i 9 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



nition of equality of positions and claims among members of the 

 same class, yet the regulations respecting community of wives, 

 etc., in the guardian-class, have for their avowed purpose to 

 establish, even within that class, unequal privileges for the benefit 

 of the superior. 



But now observe that while in the Greek conception of justice 

 there predominates the idea of inequality, while the idea of equal- 

 ity is inconspicous, the inequality refers, not to the natural 

 achievement of greater rewards by greater merits, but to the 

 artificial apportionment of greater rewards to greater merits. It 

 is an inequality mainly established by authority. The gradations 

 in the civil organization are of the same nature as those in the 

 military organization. Regimentation pervades both, and the 

 idea of justice is everywhere conformed to the traits of the social 

 structure. 



And this is the idea of justice proper to the militant type at 

 large, as we are again shown throughout Europe in subsequent 

 ages. It will suffice to point out that along with the different 

 law-established positions and privileges of different ranks, there 

 went gradations in the amounts paid in composition for crimes 

 according to the rank of the injured. And how completely the 

 idea of justice was determined by the idea of rightly-existing in- 

 equality, is shown by the condemnation of serfs who escaped into 

 the towns and were said to have " unjustly " withdrawn them- 

 selves from the control of their lords. 



Thus, as might be expected, we find that while the struggle 

 for existence between societies is going on actively, recognition of 

 the primary factor in justice which is common to life at large, 

 human and sub-human, is very imperfectly qualified by recogni- 

 tion of the secondary factor. That which we may distinguish as 

 the brute element in the conception is but little mitigated by the 

 human element. 



All movements are rhythmical, and among others social move- 

 ments, with their accompanying doctrines. After that concep- 

 tion of justice in which the idea of inequality unduly predomi- 

 nates, comes a conception in which the idea of equality unduly 

 predominates. 



A recent example of such reactions is furnished by the ethical 

 theory of Bentham. As is shown by the following extract from 

 Mr. Mill's Utilitarianism (p. 91), the idea of inequality here en- 

 tirely disappears : 



The Greatest-Happiness Principle is a mere form of words without rational 

 signification, UDless one person's happiness, supposed equal in degree (with the 

 proper allowance made for kind), is counted for exactly as much as another's. 

 Those conditions being supplied, Bentham's dictum, " everybody to count for one, 



