JUSTICE, one of the cardinal virtues of the ancients, and the name for a principal department of social and moral duty in all ages. Practically, justice is considered to be clear and definite; but theoretically, there have been great disputes as to its ultimate analysis and the source of its binding quality. It has been maintained very generally that both the perception of what is just and unjust, and the powerful sentiment infavor of the one, and in opposition to the other. are instincts of our nature, or make a part of that comprehensive instinct termed conscience, or the moral sense. On the other hand, it has been held that utility, in other words, the general interests of mankind at large, is what determines justice, and that the sentiment enforcing it grows out of a regard to those interests.
• The supposed instinctive origin of the sense of justice is encumbered with all the objections that attend the hypothesis of innate notions generally, so powerfully set forth by Locke in his Essay on the Understanding (see ETHICS). But neither is the other view free from serious difficulties, of which the greatest is the universally felt contrast between the just and the expedient, or the simply useful. We are frequently called upon to sacrifice expediency to justice, which would seem to imply an obligation higher than the interests of mankind. Fiat justitia runt emlum—" Let justice be done, although the universe should collapse." Whence arises this paramount obligation? If we inquire into the nature of justice by examining the particulars coming under it, we find such instances as the following: It is unjust to deprive a man of his personal liberty, his property, or any,othcr thing belonging to him by law; justice, therefore, requires us to respect each one's equal rights. Sometimes, however, we call the law itself unjust, in which ease we sympathiu even with disobedience to it. It is then sup posed that there is some higher law that should have preference—as, for example, the morel law. Thus, it is conceived by most men at the present day to be unjust to hold our fellow-creatures in slavery. Again, it is considered unjust to break fat& with any one; in other words, promises and engagements must be fulfilled in order to do justice. It is unjust to show partiality in cases where all are equally entitled to favors. futita-r tiality in public tribunals is of the very essence of justice. Nearly the same idea is expressed by the notion of equality. In all these eases there are some definite individuals —one or more—that are considered to be possessed of a right, and to be wronged if that right is not fulfilled. Herein lies the difference between justice and benevolence or gen erosity, this last being the mere overflowing of our disinterested fellow-feeling, which no one can claim as a right, and for whose neglect we are not punished.
These particulars, which are among the most marked instances of the property in question, do not suggest any qualities present in all just actions, and absent in the oppo site, excepting the existence of a so-called right on the part of somebody, and also the sentiment which demands the punishment of those that violate those rights. We are no nearer the solution of the original question, which is, why should these rights be either detertnined or enforced on any other ground than expediency, or the well-being of man kind? It is admitted oh all hands that the just and the expedient concur in the long run, but yet people demur to DAtik,Aig expediency the test of justice. Probably there is something peculiar in the application of the term "expediency," which is the cause of the apparent paradox whereby the two qualities are made the same, and yet not the same.
This is really the case. Of the social regulations that affect the well-being of man kind, there are two widely different classes. In the first place, there arc the interests of SECURITY, or those requisites without which human society could not be maintained. Respect for liberty, life, and property, and the performance of engagements, arc essen tial to the very existence oh human beings in society: if these cannot be enforced, if offenders in these points were to escape with impunity, disorganization and ruin would be the inevitable consequences. The strength of the sentiment that injustice calls forth is therefore not a matter of surprise; existence is at stake, and whatever be the force of our impulse of self-preservation, and our desire of the preservation of our fellow-beings, the same will be the measure of our repugnance to the acts that endanger both the one and the other. Compare these interests with another class of things; also for the good
of society, as, for example, the promotion of trade, manufactures, or science, all which are very advantageous to mankind, but not absolutely essential to our existence. They at most express the difference between two grades of happiness, not the difference between existence and annihilation. The contrast between the just and the expedient may now he apparent; both relate to the welfare of mankind; hut the one is concerned with being, the other with to use a favorite distinction of Oliver Cromwell's. The one is so immeasurably superior in point of urgency to the other, as to account for the very different degrees of our attachment to the two interests. The superior claims of justice to generosity flow from the same considerations; in fact, the argument is an identical one. We can live without generosity, or with some very small share of it; a thoroughly selfish community, if not also very short-sighted as well, might exist; but a community where justice was nowhere observed, could not exist. Still, the grounds of justice are and can he no other than general utility. "If," says Mr. John Stuart Mill, " that expression does not seem to convey a sufficient feeling of the strength of the obli gation, nor to account for the peculiar energy of the sentiment, it is because of the extra ordinarily important and impressive kind of utility which is concerned. The interest involved is that of security, to every one's feelings, the most vital of all interests. All other earthly benefits arc needed by one person, not needed by another; and many of them can, if necessary, be cheerfully foregone, or replaced by something else; but secu rity no human being can possibly do without; on it we depend for all our immunity from evil, and for the whole value of all, every good beyond the passing moment, since nothing but the gratification of the instant could be of any worth to us, if we could be deprived of everything the next instant by whoever was momentarily stronger than our selves. Now, this most indispensable of all necessaries, after physical nutriment. can not be had unless the machinery for providing it is kept tmintermittedly in active play. Our notion, therefore, of the claim we have on our fellow-creatures to join in making safe for us the very groundwork of our existence, gathers feelings around it so much more intense than those concerned in any of the more common cases of utility, that the difference in degree becomes a real difference in kind. The claim assumes that charac ter of absoluteness, that apparent infinity, and incommensurability with all other Con sidenutiuns, which constitute the distinction between right and wrong, and that of ordinary expediency and inexpediency. The feelings concerned are so powerful. and we count so positively on finding a responsive feeling in others (all being alike interested), that ought and short/d grow into must, add recognized indispensability becomes a moral neces sity, analogous to physical, and often not inferior to it in binding rianism." If there were such a thing as intuitive, eternal, and immutable justice, independent of all the concerns of this world, and paramount over the highest interests of mankind, it ought to be something clear and unambiguous. the same in all ages and nations, being revealed to the human mind without any reference to men's outward circumstances.
But, not to repeat the arguments that refute this notion as respects morality in general (see Mines), it may easily be seen that as to justice in particular there is a very great disagreement among mankind in everything except the first essentials of social ,security —namely, the respect for legal rights, the keeping faith, and the like. These things men in all ages have recognized as a part of justice; but in the things less essential to the common safety of mankind, where notions of just and unjust are still admitted and pleaded, there is auything but unanimity of opinion; nay, what is considered just in one country and time, is considered unjust in other countries or other times. Primo geniture is one example; slavery is another.