ETHICS AND THE COSMOS 11 



punishments and rewards according to accepted rules, 

 received the name of justice, while the contrary was 

 called injustice. Early ethics did not take much note 

 of the animus of the violator of the rules. But civiliza- 

 tion could not advance far, without the establishment 

 of a capital distinction between the case of involun- 

 tary and that of wilful misdeed ; between a merely 

 wrong action and a guilty one. And, with increasing 

 refinement of moral appreciation, the problem of desert, 

 which arises out of this distinction, acquired more and 

 more theoretical and practical importance. If life 

 must be given for life, yet it was recognized that 

 the unintentional slayer did not altogether deserve 

 death ; and, by a sort of compromise between 

 the public and the private conception of justice, a 

 sanctuary was provided in which he might take 

 refuge from the avenger of blood. 



The idea of justice thus underwent a gradual 

 sublimation from punishment and reward according 

 to acts, to punishment and reward according to 

 desert; or in other words, according to motive. 

 Righteousness, that is, action from right motive, not 

 only became synonymous with justice, but the posi- 

 tive constituent of innocence and the very heart 

 of goodness. 



Now when the ancient sage, whether Indian or 

 Greek, who had attained to this conception of goodness, 

 looked the world, and especially human life, in the face, 

 he found it as hard as we do to bring the course of 

 evolution into harmony with even the elementary 



