The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface to Volume Ii
• Preface to Part Iv (when First Issued Separately)
• Part IV.: The Ethics of Social Life: Justice
• Chapter 1.: Animal Ethics
• Chapter 2.: Subhuman Justice
• Chapter 3.: Human Justice
• Chapter 4.: The Sentiment of Justice
• Chapter 5.: The Idea of Justice
• Chapter 6.: The Formula of Justice
• Chapter 7.: The Authority of This Formula
• Chapter 8.: Its Corollaries
• Chapter 9.: The Right to Physical Integrity
• Chapter 10.: The Rights to Free Motion and Locomotion
• Chapter 11.: The Rights to the Uses of Natural Media
• Chapter 12.: The Right of Property
• Chapter 13.: The Right of Incorporeal Property
• Chapter 14.: The Rights of Gift and Bequest
• Chapter 15.: The Rights of Free Exchange and Free Contract
• Chapter 16.: The Right to Free Industry
• Chapter 17.: The Rights of Free Belief and Worship
• Chapter 18.: The Rights of Free Speech and Publication
• Chapter 19.: A Retrospect With an Addition
• Chapter 20.: The Rights of Women
• Chapter 21.: The Rights of Children
• Chapter 22.: Political Rights–so-called
• Chapter 23.: The Nature of the State
• Chapter 24.: The Constitution of the State
• Chapter 25.: The Duties of the State
• Chapter 26.: The Limits of State Duties
• Chapter 27.: The Limits of State Duties–continued
• Chapter 28.: The Limits of State Duties–continued
• Chapter 29.: The Limits of State Duties–concluded
• Part V.: The Ethics of Social Life: Negative Beneficence
• Chapter 1.: Kinds of Altruism
• Chapter 2.: Restraints On Free Competition
• Chapter 3.: Restraints On Free Contract
• Chapter 4.: Restraints On Undeserved Payments
• Chapter 5.: Restraints On Displays of Ability
• Chapter 6.: Restraints On Blame
• Chapter 7.: Restraints On Praise
• Chapter 8.: The Ultimate Sanctions
• Part VI.: The Ethics of Social Life: Positive Beneficence
• Chapter 1.: Marital Beneficence
• Chapter 2.: Parental Beneficence
• Chapter 3.: Filial Beneficence
• Chapter 4.: Aiding the Sick and the Injured
• Chapter 5.: Succor to the Ill-used and the Endangered
• Chapter 6.: Pecuniary Aid to Relatives and Friends
• Chapter 7.: Relief of the Poor
• Chapter 8.: Social Beneficence
• Chapter 9.: Political Beneficence
• Chapter 10.: Beneficence At Large
• Appendices
• Appendix A.: the Kantian Idea of Rights
• Appendix B.: the Land Question
• Appendix C.: The Moral Motive
• Appendix D.: Conscience In Animals
• Appendix E.: Replies to Criticisms
• References

PART IV.

THE ETHICS OF SOCIAL LIFE: JUSTICE

CHAPTER 1.

Animal Ethics

246. Those who have not read the first division of this work will be surprised by the above title. But the chapters “Conduct in General” and “The Evolution of Conduct” will have made clear to those who have read them that something which may be regarded as animal ethics is implied.

It was there shown that the conduct which ethics treats of is not separable from conduct at large; that the highest conduct is that which conduces to the greatest length, breadth, and completeness of life; and that, by implication, there is a conduct proper to each species of animal, which is the relatively good conduct–a conduct which stands toward that species as the conduct we morally approve stands toward the human species.

Most people regard the subject matter of ethics as being conduct considered as calling forth approbation or reprobation. But the primary subject matter of ethics is conduct considered objectively as producing good or bad results to self or others or both.

Even those who think of ethics as concerned only with conduct which deserves praise or blame, tacitly recognize an animal ethics; for certain acts of animals excite in them antipathy or sympathy. A bird which feeds its mate while she is sitting is regarded with a sentiment of approval. For a hen which refuses to sit upon her eggs there is a feeling of aversion; while one which fights in defense of her chickens is admired.

Egoistic acts, as well as altruistic acts, in animals are classed as good or bad. A squirrel which lays up a store of food for the winter is thought of as doing that which a squirrel ought to do; and, contrariwise, one which idly makes no provision and dies of starvation, is thought of as properly paying the penalty of improvidence. A dog which surrenders its bone to another without a struggle, and runs away, we call a coward–a word of reprobation.

Thus, then, it is clear that acts which are conducive to preservation of offspring or of the individual we consider as good relatively to the species, and conversely.

247. The two classes of cases of altruistic acts and egoistic acts just exemplified, show us the two cardinal and opposed principles of animal ethics.

During immaturity benefits received must be inversely proportionate to capacities possessed. Within the family group most must be given where least is deserved, if desert is measured by worth. Contrariwise, after maturity is reached benefit must vary directly as worth: worth being measured by fitness to the conditions of existence. The ill fitted must suffer the evils of unfitness, and the well fitted profit by their fitness.

These are the two laws which a species must conform to if it is to be preserved. Limiting the proposition to the higher types (for in the lower types, parents give to offspring no other aid than that of laying up small amounts of nutriment with their germs: the result being that an enormous mortality has to be balanced by an enormous fertility)–thus limiting the proposition, I say, it is clear that if, among the young, benefit were proportioned to efficiency the species would disappear forthwith; and that if, among adults, benefit were proportioned to inefficiency, the species would disappear by decay in a few generations (see Principles of Sociology, sec. 322)

248. What is the ethical aspect of these principles? In the first place, animal life of all but the lowest kinds has been maintained by virtue of them. Excluding the protozoa, among which their operation is scarcely discernible, we see that without gratis benefits to offspring, and earned benefits to adults, life could not have continued.

In the second place, by virtue of them life has gradually evolved into higher forms. By care of offspring, which has become greater with advancing organization, and by survival of the fittest in the competition among adults, which has become more habitual with advancing organization, superiority has been perpetually fostered and further advances caused.

On the other hand, it is true that to this self-sacrificing care for the young and this struggle for existence among adults, has been due the carnage and the death by starvation which have characterized the evolution of life from the beginning. It is also true that the processes consequent on conformity to these principles are responsible for the production of torturing parasites, which outnumber in their kinds all other creatures.

To those who take a pessimist view of animal life in general, contemplation of these principles can of course yield only dissatisfaction. But to those who take an optimist view, or a meliorist view of life in general, and who accept the postulate of hedonism, contemplation of these principles must yield greater or less satisfaction, and fulfillment of them must be ethically approved.

Otherwise considered, these principles are, according to the current belief, expressions of the Divine will, or else, according to the agnostic belief, indicate the mode in which works the Unknowable Power throughout the universe; and in either case they have the warrant hence derived.

249. But here, leaving aside the ultimate controversy of pessimism versus optimism, it will suffice for present purposes to set out with a hypothetical postulate, and to limit it to a single species. If the preservation and prosperity of such species is to be desired, there inevitably emerge one most general conclusion and from it three less general conclusions.

The most general conclusion is that, in order of obligation, the preservation of the species takes precedence of the preservation of the individual. It is true that the species has no existence save as an aggregate of individuals; and it is true that, therefore, the welfare of the species is an end to be subserved only as subserving the welfares of individuals. But since disappearance of the species, implying disappearance of all individuals, involves absolute failure in achieving the end, whereas disappearance of individuals, though carried to a great extent, may leave outstanding such number as can, by the continuance of the species, make subsequent fulfillment of the end possible; the preservation of the individual must, in a variable degree according to circumstances, be subordinated to the preservation of the species, where the two conflict. The resulting corollaries are these:

First, that among adults there must be conformity to the law that benefits received shall be directly proportionate to merits possessed: merits being measured by power of selfsustentation. For, otherwise, the species must suffer in two ways. It must suffer immediately by sacrifice of superior to inferior, which entails a general diminution of welfare; and it must suffer remotely by further increase of the inferior which, by implication, hinders increase of the superior, and causes a general deterioration, ending in extinction if it is continued.

Second, that during early life, before self-sustentation has become possible, and also while it can be but partial, the aid given must be the greatest where the worth shown is the smallest–benefits received must be inversely proportionate to merits possessed: merits being measured by power of self-sustentation. Unless there are gratis benefits to offspring, unqualified at first and afterward qualified by decrease as maturity is approached, the species must disappear by extinction of its young. There is, of course, necessitated a proportionate self-subordination of adults.

Third, to this self-subordination entailed by parenthood has, in certain cases, to be added a further self-subordination. If the constitution of the species and its conditions of existence are such that sacrifices, partial or complete, of some of its individuals, so subserve the welfare of the species that its numbers are better maintained than they would otherwise be, then there results a justification for such sacrifices.

Such are the laws by conformity to which a species is maintained; and if we assume that the preservation of a particular species is a desideratum, there arises in it an obligation to conform to these laws, which we may call, according to the case in question, quasi-ethical or ethical.

CHAPTER 2.

Subhuman Justice

250. Of the two essential but opposed principles of action by pursuance of which each species is preserved, we are here concerned only with the second. Passing over the law of the family as composed of adults and young, we have now to consider exclusively the law of the species as composed of adults only.

