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the race, for, in this way, the moral virtues of justice, honesty, 

 purity, etc. ,havearisen. From this point of view we may regard 

 the whole of moral progress, as the slow perhaps too slow 

 but gradual attribution of value, supreme value, to those 

 things which can be shared by all human beings, and not so 

 much to those things which may be obtained by some at the 

 expense of others; and wherever and whenever this moral pro- 

 gress takes place, it is, and always has been, in relation to 

 things valuable for agents. When, therefore, we speak of 

 absolute values, it should be borne in mind that they are at 

 the same time relative; that is, relative to agents for whom 

 alone these values are predicable, and yet absolute in the sense 

 that they are not competed for, so that some may gain and 

 others lose. 



The principle just stated may easily be illustrated by 

 reference to any stage of moral progress in the history of man- 

 kind. The liberation of the slave, for example, is a case in 

 point. At a certain period of the Greek state, every citizen 

 stood on a basis of equality with his fellow citizen, yet below 

 these citizens there existed a great slave class who shared not 

 at all the privileges of their masters. In Europe, in the Middle 

 Ages, in accordance with the system of feudalism, the serf was 

 bound to the land, and obliged to render service to the lord, 

 who regarded the serf simply as his chattel. And again, at a 

 later period, there grew up the negro slave trade, carried on by 

 .both Europeans and Americans. Reference in this connection 

 may also be had to the institution of the cities of refuge in 

 Israel, before mentioned. 



In all of the above cases, it will be manifest, moral progress 

 has consisted in a step in the direction of bringing within the 

 reach of all, as human beings, the right to equal consideration. 

 This is justice in its broadest sense, and is the foundation of all 

 moral progress. The value of justice is supreme and absolute, 

 and moral progress is made with the taking of every new step 

 toward the complete adoption in the life of society of such a 

 view. 



The principle above stated has, in fact, been applicable to 

 such an extent in human progress, that it has been carried 

 beyond man, and applied, to a certain degree at least, to man's 

 relations to animals, though, to be sure, applied therein to 

 agents with whom he has not the power of communication by 

 speech. 



Under such conditions as these, then, we must regard 

 society as having developed, and on this basis acts of the 

 individual have been classified as acts tending to conserve or 

 to destroy the whole. In this way there arises a classification 



