JUSTICE, Legal, a term used in two senses, one of which makes it equivalent to the justice meted out by the administration of the law, and the other of which considers it as the equivalent of the moral right in a question at issue, irrespective of the attitude taken by the law itself or its administrators. A decision may be, and sometimes is, legally correct, but morally unjust In this latter sense there is a survival of the classical idea of justice personified as a cardinal virtue. Legal justice, in adjudging a case, is required to take into consideration all the facts and circumstances in the case and their hearing upon one another and upon the in dividuals and rights and other matters con cerned in the legal decision or decree. All this must be done in conformity with the law and its particular bearing on the case. The object of the law is to do justice to the individual while protecting the community as a whole. Through its inflexibility the law may occasion ally work a hardship upon the individual. This is because it is finite and the ever-changing con ditions of humanity are infinite. The tendency of the whole body of the taw is gradually to provide a fuller and freer administration of justice to the members of all classes of society.
But one of the troubles in the administration of strict legal justice is the fact that the various parts and sects of society have, more especially in the past, had a tendency to be notoriously unjust to one another. The upper classes have exploited the ignorance and impotence of the lower classes. In modern times men with vast capital at their command have been able to secure legal decisions that were not conducive to the general good of the community and which worked hardships on individuals. Under the shadow of the law powerful financial concerns have driven weaker ones to the wall and made their possessions their own in as joyfully a freebooter's way as the barons of the Middle Ages gathered to themselves, by the sovereign right of might, the possessions of their neigh bor, including his men-servants and his maid servants. Legal justice aims at administering right to all; but the imperfection of its ma chinery makes the attainment of these aims not always possible. The law has within in itself the power to remedy the evils inherent in itself. This makes possible the continuous improve ment in the administration of justice. See