This law we have seen to be that individuals of most worth, as measured by their fitness to the conditions of existence, shall have the greatest benefits, and that inferior individuals shall receive smaller benefits, or suffer greater evils, or both–a law which, under its biological aspect, has for its implication the survival of the fittest. Interpreted in ethical terms, it is that each individual ought to be subject to the effects of its own nature and resulting conduct. Throughout subhuman life this law holds without qualification; for there exists no agency by which, among adults, the relations between conduct and consequence can be interfered with.

Fully to appreciate the import of this law, we may with advantage pause a moment to contemplate an analogous law; or, rather, the same law as exhibited in another sphere. Besides being displayed in the relations among members of a species, as respectively well sustained or ill sustained according to their well-adapted activities or ill-adapted activities, it is displayed in the relations of the parts of each organism to one another.

Every muscle, every viscus, every gland, receives blood in proportion to function. If it does little it is ill fed and dwindles; if it does much it is well fed and grows. By this balancing of expenditure and nutrition, there is, at the same time, a balancing of the relative powers of the parts of the organism; so that the organism as a whole is fitted to its existence by having its parts continuously proportioned to the requirements. And clearly this principle of self-adjustment within each individual, is parallel to that principle of self-adjustment by which the species as a whole keeps itself fitted to its environment. For by the better nutrition and greater power of propagation which come to members of the species that have faculties and consequent activities best adapted to the needs, joined with the lower sustentation of self and offspring which accompany less adapted faculties and activities, there is caused such special growth of the species as most conduces to its survival in face of surrounding conditions.

This, then, is the law of subhuman justice, that each individual shall receive the benefits and the evils of its own nature and its consequent conduct.

251. But subhuman justice is extremely imperfect, alike in general and in detail.

In general, it is imperfect in the sense that there exist multitudinous species the sustentation of which depends on the wholesale destruction of other species; and this wholesale destruction implies that the species serving as prey have the relations between conduct and consequence so habitually broken that in very few individuals are they long maintained. It is true that in such cases the premature loss of life suffered from enemies by nearly all members of the species, must be considered as resulting from their natures–their inability to contend with the destructive agencies they are exposed to. But we may fitly recognize the truth that this violent ending of the immense majority of its lives, implies that the species is one in which justice, as above conceived, is displayed in but small measure.

Subhuman justice is extremely imperfect in detail, in the sense that the relation between conduct and consequence is in such an immense proportion of cases broken by accidents–accidents of kinds which fall indiscriminately upon inferior and superior individuals. There are the multitudinous deaths caused by inclemencies of weather, which, in the great majority of cases, the best members of the species are liable to like the worst. There are other multitudinous deaths caused by scarcity of food, which, if not wholly still in large measure, carries off good and bad alike. Among low types, too, enemies are causes of death which so operate that superior as well as inferior are sacrificed. And the like holds with invasions by parasites, often widely fatal. These frequently destroy the best individuals as readily as the worst.

The high rate of multiplication among low animals, required to balance the immense mortality, at once shows us that among them long survival is not insured by superiority; and that thus the subhuman justice, consisting in continued receipt of the results of conduct, holds individually in but few cases.

252. And here we come upon a truth of great significance–the truth that subhuman justice becomes more decided as organization becomes higher.

Whether this or that fly is taken by a swallow, whether among a brood of caterpillars an ichneumon settles on this or that, whether out of a shoal of herrings this or that is swallowed by a cetacean, is an event quite independent of individual peculiarity: good and bad samples fare alike. With high types of creatures it is otherwise. Keen senses, sagacity agility. give a particular carnivore special power to secure prey. In a herd of herbivorous creatures, the one with quickest hearing, clearest vision, most sensitive nostril, or greatest speed, is the one most likely to save itself.

Evidently, in proportion as the endowments, mental and bodily, of a species are high, and as, consequently, its ability to deal with the incidents of the environment is great, the continued life of each individual is less dependent on accidents against which it cannot guard. And, evidently. in proportion as this result of general superiority becomes marked, the results of special superiorities are felt. Individual differences of faculty play larger parts in determining individual fates. Now deficiency of a power shortens life, and now a large endowment prolongs it. That is to say. individuals experience more fully the results of their own natures–the justice is more decided.

253. As displayed among creatures which lead solitary lives, the nature of subhuman justice is thus sufficiently expressed; but on passing to gregarious creatures we discover in it an element not yet specified.

Simple association, as of deer, profits the individual and the species only by that more efficient safeguarding which results from the superiority of a multitude of eyes, ears, and noses over the eyes, ears, and nose of a single individual. Through the alarms more quickly given, all benefit by the senses of the most acute. Where this, which we may call passive cooperation, rises into active cooperation, as among rooks where one of the flock keeps watch while the rest feed, or as among the cimarrons, a much-hunted variety of mountain sheep in Central America, which similarly place sentries, or as among beavers where a number work together in making dams, or as among wolves where, by a plan of attack in which the individuals play different parts, prey is caught which would otherwise not be caught; there are still greater advantages to the individuals and to the species. And, speaking generally, we may say that gregariousness, and cooperation more or less active, establish themselves in a species only because they are profitable to it; since, otherwise, survival of the fittest must prevent establishment of them.

But now mark that this profitable association is made possible only by observance of certain conditions. The acts directed to self-sustentation which each performs, are performed more or less in presence of others performing like acts; and there tends to result more or less interference. If the interference is great, it may render the association unprofitable. For the association to be profitable the acts must be restrained to such extent as to leave a balance of advantage. Survival of the fittest will else exterminate that variety of the species in which association begins.

Here, then, we find a further factor in subhuman justice. Each individual, receiving the benefits and the injuries due to its own nature and consequent conduct, has to carry on that conduct subject to the restriction that it shall not in any large measure impede the conduct by which each other individual achieves benefits or brings on itself injuries. The average conduct must not be so aggressive as to cause evils which outbalance the good obtained by cooperation. Thus, to the positive element in subhuman justice has to be added, among gregarious creatures, a negative element.

254. The necessity for observance of the condition that each member of the group, while carrying on self-sustentation and sustentation of offspring, shall not seriously impede the like pursuits of others, makes itself so felt, where association is established, as to mould the species to it. The mischiefs from time to time experienced when the limits are transgressed, continually discipline all in such ways as to produce regard for the limits; so that such regard becomes, in course of time, a natural trait of the species. For, manifestly, regardlessness of the limits, if great and general, causes dissolution of the group. Those varieties only can survive as gregarious varieties in which there is an inherited tendency to maintain the limits.

Yet further, there arises such general consciousness of the need for maintaining the limits, that punishments are inflicted on transgressors–not only by aggrieved members of the group, but by the group as a whole. A “rogue” elephant (always distinguished as unusually malicious) is one which has been expelled from the herd: doubtless because of conduct obnoxious to the rest–probably aggressive. It is said that from a colony of beavers an idler is banished, and thus prevented from profiting by labors in which he does not join: a statement made credible by the fact that drones, when no longer needed, are killed by worker-bees. The testimonies of observers in different countries show that a flock of crows, after prolonged noise of consultation, will summarily execute an offending member. And an eyewitness affirms that among rooks, a pair which steals the sticks from neighboring nests has its own nest pulled to pieces by the rest.

Here, then, we see that the a priori condition to harmonious cooperation comes to be tacitly recognized as something like a law; and there is a penalty consequent on breach of it.

255. That the individual shall experience all the consequences, good and evil, of its own nature and consequent conduct, which is that primary principle of subhuman justice whence results survival of the fittest, is, in creatures that lead solitary lives, a principle complicated only by the responsibilities of parenthood. Among them the purely egoistic actions of self-sustentation have, during the reproductive period, to be qualified by that self-subordination which the rearing of offspring necessitates, but by no other self-subordination. Among gregarious creatures of considerable intelligence, however, disciplined, as we have just seen, into due regard for the limits imposed by other's presence, the welfare of the species, besides demanding self-subordination in the rearing of offspring, occasionally demands a further self-subordination.

We read of bisons that, during the calving season, the bulls form an encircling guard round the herd of cows and calves, to protect them against wolves and other predatory animals: a proceeding which entails on each bull some danger, but which conduces to the preservation of the species. Out of a herd of elephants about to emerge from a forest to reach a drinking place, one will first appear and look round in search of dangers, and, not discerning any. will then post some others of the herd to act as watchers; after which the main body comes forth and enters the water. Here a certain extra risk is run by the few that the many may be the safer. In a still greater degree we are shown this kind of action by a troop of monkeys, the members of which will combine to defend or rescue one of their number, or will fitly arrange themselves when retreating from an enemy–“the females, with their young, leading the way. the old males bringing up the rear . . . the place of danger”; for though in any particular case the species may not profit, since more mortality may result than would have resulted, yet it profits in the long run by the display of a character which makes attack on its groups dangerous.

Evidently. then, if by such conduct one variety of a gregarious species keeps up, or increases, its numbers, while other varieties, in which self-subordination thus directed does not exist, fail to do this, a certain sanction is acquired for such conduct. The preservation of the species being the higher end, it results that where an occasional mortality of individuals in defense of the species furthers this preservation in a greater degree than would pursuit of exclusive benefit by each individual, that which we recognize as subhuman justice may rightly have this second limitation.

