justice of the absolute character that we have declared to be impossible. If, as a result of such examination, we should discover that no one of them can be successfully defended as absolutely valid, i.e. as valid under all conceivable circumstances and conditions, then truly we shall feel that there has been afforded substantial support for the position which we have already assumed upon this point. For if, after the expenditure of all the intellectual effort that has been made in the past by the wisest men of their times to ascertain such rules, no laws of justice have been discovered which may be universally and rigidly applied without leading to undesirable and unjust results, certainly a presumptive proof is offered that no such laws can be framed. And this will give us a confidence in assuming that our general reasoning has not been vitiated by any important error.

Is this, however, we are forced to ask, the most definite formulation of which the idea of justice is susceptible? By the side of those ethical systems which have claimed to lay down for our guidance concrete rules of conduct, or at least definite criteria of the goodness or badness of different modes of conduct, it does certainly seem unsatisfactory to be informed that no definite rules of absolute validity can be laid down; that only the general advice can be given to seek the nearest possible realization of the highest possible personal perfection. Our personal and social necessities compel us to ask, Can we not rationally deduce some guiding principles of conduct,

some definite maxims which will enable us to test the justice of social institutions and forces, and which will afford us at least the clews for determining the privileges and immunities which an individual may justly claim from society? If our inquiries are necessarily to end in a general non possumus, what, we are tempted to ask, is the value of an attempt to seek practical guidance in the ethical field? It is the positive results we most desire, and to what positive results can such an inquiry lead?

The positive results will be these. In the first place, in demonstrating the impossibility of framing absolute rules of justice, the necessity will be emphasized of bringing each of our acts to the bar of reason, and of determining in each case, not simply its formal accordance or non-accordance with some previously accepted rule of conduct, but whether, as a matter of fact, both the ethical motive which prompts its performance is a proper one, and its ultimate as well as proximate results will be such as will tend to advance the realization of the highest good which our reason has been able to suggest. With no thumb rules to guide us, we will be thus taught that what is right and what is wrong for us as members of a society can be determined only after we have ascertained all the circumstances which have led to a given state of affairs, as well as the conditions by which a given line of conduct is to be influenced in the future. This will mean that at least a certain amount of study of actual social conditions

is imperative upon every one, and especially upon those who would seek to teach or guide others. The study of the social sciences will thus be shown to be, as it were, a propedeutic to the science of right living.

Secondly, the impossibility of formulating absolute rules of practical morality will not prevent us from discovering and stating those general considerations which an intelligent acquaintance with the social conditions of any one time or place suggests as having a bearing upon concrete lines of conduct. Ethics as an art is not bound by the limitations which surround it as a science or philosophy. As a science or philosophy any body of knowledge, in order to be at all valuable, must be absolute, certain. As an art, however, any information is of value. Thus, after a careful examination of all the qualifying circumstances in a given case, we may state for the guidance of others those rules of right which it seems to us will, upon the whole, produce the greatest aggregate of justice. In this way we shall be able to justify the existence of a positive law and to advocate its operation under existing conditions because we think its effects as a whole are for good. At the same time we may fully recognize that at times the operation of the law will be unjust, and clearly see that under other conditions a more nearly perfect rule might be applied.

Finally, it may be pointed out that, though our examination leads to a declaration that there cannot be definitely formulated any absolutely valid rules

of justice, it is of great importance that we should demonstrate this fact, for by so doing we deprive dangerous revolutionary and socialistic schemes of the ethical support that is claimed for them.

CHAPTER III

EQUALITY

THE idea of desert implies that of impartiality. Impartiality, it should be noted, is distinct from that of equality. It requires merely that where favor is shown, some sound reason should exist for doing so. As Mill says, "Impartiality as an obligation of justice may be said to mean being exclusively influenced by considerations which it is supposed ought to influence the particular case in hand, and resisting the solicitation of any motives which prompt to conduct different from what these considerations would dictate." The exclusion of preferences based on irrelevant considerations does, indeed, often lead to an equality of treatment, but this is an accidental result, not a necessary consequence. Therefore, to repeat, in admitting the idea of impartiality as an essential element in the idea of justice we are not committed to any doctrine of equality.

1

At first thought it might seem that a rigid application of this doctrine of impartiality would require us to stigmatize as unjust all preferences based upon mere affection, that is, upon feelings of friendliness or love which are not wholly predicated upon a conscious estimate of worth in the one for whom the friendli 1 Utilitarianism, Chapter V.