame of mind' are very different from those involved in a mere faculty or intellectual capacity. A faculty or an intellectual capacity seems to be the same for opposites; but a frame of mind, as a permanent disposition, cannot produce opposite effects. For instance, from a healthy state of body the only functions that can be developed are healthy functions, and not such as are destructive of itself:-we say that a man walks healthily when he walks as a man in perfect health should do.]

We will now at once proceed to treat of Justice and of Injustice, and show the nature of the actions in which they are displayed, the nature of the 'mean' which

makes Justice an ideal frame of mind, the nature of Justice as 'abstract right' and a 'mean' term between extremes, and the nature of the extremes which lie on either side of this ideal right.'

We will conduct our inquiry upon the same method as that which has guided us in our inquiry into the other virtues.

Now we see that all the world calls Justice a frame of mind by the possession of which we are enabled to perform just actions, and in fact do act uprightly and desire what is just. Injustice men define on the same principle: they call Injustice a frame of mind, in consequence of which we act unjustly and desire what is unjust. We may here assume the accuracy of these common views; and define Justice and Injustice respectively, in outline, as a frame of mind in virtue whereof we do (or do not) desire what is just.'

[We must always attach to the moral virtues the condition of wish or purpose: it is impossible for them otherwise to be defined--except as modes of purpose or of will:-it is owing to the wish that a man has to be temperate and to act justly that he grows to be temperate and just. Of course in the case of faculties and intellectual capacities, the possession of power is essential, the wish to exercise that power is not essential: if a man have the power of curing disease, he is a physician whether he use his power or not; and similarly in the case of the other intellectual powers. In the case, however, of the moral virtues, the conditions are changed. The power of doing just actions is often within the means even of an unjust man, but the desire to do just actions is characteristic of none but the just. Hence a man is just even though he be unable to perform just actions, provided he has the desire and possesses the frame of mind which characterises Justice. In the same way a man is unjust if he has the wish to be unjust, whether he carry out his purpose or not. Further, every faculty or intellectual habit is conversant with things that are contrary one to another: by one and the same science a man may know contraries; e.g., one and the same science, that of Medicine, is concerned both with health and with disease, and by one and the same faculty contrary results are brought about. But a moral habit is incapable of producing contrary results. In virtue of our Justice we do not perform actions that are, indifferently, just or unjust, any more than the movements of a diseased body are the same as those of a sound body.]

(b) DIVISIONS OF JUSTICE AND OF INJUSTICE.

Division of Justice into Universal and Particular (derived from its concrete opposite).

In many cases, however, the nature of a moral habit may be inferred from its corresponding opposite; and in many cases, again, moral habits may be understood from the concrete objects in which they reside. If, for example, the nature of sound health be manifest, the nature of its opposite, bad health, becomes equally plain. Again, from the nature of those who have sound health, the nature of sound health may be inferred, and from sound health may be inferred the conditions which produce it. If sound health be a certain compactness of flesh, it necessarily follows that bad health is a certain flabbiness of flesh, and further, that the cause of sound health is that which produces compactness of flesh.

Furthermore it follows, for the most part, that if one term be predicated in a variety of ways, its opposite is predicated in corresponding ways:-if there be, for instance, many senses in what is right,' there will be many senses in the term 'wrong.'