256. It remains only to point out the order of priority, and the respective ranges, of these principles. The law of relation between conduct and consequence, which, throughout the animal kingdom at large, brings prosperity to those individuals which are structurally best adapted to their conditions of existence, and which, under its ethical aspect, is expressed in the principle that each individual ought to receive the good and the evil which arises from its own nature, is the primary law holding of all creatures; and is applicable without qualification to creatures which lead solitary lives, save by that self-subordination needed among the higher of them for the rearing of offspring.

Among gregarious creatures, and in an increasing degree as they cooperate more, there comes into play the law, second in order of time and authority, that those actions through which, in fulfillment of its nature, the individual achieves benefits and avoids evils, shall be restrained by the need for noninterference with the like actions of associated individuals. A substantial respect for this law in the average of cases, being the condition under which alone gregariousness can continue, it becomes an imperative law for creatures to which gregariousness is a benefit. But, obviously, this secondary law is simply a specification of that form which the primary law takes under the conditions of gregarious life; since, by asserting that in each individual the interactions of conduct and consequence must be restricted in the specified way. it tacitly reasserts that these interactions must be maintained in other individuals, that is in all individuals.

Later in origin, and narrower in range, is the third law, that under conditions such that, by the occasional sacrifices of some members of a species, the species as a whole prospers, there arises a sanction for such sacrifices, and a consequent qualification of the law that each individual shall receive the benefits and evils of its own nature.

Finally, it should be observed that whereas the first law is absolute for animals in general, and whereas the second law is absolute for gregarious animals, the third law is relative to the existence of enemies of such kinds that, in contending with them, the species gains more than it loses by the sacrifice of a few members; and in the absence of such enemies this qualification imposed by the third law disappears.

CHAPTER 3.

Human Justice

257. The contents of the last chapter foreshadow the contents of this. As, from the evolution point of view, human life must be regarded as a further development of subhuman life, it follows that from this same point of view, human justice must be a further development of subhuman justice. For convenience the two are here separately treated, but they are essentially of the same nature, and form parts of a continuous whole.

Of man, as of all inferior creatures, the law by conformity to which the species is preserved, is that among adults the individuals best adapted to the conditions of their existence shall prosper most, and that individuals least adapted to the conditions of their existence shall prosper least–a law which, if uninterfered with, entails survival of the fittest, and spread of the most adapted varieties. And as before so here, we see that, ethically considered, this law implies that each individual ought to receive the benefits and the evils of his own nature and consequent conduct: neither being prevented from having whatever good his actions normally bring to him, nor allowed to shoulder off on to other persons whatever ill is brought to him by his actions.

To what extent such ill, naturally following from his actions, may be voluntarily borne by other persons, it does not concern us now to inquire. The qualifying effects of pity, mercy, and generosity, will be considered hereafter in the parts dealing with “Negative Beneficence” and “Positive Beneficence.” Here we are concerned only with pure justice.

The law thus originating, and thus ethically expressed, is obviously that which commends itself to the common apprehension as just. Sayings and criticisms daily heard imply a perception that conduct and consequence ought not to be dissociated. When, of some one who suffers a disaster, it is said, “He has no one to blame but himself,” there is implied the belief that he has not been inequitably dealt with. The comment on one whose misjudgment or misbehavior has entailed evil upon him, that “he has made his own bed, and now he must lie in it,” has behind it the conviction that this connection of cause and effect is proper. Similarly with the remark, “He got no more than he deserved.” A kindred conviction is implied when, conversely, there results good instead of evil. “He has fairly earned his reward”; “He has not received due recompense”; are remarks indicating the consciousness that there should be a proportion between effort put forth and advantage achieved–that justice demands such a proportion.

258. The truth that justice becomes more pronounced as organization becomes higher, which we contemplated in the last chapter, is further exemplified on passing from subhuman justice to human justice. The degree of justice and the degree of organization simultaneously make advances. These are shown alike by the entire human race, and by its superior varieties as contrasted with its inferior.

We saw that a high species of animal is distinguished from a low species, in the respect that since its aggregate suffers less mortality from incidental destructive agencies, each of its members continues on the average for a longer time subject to the normal relation between conduct and consequence; and here we see that the human race as a whole, far lower in its rate of mortality than nearly all races of inferior kinds, usually subjects its members for much longer periods to the good and evil results of well-adapted and ill-adapted conduct. We also saw that as, among the higher animals, a greater average longevity makes it possible for individual differences to show their effects for longer periods, it results that the unlike fates of different individuals are to a greater extent determined by that normal relation between conduct and consequence which constitutes justice; and we here see that in mankind, unlikenesses of faculty in still greater degrees, and for still longer periods, work out their effects in advantaging the superior and disadvantaging the inferior in the continuous play of conduct and consequence.

Similarly is it with the civilized varieties of mankind as compared with the savage varieties. A still further diminished rate of mortality implies that there is a still larger proportion, the members of which gain good from well-adapted acts and suffer evil from ill-adapted acts. While also it is manifest that both the greater differences of longevity among individuals, and the greater differences of social position, imply that in civilized societies more than in savage societies, differences of endowment, and consequent differences of conduct, are enabled to cause their appropriate differences of results, good or evil: the justice is greater.

259. More clearly in the human race than in lower races, we are shown that gregariousness establishes itself because it profits the variety in which it arises; partly by furthering general safety and partly by facilitating sustentation. And we are shown that the degree of gregariousness is determined by the degree in which it thus subserves the interests of the variety. For where the variety is one of which the members live on wild food, they associate only in small groups: game and fruits widely distributed, can support these only. But greater gregariousness arises where agriculture makes possible the support of a large number on a small area; and where the accompanying development of industries introduces many and various cooperations.

We come now to the truth–faintly indicated among lower beings and conspicuously displayed among human beings–that the advantages of cooperation can be had only by conformity to certain requirements which association imposes. The mutual hindrances liable to arise during the pursuit of their ends by individuals living in proximity, must be kept within such limits as to leave a surplus of advantage obtained by associated life. Some types of men, as the Abors, lead solitary lives, because their aggressiveness is such that they cannot live together. And this extreme case makes it clear that though, in many primitive groups, individual antagonisms often cause quarrels, yet the groups are maintained because their members derive a balance of benefit–chiefly in greater safety. It is also clear that in proportion as communities become developed, their division of labor complex, and their transactions multiplied, the advantages of cooperation can be gained only by a still better maintenance of those limits to each man's activities necessitated by the simultaneous activities of others. This truth is illustrated by the unprosperous or decaying state of communities in which the trespasses of individuals on one another are so numerous and great as generally to prevent them from severally receiving the normal results of their labors.

The requirement that individual activities must be mutually restrained, which we saw is so felt among certain inferior gregarious creatures that they inflict punishments on those who do not duly restrain them, is a requirement which, more imperative among men, and more distinctly felt by them to be a requirement, causes a still more marked habit of inflicting punishments on offenders. Though in primitive groups it is commonly left to any one who is injured to revenge himself on the injurer; and though even in the societies of feudal Europe, the defending and enforcing of his claims was in many cases held to be each man's personal concern; yet there has ever tended to grow up such perception of the need for internal order, and such sentiment accompanying the perception, that infliction of punishments by the community as a whole, or by its established agents, has become habitual. And that a system of laws enacting restrictions on conduct, and punishments for breaking them, is a natural product of human life carried on under social conditions, is shown by the fact that in numerous nations composed of various types of mankind, similar actions, similarly regarded as trespasses, have been similarly forbidden.

Through all which sets of facts is manifested the truth, recognized practically if not theoretically, that each individual carrying on the actions which subserve his life, and not prevented from receiving their normal results, good and bad, shall carry on these actions under such restraints as are imposed by the carrying on of kindred actions by other individuals, who have similarly to receive such normal results, good and bad. And vaguely, if not definitely, this is seen to constitute what is called justice.

260. We saw that among inferior gregarious creatures, justice in its universal simple form, besides being qualified by the self-subordination which parenthood implies, and in some measure by the self-restraint necessitated by association, is, in a few cases, further qualified in a small degree by the partial or complete sacrifice of individuals made in defense of the species. And now, in the highest gregarious creature, we see that this further qualification of primitive justice assumes large proportions.

No longer, as among inferior beings, demanded only by the need for defense against enemies of other kinds, this further self-subordination is, among human beings, also demanded by the need for defense against enemies of the same kind. Having spread wherever there is food, groups of men have come to be everywhere in one another's way; and the mutual enmities hence resulting, have made the sacrifices entailed by wars between groups, far greater than the sacrifices made in defense of groups against inferior animals. It is doubtless true with the human race, as with lower races, that destruction of the group, or the variety, does not imply destruction of the species; and it follows that such obligation as exists for selfsubordination in the interests of the group, or the variety, is an obligation of lower degree than is that of care of offspring, without fulfillment of which the species will disappear, and of lower degree than the obligation to restrain actions within the limits imposed by social conditions, without fulfillment, or partial fulfillment, of which the group will dissolve. Still, it must be regarded as an obligation to the extent to which the maintenance of the species is subserved by the maintenance of each of its groups.

