performed by a single agent than by the several efforts, however harmonious, of private individuals.

By way of conclusion of this long inquiry, then, it may be stated that we have reached a position which sustains that portion of the theory of the socialist which justifies the extension of state activities in any conceivable direction where it can be shown that, as a matter of fact, political control will be followed by beneficent results. At the same time, this does not commit us to the advocacy of social control in any given case. An estimate of all the considerations involved may indeed easily lead us to advise the reduction of state duties to a minimum below that now practised in any of our civilized States. In truth, so far as the reasoning that has gone before is concerned, the tendency has been to emphasize the possibilities, both for race and individual progress, that are wrapt up in the competitive principle.

CHAPTER X

PUNITIVE JUSTICE

THUS far in our work we have been examining canons of justice as applicable to the distribution of rewards. We turn now to the questions of right involved in the apportionment of penalties or punishments.

Of the Distinction between Corrective and Distributive Justice. Since Aristotle's time it has been common to distinguish between distributive and corrective justice. In his Nicomachean Ethics the Stagirite says: "Of particular justice, and of the particular just which is according to it, one species is that which is concerned in the distribution of honor, or of wealth, or of any of those things which can possibly be distributed among the members of a political community, for in these cases it is possible that one person, as compared with another, should have an unequal or an equal share; the other is that which is corrective in transactions between man and man. And of these there are two divisions, for some transactions are voluntary [i.e. we take it, voluntary as to both or all parties concerned] and others involuntary [as to one of the parties]; the voluntary are such as follow: selling, buying, 1 Book V, Chapter II, Bohn's edition.

lending, pledging transactions, borrowing, depositing of trusts, hiring; and they are so called because the origin of such transactions is voluntary. Of involuntary transactions, some are secret, as theft, adultery, poisoning, pandering, enticing away of slaves, assassination, false witness; others accompanied with violence, as assault, imprisonment, death, robbery, mutilation, evil-speaking, contumelious language." In the next chapter, speaking of distributive justice, Aristotle says, "If the persons are unequal, they will not have equal things. . This is clear from the expression according to worth'; for in distributions all agree that justice ought to be according to some standard of worth, yet all do not make that standard the same; for those who are inclined to democracy consider liberty as the standard; those who are inclined to oligarchy, wealth; others, nobility of birth; and those who are inclined to aristocracy, virtue. Justice is therefore something proportionate." In Chapter IV, speaking of corrective justice, he says: "But the other one [form of justice] is the corrective, and its province is all transactions, as well voluntary as involuntary. But this justice has a different form from the preceding; for that which is distributive of common property is always according to the proportion before mentioned. For if the distribution be of common property, it will be made according to the proportion which the original contributions bear to each other; and the unjust which is opposed to this just is contrary to the proportionate. But the just which exists in transactions is

something equal, and the unjust is something un equal, but not according to geometrical but arithmetical proportion; for it matters not whether a good man has robbed a bad man, or a bad man a good man, nor whether a good or a bad man has committed adultery; the law looks to the difference of the hurt alone, and treats the persons, if one commits and the other suffers injury, as equal, and also if one has done and the other suffered hurt. So the judge endeavors to make this unjust, which is unequal, equal; for when one man is struck and the other strikes, or even when one kills and the other dies, the suffering and the doing are divided into unequal parts; but then he endeavors by means of punishment to equalize them by taking somewhat away from the gain."

According to our views, the above distinction between corrective and distributive justice is not a proper one, all justice, from its very nature, being distributive. That is to say, justice is ever a matter of relative or respective desert as between two or more individuals, or between individuals and the societies of which they are members. Strictly speaking, therefore, the phrase "distributive justice," which we have so often employed, is redundant. We have, however, believed that a concession to popular speech in this respect would add clearness to our thought.

Aristotle's description, so far as it relates to that equality of consideration which suitors, irrespective

1 For meaning of this distinction, see Nicomachean Ethics, Book V, Chapter III.

of their worths, may claim from the administrators of the law, is a correct one. In civil wrongs it is proper to say that the action of the law has for its essential purpose the securing as far as possible the status quo ante, that is, the putting of the parties into that position in which they would have been had the wrong not been committed. But, after all, in so doing the courts are not determining and applying principles of justice except in the formal legal sense. The principles of justice in their pure ethical meaning have been determined when the sense of the community in its customary law, or the legislature in its enacted statutes, has determined what rules shall be considered as just for the governance of men in their dealings with one another, and what actions shall be considered and treated as unjust and therefore wrong. This determined, the courts have but the formal task of determining the facts involved, and of applying the legal principles appropriate to them. Thus we find that corrective justice so-called, as applied to civil matters at least, is not justice at all, except in a formal sense. It is simply the vindication of legal rights, irrespective of whether, under the given circumstances, they are ethically valid or not. That they are recognized by the law is sufficient to make it incumbent upon the courts to nullify, so far as possible, any violation of them, and thus to bring about a condition of affairs which should, from the legal standpoint, never have been disturbed.

How is it with corrective justice as applied to matters of violence or crime? Here, as we have