ON JUSTICE. 3 i 



kindred actions by other individuals, who have similarly to receive 

 such normal results good and bad. And vaguely, if not definitely, 

 this is seen to constitute what is called justice. 



We saw that among inferior gregarious creatures, justice in its 

 universal simple form, besides being qualified by the self-subordi- 

 nation which parenthood implies, and in some measure by the 

 self-restraint necessitated by association, is in a few cases further 

 qualified in a small degree by the partial or complete sacrifice of 

 individuals made in defense of the species. And now in the high- 

 est gregarious creature we see that this further qualification of 

 primitive justice assumes large proportions. 



No longer as among inferior beings demanded only by the 

 need for defense against enemies of other kinds, this further self- 

 subordination is, among human beings, also demanded by the 

 need for defense against enemies of the same kind. Having be- 

 come the predominant inhabitants of the Earth, and having 

 spread wherever there is food, men have come to be everywhere 

 in one another's way ; and the mutual enmities hence resulting, 

 have made the sacrifices entailed by wars between groups, far 

 greater than the sacrifices made in defense of the groups against 

 inferior animals. It is doubtless true with the human race, as 

 with lower races, that destruction of the group or the variety 

 does not imply destruction of the species ; and it therefore follows 

 that such obligation as exists for self-subordination in the inter- 

 ests of the group or the variety, is an obligation of lower degree 

 than is that of sustentation of offspring, without fulfillment of 

 which the species must disappear, and of lower degree than the 

 obligation to restrain actions within the limits imposed by social 

 conditions, without fulfillment of which the group will dissolve. 

 Still, it must be regarded as an obligation to the extent to which 

 the maintenance of the species is subserved by the maintenance 

 of each of its groups. 



But the self-subordination thus justified, and in a sense ren- 

 dered obligatory, is limited to that which is required for defensive 

 war. Only because the preservation of the group as a whole 

 conduces to preservation of its members' lives and their ability to 

 pursue the objects of life, is there a reason for the sacrifice of 

 some of its members ; and this reason no longer exists when war 

 is offensive instead of defensive. 



It may, indeed, be contended that since offensive wars initiate 

 those struggles between groups which end in the destruction of 

 the weaker, offensive wars, furthering the peopling of the Earth 

 by the stronger, subserve the interests of the race. But even sup- 

 posing that the conquered groups always consisted of men having 

 smaller mental or bodily fitness for war (which they do not ; for 