But the self-subordination thus justified, and in a sense rendered obligatory, is limited to that which is required for defensive war. Only because the preservation of the group as a whole conduces to preservation of its members' lives, and their ability to pursue the objects of life, is there a reason for the sacrifice of some of its members; and this reason no longer exists when war is offensive instead of defensive.

It may, indeed, be contended that since offensive wars initiate those struggles between groups which end in the destruction of the weaker, offensive wars, furthering the peopling of the earth by the stronger, subserve the interests of the race. But even supposing that the conquered groups always consisted of men having smaller mental or bodily fitness for war (which they do not; for it is in part a question of numbers, and the smaller groups may consist of the more capable warriors), there would still be an adequate answer. It is only during the earlier stages of human progress that the development of strength, courage, and cunning, are of chief importance. After societies of considerable size have been formed, and the subordination needed for organizing them produced, other and higher faculties become those of chief importance; and the struggle for existence carried on by violence, does not always further the survival of the fittest. The fact that but for a mere accident Persia would have conquered Greece, and the fact that the Tartar hordes very nearly overwhelmed European civilization, show that offensive war can be trusted to subserve the interests of the race only when the capacity for a high social life does not exist; and that in proportion as this capacity develops, offensive war tends more and more to hinder, rather than to further, human welfare. In brief we may say that the arrival at a stage in which ethical considerations come to be entertained, is the arrival at a stage in which offensive war, by no means certain to further predominance of races fitted for a high social life, and certain to cause injurious moral reactions on the conquering as well as on the conquered, ceases to be justifiable; and only defensive war retains a quasi-ethical justification.

And here it is to be remarked that the self-subordination which defensive war involves, and the need for such qualification of the abstract principle of justice as it implies, belong to that transitional state necessitated by the physical-force conflict of races; and that they must disappear when there is reached a peaceful state. That is to say, all questions concerning the extent of such qualifications pertain to what we have distinguished as relative ethics; and are not recognized by that absolute ethics which is concerned with the principles of right conduct in a society formed of men fully adapted to social life.

This distinction I emphasize here because, throughout succeeding chapters, we shall find that recognition of it helps us to disentangle the involved problems of political ethics.

CHAPTER 4.

The Sentiment of Justice

261. Acceptance of the doctrine of organic evolution determines certain ethical conceptions. The doctrine implies that the numerous organs in each of the innumerable species of animals, have been either directly or indirectly moulded into fitness for the requirements of life by constant converse with those requirements. Simultaneously. through nervous modifications, there have been developments of the sensations, instincts, emotions, and intellectual aptitudes, needed for the appropriate uses of these organs; as we see in caged rodents which exercise their jaw muscles and incisors by purposeless gnawing, in gregarious creatures which are miserable if they cannot join their fellows, in beavers which, kept in confinement, show their passion for dam building by heaping up whatever sticks and stones they can find.

Has this process of mental adaptation ended with primitive man? Are human beings incapable of having their feelings and ideas progressively adjusted to the modes of life imposed on them by the social state into which they have grown? Shall we suppose that the nature which fitted them to the exigencies of savage life has remained unchanged, and will remain unchanged, by the exigencies of civilized life? Or shall we suppose that this aboriginal nature, by repression of some traits and fostering of others, is made to approach more and more to a nature which finds developed society its appropriate environment, and the required activities its normal ones? There are many believers in the doctrine of evolution who seem to have no faith in the continued adaptability of mankind. While glancing but carelessly at the evidence furnished by comparisons of different human races with one another, and of the same races in different ages, they ignore entirely the induction from the phenomena of life at large. But if there is an abuse of the deductive method of reasoning there is also an abuse of the inductive method. One who refused to believe that a new moon would in a fortnight become full and then wane, and, disregarding observations accumulated throughout the past, insisted on watching the successive phases before he was convinced, would be considered inductive in an irrational degree. But there might not unfairly be classed with him those who, slighting the inductive proof of unlimited adjustability, bodily and mental, which the animal kingdom at large presents, will not admit the adjustability of human nature to social life until the adjustment has taken place: nay, even ignore the evidence that it is taking place.

Here we shall assume it to be an inevitable inference from the doctrine of organic evolution, that the highest type of living being, no less than all lower types, must go on molding itself to those requirements which circumstances impose. And we shall, by implication, assume that moral changes are among the changes thus wrought out.

262. The fact that when surfeit of a favorite food has caused sickness, there is apt to follow an aversion to that food, shows how, in the region of the sensations, experiences establish associations which influence conduct. And the fact that the house in which a wife or child died, or in which a long illness was suffered, becomes so associated with painful states of mind as to be shunned, sufficiently illustrates, in the emotional region, the mode in which actions may be determined by mental connections formed in the course of life. When the circumstances of a species make certain relations between conduct and consequence habitual, the appropriately linked feelings may come to characterize the species. Either inheritances of modifications produced by habit, or more numerous survivals of individuals having nervous structures which have varied in fit ways, gradually form guiding tendencies, prompting appropriate behavior and deterring from inappropriate. The contrast between fearless birds found on islands never before visited by man, and the birds around us, which show fear of man immediately they are out of the nest, exemplifies such adaptations.

By virtue of this process there have been produced to some extent among lower creatures, and there are being further produced in man, the sentiments appropriate to social life. Aggressive actions, while they are habitually injurious to the group in which they occur, are not unfrequently injurious to the individuals committing them; since, though certain pleasures may be gained by them, they often entail pains greater than the pleasures. Conversely, conduct restrained within the required limits, calling out no antagonistic passions, favors harmonious cooperation, profits the group, and, by implication, profits the average of its individuals. Consequently, there results, other things equal, a tendency for groups formed of members having this adaptation of nature, to survive and spread.

Among the social sentiments thus evolved, one of chief importance is the sentiment of justice. Let us now consider more closely its nature.

263. Stop an animal's nostrils, and it makes frantic efforts to free its head. Tie its limbs together, and its struggles to get them at liberty are violent. Chain it by the neck or leg, and it is some time before it ceases its attempts to escape. Put it in a cage, and it long continues restless. Generalizing these instances, we see that in proportion as the restraints on actions by which life is maintained are extreme, the resistances to them are great. Conversely, the eagerness with which a bird seizes the opportunity for taking flight, and the joy of a dog when liberated, show how strong is the love of unfettered movement.

Displaying like feelings in like ways, man displays them in other and wider ways. He is irritated by invisible restraints as well as by visible ones; and as his evolution becomes higher, he is affected by circumstances and actions which in more remote ways aid or hinder the pursuit of ends. A parallel will elucidate this truth. Primitively the love of property is gratified only by possession of food and shelter, and, presently, of clothing; but afterwards it is gratified by possession of the weapons and tools which aid in obtaining these, then by possession of the raw materials that serve for making weapons and tools and for other purposes, then by possession of the coin which purchases them as well as things at large, then by possession of promises to pay exchangeable for the coin, then by a lien on a banker, registered in a passbook. That is, there comes to be pleasure in an ownership more and more abstract and more remote from material satisfactions. Similarly with the sentiment of justice. Beginning with the joy felt in ability to use the bodily powers and gain the resulting benefits, accompanied by irritation at direct interferences, this gradually responds to wider relations: being excited now by the incidents of personal bondage, now by those of political bondage, now by those of class privilege, and now by small political changes. Eventually this sentiment, sometimes so little developed in the Negro that he jeers at a liberated companion because he has no master to take care of him, becomes so much developed in the Englishman that the slightest infraction of some mode of formal procedure at a public meeting or in Parliament, which cannot intrinsically concern him, is vehemently opposed because in some distant and indirect way it may help to give possible powers to unnamed authorities who may perhaps impose unforeseen burdens or restrictions.

Clearly, then, the egoistic sentiment of justice is a subjective attribute which answers to that objective requirement constituting justice–the requirement that each adult shall receive the results of his own nature and consequent actions. For unless the faculties of all kinds have free play, these results cannot be gained or suffered, and unless there exists a sentiment which prompts maintenance of the sphere for this free play, it will be trenched upon and the free play impeded.

264. While we may thus understand how the egoistic sentiment of justice is developed, it is much less easy to understand how there is developed the altruistic sentiment of justice. On the one hand, the implication is that the altruistic sentiment of justice can come into existence only in the course of adaptation to social life. On the other hand the implication is that social life is made possible only by maintenance of those equitable relations which imply the altruistic sentiment of justice. How can these reciprocal requirements be fulfilled?

The answer is that the altruistic sentiment of justice can come into existence only by the aid of a sentiment which temporarily supplies its place, and restrains the actions prompted by pure egoism–a proaltruistic sentiment of justice, as we may call it. This has several components which we must successively glance at.

The first deterrent from aggression is one which we see among animals at large–the fear of retaliation. Among creatures of the same species the food obtained by one, or place of vantage taken possession of by it, is in some measure insured to it by the dread which most others feel of the vengeance that may follow any attempt to take it away; and among men, especially during early stages of social life, it is chiefly such dread which secures for each man free scope for his activities, and exclusive use of whatever they bring him.

