THE ETHICAL PRINCH^LE OF EQUTfY. 



By Rev. Sidney Read Welch, B.A., D.D., Ph.D. 



(Read. July lo, 191 8.) 



We may take it for granted that as long as there have been 

 laws among mankind, the idea of equity has somehow co-existed 

 in the minds of men. The very ancient distinction between the 

 letter of the law and the spirit is possibly the most rudimentary 

 form in which the notion olf equity is to Ibe found with any dis- 

 tinctiveness. The spirit of the law dictates the exercise of equity, 

 and the contrast occurs at once with the law itself. 



Aristotle has the first reasoned exposition of the nature of 

 equity, whicli he calls eirieiKia . In the practical conduct of 

 life among the Greeks that virtue was already well known ; and 

 being a certain relaxation of the law, it was also popular. And 

 like all popular virtues, it ran the risk of having to bear the 

 burden of all forms of goodness. .A-S a " white man," in 

 countries where colour is not fashionable, is supixtscd to be the 

 embodiment of every other good quality ; so the " equitable " in 

 Aristotle's time seemed likely to become a synonym of the "good." 

 Aristotle did a service in pointing out what its specific meaning 

 was. 



The full exposition of it is to be found in the Eudemian 

 Ethics (5, 10), where he treats alsO' of justice in general. Equity 

 is a finer and higher sort of justice, coining to the rescue w^here 

 legal justice would be so rough and ready as to amount to injus- 

 tice. Hence it may be called an amendment of legal justice, 

 where this fails through being too genera] and indiscriminating. 



This is in fact a necessar\- complement of the indefinite 

 nature of law. Aristotle compares law, in this aspect, to the 

 Lesbian art of building.* " In the Lesbian architecture, *:he 

 (leaden) rule is not fixed, but shifts according to the shape df 

 the stone; and so does the ordinance {■\jr)j<^ia/jia) of the legisla- 

 ture according to the nature of the case." As the builder had to 

 inake allowance for the polygon stones of the Les'bian architecture 

 in using his leaden rule, so the Athenian assembly by its special 

 decrees, in accordance with equity, straigluened out the irregulari- 

 ties of the existing laws. 



We thus note how soon the ethical principle of equity began 

 to find recognition on the part of the lawgiver. This recognition 

 was very incomplete among the Greeks, but at any rate it existed. 



In English law it made headway from the beginning; cen- 

 turies before any actual courts of equity were established. Juris- 

 prudence began early to teach that the rigour of the law was 

 often a real violation of the intentions of the legislator and a 

 means of defeating the law by chicane ; and we are told by legal 



*" Ethics," 10, 7. 