A further restraint is fear of the reprobation likely to be shown by unconcerned members of the group. Though in the expulsion of a “rogue” elephant from the herd, or the slaying of a sinning member of the flock by rooks or storks, we see that even among animals individuals suffer from an adverse public opinion; yet it is scarcely probable that among animals expectation of general dislike prevents encroachment. But among mankind, “looking before and after” to a greater extent, the thought of social disgrace is usually an additional check on ill-behavior of man to man.

To these feelings, which come into play before there is any social organization, have to be added those which arise after political authority establishes itself. When a successful leader in war acquires permanent headship, and comes to have at heart the maintenance of his power, there arises in him a desire to prevent the trespasses of his people one against another; since the resulting dissensions weaken his tribe. The rights of personal vengeance and, as in feudal times, of private war, are restricted; and, simultaneously, there grow up interdicts on the acts which cause them. Dread of the penalties which follow breaches of these, is an added restraint.

Ancestor worship in general, developing, as the society develops, into special propitiation of the dead chief's ghost, and presently the dead king's ghost, gives to the injunctions he uttered during life increased sanctity; and when, with establishment of the cult, he becomes a god, his injunctions become divine commands with dreaded punishments for breaches of them.

These four kinds of fear cooperate. The dread of retaliation, the dread of social dislike, the dread of legal punishment, and the dread of divine vengeance, united in various proportions, form a body of feeling which checks the primitive tendency to pursue the objects of desire without regard to the interests of fellow men. Containing none of the altruistic sentiment of justice, properly so called, this proaltruistic sentiment of justice serves temporarily to cause respect for one another's claims, and so to make social cooperation possible.

265. Creatures which become gregarious tend to become sympathetic in degrees proportionate to their intelligences. Not, indeed, that the resulting sympathetic tendency is exclusively, or even mainly, of that kind which the words ordinarily imply; for in some there is little beyond sympathy in fear, and in others, little beyond sympathy in ferocity. All that is meant is that in gregarious creatures a feeling displayed by one is apt to arouse kindred feelings in others, and is apt to do this in proportion as others are intelligent enough to appreciate the signs of the feeling. In two chapters of the Principles of Psychology–“Sociality and Sympathy” and “Altruistic Sentiments”–I have endeavored to show how sympathy in general arises, and how there is eventually produced altruistic sympathy.

The implication is, then, that the associated state having been maintained among men by the aid of the proaltruistic sentiment of justice, there have been maintained the conditions under which the altruistic sentiment of justice itself can develop. In a permanent group there occur, generation after generation, incidents simultaneously drawing from its members manifestations of like emotions–rejoicings over victories and escapes, over prey jointly captured, over supplies of wild food discovered; as well as laments over defeats, scarcities, inclemencies, &c. And to these greater pleasures and pains felt in common by all, and so expressing themselves that each sees in others the signs of feelings like those which he has and is displaying, must be added the smaller pleasures and pains daily resulting from meals taken together, amusements, games, and from the not infrequent adverse occurrences which affect several persons at once. Thus there is fostered that sympathy which makes the altruistic sentiment of justice possible.

But the altruistic sentiment of justice is slow in assuming a high form, partly because its primary component does not become highly developed until a late phase of progress, partly because it is relatively complex, and partly because it implies a stretch of imagination not possible for low intelligences. Let us glance at each of these reasons.

Every altruistic feeling presupposes experience of the corresponding egoistic feeling. As, until pain has been felt there cannot be sympathy with pain, and as one who has no ear for music cannot enter into the pleasure which music gives to others; so, the altruistic sentiment of justice can arise only after the egoistic sentiment of justice has arisen. Hence where this has not been developed in any considerable degree, or has been repressed by a social life of an adverse kind, the altruistic sentiment of justice remains rudimentary.

The complexity of the sentiment becomes manifest on observing that it is not concerned only with concrete pleasures and pains, but is concerned mainly with certain of the circumstances under which these are obtainable or preventible. As the egoistic sentiment of justice is gratified by maintenance of those conditions which render achievement of satisfactions unimpeded, and is irritated by the breaking of those conditions, it results that the altruistic sentiment of justice requires for its excitement not only the ideas of such satisfactions but also the ideas of those conditions which are in the one case maintained and in the other case broken.

Evidently, therefore, to be capable of this sentiment in a developed form, the faculty of mental representation must be relatively great. Where the feelings with which there is to be sympathy are simple pleasures and pains, the higher gregarious animals occasionally display it: pity and generosity are from time to time felt by them as well as by human beings. But to conceive simultaneously not only the feelings produced in another, but the plexus of acts and relations involved in the production of such feelings, presupposes the putting together in thought of more elements than an inferior creature can grasp at the same time. And when we come to those most abstract forms of the sentiment of justice which are concerned with public arrangements, we see that only the higher varieties of men are capable of so conceiving the ways in which good or bad institutions and laws will eventually affect their spheres of action, as to be prompted to support or oppose them; and that only among these, therefore, is there excited, under such conditions, that sympathetic sentiment of justice which makes them defend the political interests of fellow citizens.

There is, of course, a close connection between the sentiment of justice and the social type. Predominant militancy, by the coercive form of organization it implies, alike in the fighting body and in the society which supports it, affords no scope for the egoistic sentiment of justice, but, contrariwise, perpetually tramples on it; and, at the same time, the sympathies which originate the altruistic sentiment of justice are perpetually seared by militant activities. On the other hand, in proportion as the regime of status is replaced by the regime of contract, or, in other words, as fast as voluntary cooperation which characterizes the industrial type of society. becomes more general than compulsory cooperation which characterizes the militant type of society, individual activities become less restrained, and the sentiment which rejoices in the scope for them is encouraged; while, simultaneously, the occasions for repressing the sympathies become less frequent. Hence, during warlike phases of social life the sentiment of justice retrogrades, while it advances during peaceful phases, and can reach its full development only in a permanently peaceful state.1

CHAPTER 5.

The Idea of Justice

266. While describing the sentiment of justice the way has been prepared for describing the idea of justice. Though the two are intimately connected they may be clearly distinguished.

One who has dropped his pocketbook and, turning round, finds that another who has picked it up will not surrender it, is indignant. If the goods sent home by a shopkeeper are not those he purchased, he protests against the fraud. Should his seat at a theater be usurped during a momentary absence, he feels himself ill used. Morning noises from a neighbor's poultry he complains of as grievances. And, meanwhile, he sympathizes with the anger of a friend who has been led by false statements to join a disastrous enterprise, or whose action at law has been rendered futile by a flaw in the procedure. But though, in these cases, his sense of justice is offended, he may fail to distinguish the essential trait which in each case causes the offense. He may have the sentiment of justice in full measure while his idea of justice remains vague.

This relation between sentiment and idea is a matter of course. The ways in which men trespass on one another become more numerous in their kinds, and more involved, as society grows more complex; and they must be experienced in their many forms, generation after generation, before analysis can make clear the essential distinction between legitimate acts and illegitimate acts. The idea emerges and becomes definite in the course of the experiences that action may be carried up to a certain limit without causing resentment from others, but if carried beyond that limit produces resentment. Such experiences accumulate; and gradually, along with repugnance to the acts which bring reactive pains, there arises a conception of a limit to each kind of activity up to which there is freedom to act. But since the kinds of activity are many and become increasingly various with the development of social life, it is a long time before the general nature of the limit common to all cases can be conceived.2

A further reason for this slowness of development should be recognized. Ideas as well as sentiments must, on the average, be adjusted to the social state. Hence, as war has been frequent or habitual in nearly all societies, such ideas of justice as have existed have been perpetually confused by the conflicting requirements of internal amity and external enmity.

267. Already it has been made clear that the idea of justice, or at least the human idea of justice, contains two elements. On the one hand, there is that positive element implied by each man's recognition of his claims to unimpeded activities and the benefits they bring. On the other hand, there is that negative element implied by the consciousness of limits which the presence of other men having like claims necessitates. Two opposite traits in these two components especially arrest the attention.

Inequality is the primordial idea suggested. For if the principle is that each shall receive the benefits and evils due to his own nature and consequent conduct, then, since men differ in their powers, there must be differences in the results of their conduct. Unequal amounts of benefit are implied.

Mutual limitations to men's actions suggest a contrary idea. When it is seen that if each pursues his ends regardless of his neighbor's claims, quarrels must result, there arises the consciousness of bounds which must be set to the doings of each to avoid the quarrels. Experience shows that these bounds are on the average the same for all. And the thought of spheres of action bounded by one another, which hence results, involves the conception of equality.

Unbalanced appreciations of these two factors in human justice, lead to divergent moral and social theories, which we must now glance at.

268. In some of the rudest men the appreciations are no higher than those which we see among inferior gregarious animals. Here the stronger takes what he pleases from the weaker without exciting general reprobation–as among the Dogribs; while, elsewhere, there is practiced and tacitly approved something like communism–as among the Fuegians. But where habitual war has developed political organization, the idea of inequality becomes predominant. If not among the conquered, who are made slaves, yet among the conquerors, who naturally think of that which conduces to their interest as that which ought to be, there is fostered this element in the conception of justice which implies that superiority shall have the benefits of superiority.

Though the Platonic dialogues may not be taken as measures of Greek belief, yet we may gather from them what beliefs were general. Glaucon, describing a current opinion, says:

This, as they affirm, is the origin and nature of justice: there is a mean or compromise between the best of all, which is to do and not to suffer injustice, and the worst of all, which is to suffer without the power of retaliation; and justice, being the mean between the two, is tolerated not as good, but as the lesser evil. And immediately afterwards it is said that men are only diverted into the path of justice by the force of law.

In this significant passage several things are to be noted. There is first a recognition of the fact, above indicated, that at an early stage the practice of justice is initiated by the dread of retaliation, and the conviction, suggested by experience, that on the whole it is desirable to avoid aggression and to respect the limit which compromise implies: there is no thought of intrinsic flagitiousness in aggression, but only of its impolicy. Furthers the limit to each man's actions, described as “a mean or compromise,” and respect for which is called “the path of justice,” is said to be established only “by the force of law.” Law is not considered as an expression of justice otherwise cognizable, but as itself the source of justice; and hence results the meaning of a preceding proposition, that it is just to obey the law. Thirdly. there is an implication that were it not for retaliation and legal penalties, the stronger might with propriety take advantage of the weaker. There is a half-expressed belief that superiority ought to have all the advantages which superiority can take: the idea of inequality occupies a prominent place, while the idea of equality makes no definite appearance.

What was the opinion of Plato, or rather of Socrates, on the matter is not very easy to find out. Greek ideas on many matters had not yet reached the stage of definiteness, and throughout the dialogues the thinking is hazy. Justice, which is in some places exemplified by honesty, is elsewhere the equivalent of virtue at large, and then (to quote from Jowett's summary) is regarded as “universal order or well being, first in the state, and secondly in the individual.” This last, which is the finished conclusion, implies established predominance of a ruling class and subjection of the rest. Justice consists “in each of the three classes doing the work of its own class”: carpenter, shoemaker, or what not, “doing each his own business, and not another's”; and all obeying the class whose business it is to rule.3 Thus the idea of justice is developed from the idea of inequality. Though there is some recognition of equality of positions and of claims among members of the same class, yet the regulations respecting community of wives &c. in the guardian class, have for their avowed purpose to establish, even within that class, unequal privileges for the benefit of the superior.

That the notion of justice had this general character among the Greeks, is further shown by the fact that it recurs in Aristotle. In Chapter V of his Politics, he concludes that the relation of master and slave is both advantageous and just.

But now observe that though in the Greek conception of justice there predominates the idea of inequality, while the idea of equality is inconspicuous, the inequality refers, not to the natural achievement of greater rewards by greater merits, but to the artificial apportionment of greater rewards to greater merits. It is an inequality mainly established by authority The gradations in the civil organization are of the same nature as those in the military organization. Regimentation pervades both; and the idea of justice is conformed to the traits of the social structure.

And this is the idea of justice proper to the militant type at large, as we are again shown throughout Europe in subsequent ages. It will suffice to point out that along with the different law-established positions and privileges of different ranks, there went gradations in the amounts paid in composition for crimes, according to the rank of the injured. And how completely the notion of justice was determined by the notion of rightly existing inequalities, is shown by the condemnation of serfs who escaped into the towns, and were said to have “unjustly” withdrawn themselves from the control of their lords.

Thus, as might be expected, we find that while the struggle for existence between societies is going on actively, recognition of the primary factor in justice which is common to life at large, human and subhuman, is very imperfectly qualified by recognition of the secondary factor. That which we may distinguish as the brute element in the conception is but little mitigated by the human element.

269. All movements are rhythmical, and, among others, social movements, with their accompanying doctrines. After that conception of justice in which the idea of inequality unduly predominates, comes a conception in which the idea of equality unduly predominates.

A recent example of such reactions is furnished by the ethical theory of Bentham. As is shown by the following extract from Mr. Mill's Utilitarianism (p. 91), the idea of inequality here entirely disappears:

The Greatest-Happiness Principle is a mere form of words without rational signification, unless one person's happiness, supposed equal in degree (with the proper allowance made for kind), is counted for exactly as much as another's. Those conditions being supplied, Bentham's dictum, “everybody to count for one, nobody for more than one,” might be written under the principle of utility as an explanatory commentary

Now though Bentham ridicules the taking of justice as our guide, saying that while happiness is an end intelligible to all, justice is a relatively unintelligible end, yet he tacitly asserts that his principle, “everybody to count for one, nobody for more than one,” is just; since, otherwise, he would be obliged to admit that it is unjust, and we may not suppose he would do so. Hence the implication of his doctrine is that justice means an equal apportionment of the benefits, material and immaterial, which men's activities bring. There is no recognition of the propriety of inequalities in men's shares of happiness, consequent on inequalities in their faculties or characters.

This is the theory which communism would reduce to practice. From one who knows him, I learn that Prince Krapotkin blames the English socialists because they do not propose to act out the rule popularly worded as “share and share alike.” In a recent periodical, M. de Laveleye summed up the communistic principle as being “that the individual works for the profit of the state, to which he hands over the produce of his labor for equal division among all.” In the communistic utopia described in Mr. Bellamy's Looking Backward, it is held that each “shall make the same effort,” and that if by the same effort, bodily or mental, one produces twice as much as another, he is not to be advantaged by the difference. The intellectually or physically feeble are to be quite as well off as others: the assertion being that the existing regime is one of “robbing the incapable class of their plain right in leaving them unprovided for.”

The principle of inequality is thus denied absolutely. It is assumed to be unjust that superiority of nature shall bring superiority of results, or, at any rate, superiority of material results; and as no distinction appears to be made in respect either of physical qualities or intellectual qualities or moral qualities, the implication is not that strong and weak shall fare alike, but that foolish and wise, worthy and unworthy. mean and noble, shall do the same. For if, according to this conception of justice, defects of nature, physical or intellectual, ought not to count, neither ought moral defects, since they are all primarily inherited.

And here, too, we have a deliberate abolition of that cardinal distinction between the ethics of the family and the ethics of the state, emphasized at the outset: an abolition which, as we saw, must eventuate in decay and disappearance of the species or variety in which it takes place.

270. After contemplating these divergent conceptions of justice, in which the ideas of inequality and equality almost or quite exclude one another, we are now prepared for framing a true conception of justice.

In other fields of thought it has fallen to my lot to show that the right view is obtained by coordinating the antagonistic wrong views. Thus, the association theory of intellect is harmonized with the transcendental theory on perceiving that when, to the effects of individual experiences, are added the inherited effects of experiences received by all ancestors, the two views become one. So, too, when the molding of feelings into harmony with requirements, generation after generation, is recognized as causing an adapted moral nature, there results a reconciliation of the expediency theory of morals with the intuitional theory. And here we see that a like mutual correction occurs with this more special component of ethics now before us.

For if each of these opposite conceptions of justice is accepted as true in part, and then supplemented by the other, there results that conception of justice which arises on contemplating the laws of life as carried on in the social state. The equality concerns the mutually limited spheres of action which must be maintained if associated men are to cooperate harmoniously. The inequality concerns the results which each may achieve by carrying on his actions within the implied limits. No incongruity exists when the ideas of equality and inequality are applied the one to the bounds and the other to the benefits. Contrariwise, the two may be, and must be, simultaneously asserted.

Other injunctions which ethics has to utter do not here concern us. There are the self-imposed requirements and limitations of private conduct, forming that large division of ethics treated of in Part III; and there are the demands and restraints included under “Negative Beneficence” and “Positive Beneficence,” to be hereafter treated of, which are at once self-imposed and in a measure imposed by public opinion. But here we have to do only with those claims and those limits which have to be maintained as conditions to harmonious cooperation, and which alone are to be enforced by society in its corporate capacity.

271. Any considerable acceptance of so definite an idea of justice is not to be expected. It is an idea appropriate to an ultimate state, and can be but partially entertained during transitional states; for the prevailing ideas must, on the average, be congruous with existing institutions and activities.

The two essentially different types of social organization, militant and industrial, based respectively on status and on contract, have, as we have above seen, feelings and beliefs severally adjusted to them; and the mixed feelings and beliefs appropriate to intermediate types, have continually to change according to the ratio between the one and the other. As I have elsewhere shown,4 during the thirty–or rather forty–years' peace, and consequent weakening of the militant organization, the idea of justice became clearer: coercive regulations were relaxed and each man left more free to make the best of himself. But since then, the redevelopment of militancy has caused reversal of these changes; and, along with nominal increases of freedom, actual diminutions of freedom have resulted from multiplied restrictions and exactions. The spirit of regimentation proper to the militant type, has been spreading throughout the administration of civil life. An army of workers with appointed tasks and apportioned shares of products, which socialism, knowingly or unknowingly, aims at, shows in civil life the same characters as an army of soldiers with prescribed duties and fixed rations shows in military life; and every act of Parliament which takes money from the individual for public purposes and gives him public benefits, tends to assimilate the two. Germany best shows this kinship. There, where militancy is most pronounced, and where the regulation of citizens is most elaborate, socialism is most highly developed; and from the head of the German military system has now come the proposal of regimental regulations for the working classes throughout Europe.

Sympathy which, a generation ago, was taking the shape of justice, is relapsing into the shape of generosity; and the generosity is exercised by inflicting injustice. Daily legislation betrays little anxiety that each shall have that which belongs to him, but great anxiety that he shall have that which belongs to somebody else. For while no energy is expended in so reforming our judicial administration that everyone may obtain and enjoy all he has earned, great energy is shown in providing for him and others benefits which they have not earned. Along with that miserable laissez-faire which calmly looks on while men ruin themselves in trying to enforce by law their equitable claims, there goes activity in supplying them, at other men's cost, with gratis novel-reading!

CHAPTER 6.

The Formula of Justice

272. After tracing up the evolution of justice in its simple form, considered objectively as a condition to the maintenance of life; after seeing how justice as so considered becomes qualified by a new factor when the life is gregarious, more especially in the human race; and after observing the corresponding subjective products–the sentiment of justice and the idea of justice–arising from converse with this condition; we are now prepared for giving to the conclusion reached a definite form. We have simply to find a precise expression for the compromise described in the last chapter.

The formula has to unite a positive element with a negative element. It must be positive in so far as it asserts for each that, since he is to receive and suffer the good and evil results of his actions, he must be allowed to act. And it must be negative in so far as, by asserting this of everyone, it implies that each can be allowed to act only under the restraint imposed by the presence of others having like claims to act. Evidently the positive element is that which expresses a prerequisite to life in general, and the negative element is that which qualifies this prerequisite in the way required when, instead of one life carried on alone, there are many lives carried on together.

Hence, that which we have to express in a precise way, is the liberty of each limited only by the like liberties of all. This we do by saying: Every man is free to do that which he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man.

273. A possible misapprehension must be guarded against. There are acts of aggression which the formula is presumably intended to exclude, which apparently it does not exclude. It may be said that if A strikes B, then, so long as B is not debarred from striking A in return, no greater freedom is claimed by the one than by the other; or it may be said that if A has trespassed on B's property, the requirement of the formula has not been broken so long as B can trespass on A's property. Such interpretations, however, mistake the essential meaning of the formula, which we at once see if we refer back to its origin.

For the truth to be expressed is that each in carrying on the actions which constitute his life for the time being, and conduce to the subsequent maintenance of his life, shall not be impeded further than by the carrying on of those kindred actions which maintain the lives of others. It does not countenance a superfluous interference with another's life, committed on the ground that an equal interference may balance it. Such a rendering of the formula is one which implies greater deductions from the lives of each and all than the associated state necessarily entails; and this is obviously a perversion of its meaning.

If we bear in mind that though not the immediate end, the greatest sum of happiness is the remote end, we see clearly that the sphere within which each may pursue happiness has a limit, on the other side of which lie the similarly limited spheres of action of his neighbors; and that he may not intrude on his neighbor's spheres on condition that they may intrude on his. Instead of justifying aggression and counteraggression, the intention of the formula is to fix a bound which may not be exceeded on either side.

274. And here, on this misapprehension and this rectification, an instructive comment is yielded by the facts of social progress. For they show that, in so far as justice is concerned, there has been an advance from the incorrect interpretation to the correct interpretation.

In early stages we see habitual aggression and counter-aggression: now between societies and now between individuals. Neighboring tribes fight about the limits to their territories, trespassing first on one side and then on the other; and further fights are entailed by the requirement that mortality suffered shall be followed by mortality inflicted. In such acts of revenge and re-revenge there is displayed a vague recognition of equality of claims. This tends towards recognition of definite limits, alike in respect of territory and in respect of bloodshed; so that in some cases a balance is maintained between the numbers of deaths on either side.

Along with this growing conception of intertribal justice goes a growing conception of justice among members of each tribe. At first it is the fear of retaliation which causes such respect for one another's persons and possessions as exists. The idea of justice is that of a balancing of injuries–“An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” This remains the idea during early stages of civilization. After justice, as so conceived, ceases to be enforced by the aggrieved person himself, it is this which he asks to have enforced by the constituted authority. The cry to the ruler for justice is the cry for punishment–for the infliction of an injury at least as great as the injury suffered, or, otherwise, for a compensation equivalent to the loss. Thus the equality of claims is but tacitly asserted in the demand to have rectified, as far as may be, the breaches of equality.

How there tends gradually to emerge from this crude conception of justice the finished conception of justice, it seems scarcely needful to explain. The true idea is generated by experience of the evils which accompany the false idea. Naturally, the perception of the right restraints on conduct becomes clearer as respect for these restraints is forced on men, and so rendered more habitual and more general. Men's incursions into one another's spheres constitute a kind of oscillation, which, violent at the outset, becomes gradually less with the progress towards a relatively peaceful state of society. As the oscillations decrease there is an approach to equilibrium; and along with this approach to equilibrium comes approach to a definite theory of equilibrium.

Thus that primitive idea of justice in which aggression is to be balanced by counteraggression, fades from thought as fast as it disappears from practice; and there comes the idea of justice here formulated, in which are recognized such limitations of conduct as exclude aggressions altogether.

NOTE. For the views of Kant concerning the ultimate principle of right, see Appendix A.

CHAPTER 7.

The Authority of This Formula

275. Before going further we must contemplate this formula under all its aspects, for the purpose of seeing what may be said against it as well as what may be said in its favor.

By those who have been brought up in the reigning school of politics and morals, nothing less than scorn is shown for every doctrine which implies restraint on the doings of immediate expediency or what appears to be such. Along with avowed contempt for “abstract principles” and generalizations, there goes unlimited faith in a motley assemblage of nominees of caucuses, ruled by ignorant and fanatical wire pullers; and it is thought intolerable that its judgments should be in any way subordinated by deductions from ethical truths.

Strangely enough we find in the world of science, too, this approval of political empiricism and disbelief in any other guidance. Though it is a trait of the scientific mind to recognize causation as universal, and though this involves a tacit admission that causation holds throughout the actions of incorporated men, this admission remains a dead letter. Notwithstanding the obvious fact that if there is no causation in public affairs one course must be as good as another; and notwithstanding the obvious fact that to repudiate this implication is to say that some cause determines the goodness or badness of this or that policy; no effort is made to identify the causation. Contrariwise, there is ridicule of those who attempt to find a definite expression for the fundamental principle of harmonious social order. The differences among their views are emphasized, rather than the traits which their views have in common; just as, by adherents of the current creed, the differences among men of science are emphasized, instead of their essential agreements.

Manifestly, then, before proceeding we must deal with the more important objections urged against the formula reached in the last chapter.

276. Every kind of evolution is from the indefinite to the definite; and one of the implications is that a distinct conception of justice can have arisen but gradually. Already the advance towards a practical recognition of justice has been shown to imply a corresponding advance towards theoretical recognition of it. It will be desirable here to observe more closely this growth of the consciousness that the activities carried on for self-conservation by each, are to be restrained by the like activities of all.

And first let us note a fact which might have been fitly included at the close of the last chapter–the fact that where men are subject to the discipline of a peaceful social life only, uninterfered with by the discipline which intersocial antagonisms entail, they quickly develop this consciousness. Entirely pacific tribes, uncivilized in the common sense of the words as some of them are, show a perception of that which constitutes equity, far clearer than the perception displayed by civilized peoples, among whom the habits of industrial life are qualified more or less largely by the habits of militant life. The amiable and conscientious Lepcha, who, while he does not desire to be killed himself, refuses absolutely to assist in killing others; the Hos, full of social virtues, who may be driven almost to suicide by the suspicion that he has committed a theft; the lowly Wood-Veddah, who can scarcely conceive it possible that one man should willingly hurt another, or take that which does not belong to him; these and sundry others show that though there is not intelligence enough to frame a conception of the fundamental social law, there is yet a strong sentiment responding to this law, and an understanding of its special applications. Where the conditions are such as do not require that respect for the claims of fellow tribesmen shall go along with frequent tramplings on the claims of men outside the tribe, there grow up simultaneously in each individual a regard for his own claims and a regard for the claims of other individuals.

It is only where the ethics of amity are entangled with the ethics of enmity, that thoughts about conduct are confused by the necessities of compromise. The habit of aggression outside the society is at variance with the habit of nonaggression inside the society, and at variance with recognition of the law implied by nonaggression. A people which gives to its soldiers the euphemistic title “defenders of their country,” and then exclusively uses them as invaders of other countries–a people which so far appreciates the value of life that within its bounds it forbids prizefights, but beyond its bounds frequently takes scores of lives to avenge one life–a people which at home cannot tolerate the thought that inferiority shall bear the self-inflicted evils of inferiority, but abroad has no compunction in using bullet and bayonet to whatever extent is needful for conquest of the uncivilized, arguing that the inferior should be replaced by the superior; such a people must think crookedly about the ultimate principles of right and wrong. Now enunciating the code appropriate to its internal policy and now the code appropriate to its external policy, it cannot entertain a consistent set of ethical ideas. All through the course of that conflict of races which, by peopling the earth with the strongest, has been a preliminary to high civilization, there have gone on these incongruous activities necessitating incongruous sets of beliefs, and making a congruous set of beliefs inadmissible.

Nevertheless, where the conditions have allowed, the conception of justice has slowly evolved to some extent, and found for itself approximately true expressions. In the Hebrew commandments we see interdicts which, while they do not overtly recognize the positive element in justice, affirm in detail its negative element–specify limits to actions, and, by prescribing these limits for all Hebrews, tacitly assert that life, property, good name, &c., must be respected in one as in another. In a form which makes no distinction between generosity and justice, the Christian maxim “Do unto others as ye would that others should do unto you” vaguely implies the equality of men's claims–implies it, indeed, in too sweeping a manner, since it recognizes no reason for inequality in the shares of good respectively appropriate to men: there is in it no direct recognition of any claim which each has to the results of his own activities, but only an implied recognition of such claims in the persons of others, and by implication a prescribing of limits. Taking no note of intermediate forms of the conception, we may instance among modern forms the one which it took in the mind of Kant. His rule, “Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law,” is, indeed, an allotropic form of the Christian rule. The suggestion that every other man must be imagined to act after a manner similar to the manner proposed, joined with the tacit implication that if suffering would be caused, the act should not be performed (Kant is classed as an antiutilitarian!), indirectly assumes that the welfares of other men are to be considered as severally of like values with the welfare of the actor–an assumption which, while it covers the requirements of justice, covers much more.

But now leaving these indications of the beliefs of those who have approached the question from the religious side and from the ethical side, let us consider the beliefs of those who have approached it from the legal side.

277. Of course, when jurists set forth first principles, or appeal to them, they have in mind the bases of justice, whether they use the word justice or not; since systems of justice, considered in general or in detail, form the subject matters of their works. This premised, let us observe the doctrines from time to time enunciated.

Sir Henry Maine, speaking of certain dangers which threatened the development of Roman law, says:

But at any rate they had adequate protection in their theory of Natural Law. For the Natural Law of the jurisconsults was distinctly conceived by them as a system which ought gradually to absorb civil laws, without superseding them so long as they remained unrepealed. . . . The value and serviceableness of the conception arose from its keeping before the mental vision a type of perfect law, and from its inspiring the hope of an indefinite approximation to it.

[Ancient Law, pp. 76–77, 3d ed.]

In the spirit of these Roman lawyers, one of our early judges of high repute, Chief Justice Hobart, uttered the emphatic assertion–"Even an Act of Parliament made against natural equity. as to make a man Judge in his own case, is void in itself, for jura nature sunt immutabilia, and they are leges legum” (Hobart's Reports, London, 1641, p. 120). So said a great authority of later date. Dominated by a creed which taught that natural things are supernaturally ordained, Blackstone wrote:

This law of nature being coeval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. . . . no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this; and such of them as are valid derive all their force and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original.

[Chitty's Blackstone, vol. I., pp. 37–38.]

Of like character is another verdict, given by one who treated of legislation from a philosophical point of view. Sir James Mackintosh defines a law of nature as being

a supreme, invariable, and uncontrollable rule of conduct to all men. . . It is “the law of nature,” because its general precepts are essentially adapted to promote the happiness of man . . . because it is discoverable by natural reason, and suitable to our natural constitution; and because its fitness and wisdom are founded on the general nature of human beings, and not on any of those temporary and accidental situations in which they may be placed.

[Mackintosh's Miscellaneous Works, vol. I., p. 346.]

Even the despotically minded Austin, idolized by the lawyers of our days as having elaborated a theory of unlimited legislative authority, is obliged to confess that the ultimate justification for the governmental absolutism he defends, is ethical. Behind the authority, monarchical, oligarchic, or parliamentary, which enacts laws represented as supreme, there is at length recognized an authority to which it is subordinate–an authority. therefore, which is not derived from human law, but is above human law–an authority which is by implication ascribed, if not to divine enactment, then to the nature of things.

Paying some respect to these dicta (to which I may add that of the German jurists with their Naturrecht) does not imply unreasoning credulity. We may reasonably suspect that, however much they may be in form open to criticism, they are true in essence.

278. “But these are a priori beliefs,” will be the contemptuous comment of many. “They all exemplify that vicious mode of philosophizing which consists in evolving truths out of the depths of one's own consciousness,” will be said by those who hold that general truths can be reached only by conscious induction. Curiously illustrating the law that all movement is rhythmical, the absolute faith of past times in a priori reasoning, has given place to absolute disbelief; and now nothing is to be accepted unless it is reached a posteriori. Any one who contemplates the average sweep of human progress, may feel tolerably certain that this violent reaction will be followed by a re-reaction; and he may infer that both of these antithetical modes of reasoning, while they have their abuses, have also their uses.

Whence come a priori beliefs–how happen they to arise? I do not of course refer to beliefs peculiar to particular persons, which may be results of intellectual perversions. I refer to those which are general, if not universal–beliefs which all, or nearly all, do not profess to base on evidence, and yet which they hold to be certain. The origin of such beliefs is either natural or supernatural. If supernatural, then unless, by believers in a devil, they are regarded as diabolically insinuated into men to mislead them, they must be regarded as divinely implanted for purposes of guidance, and therefore to be trusted. If, not satisfied with an alleged supernatural derivation, we ask for a natural derivation, then our conclusion must be that these modes of thought are determined by converse with the relations of things. One who adheres to the current creed with its good and evil agents, is not without a feasible reason for denying the value of a priori beliefs; but one who accepts the doctrine of evolution is obliged, if he is consistent, to admit that a priori beliefs entertained by men at large, must have arisen, if not from the experiences of each individual, then from the experiences of the race. When, to take a geometrical illustration, it is affirmed that two straight lines cannot inclose a space; and when it is admitted, as it must be, that this truth cannot be established a posteriori, since not in one case, still less in many cases, can lines be pursued out into infinity for the purpose of observing what happens to the space between them; then the inevitable admission must be that men's experiences of straight lines (or rather, having regard to primitive times, let us say objects approximately straight) have been such as to make impossible the conception of space as inclosed by two straight lines–have been such as to make it imperative to think of the lines as bending before the space can be inclosed. Unquestionably, on the evolution hypothesis, this fixed intuition must have been established by that intercourse with things which, throughout an enormous past, has, directly or indirectly, determined the organization of the nervous system and certain resulting necessities of thought; and the a priori beliefs determined by these necessities differ from a posteriori beliefs simply in this, that they are products of the experiences of innumerable successive individuals instead of the experiences of a single individual.

If, then, from the evolution point of view, this is undoubtedly so with those simple cognitions which concern space, time, and number, must we not infer that it is so, in large measure, with those more complex cognitions which concern human relations? I say “in large measure”; partly because the experiences are in this case far more involved and superficially varied, and cannot have produced anything like such definite effects on the nervous organization; and partly because, instead of reaching back through an immeasurable series of ancestral beings, they reach back through a part of the human race only. For these experiences, hardly traceable during early stages, become marked and coherent only where amicable social cooperation, forms a considerable factor in social life. Hence these cognitions must be comparatively indefinite.

The qualification to be therefore made is that these ethical intuitions, far more than the mathematical intuitions, have to be subjected to methodic criticism. Even the judgments of immediate perception respecting straight lines, curves, angles, and so forth, have to be tested in ways devised by conscious reason: one line is perceived to be perpendicular to another with approximate truth, but complete perpendicularity can be ascertained only by the aid of a geometrical theorem. Evidently, then, the relatively vague internal perceptions which men have of right human relations, are not to be accepted without deliberate comparisons, rigorous cross-examinations, and careful testings of all kinds: a conclusion made obvious by the numerous minor disagreements which accompany the major agreement.

Thus even had the foregoing dicta, and along with them the law of equal freedom as recently formulated, no other than a priori derivations (and this is far from being the fact) it would still be rational to regard them as adumbrations of a truth, if not literally true.

279. But now mark that those who, in this case, urge against a system of thought the reproach that it sets out with an a priori intuition, may have the reproach hurled back upon them with more than equal force.

Alike in philosophy, in politics, and in science, we may see that the inductive school has been carried by its violent reaction against the deductive school to the extreme of assuming that conscious induction suffices for all purposes, and that there is no need to take anything for granted. Though giving proof of an alleged truth consists in showing that it is included in some wider established truth, and though, if this wider truth be questioned, the process is repeated by demonstrating that a still wider truth includes it; yet it is tacitly assumed that this process may go on forever without reaching a widest truth, which cannot be included in any other, and therefore cannot be proved. And the result of making this unthinking assumption is the building up of theories which, if they have not a priori beliefs as their bases, have no bases at all. This we shall find to be the case with the utilitarian systems of ethics and politics.5

For what is the ultimate meaning of expediency? When it is proposed to guide ourselves empirically, towards what are we to guide ourselves? If our course must always be determined by the merits of the case, by what are the merits to be judged? “By conduciveness to the welfare of society, or the good of the community,” will be the answer. It will not be replied that the merit to be estimated means increase of misery; it will not be replied that it means increase of a state of indifference, sensational and emotional; and it must therefore be replied that it means increase of happiness. By implication, if not avowedly. greatest happiness is the thing to be achieved by public action, or private action, or both. But now whence comes this postulate? Is it an inductive truth? Then where and by whom has the induction been drawn? Is it a truth of experience derived from careful observations? Then what are the observations, and when was there generalized that vast mass of them on which all politics and morals should be built? Not only are there no such experiences, no such observations, no such induction, but it is impossible that any should be assigned. Even were the intuition universal, whi