2QO ON THE NOTIONS OF EIGHT AND JUSTICE 



enabled to demand what it is fair that others should give. 

 But while in the lowest degree of Right no regard was 

 paid to the differences among men (except to those which 

 arise from the particular matter in hand), and all men 

 were regarded as equal, now in this higher degree merits 

 are weighed, and hence privileges, rewards and punish- 

 ments appear 34 . Xenophon has cleverly represented this 

 difference in the degrees of Right by the case of the young 

 boy Cyrus S5 , who was chosen to decide between two boys 

 the stronger of whom had forcibly exchanged clothes with 

 the other, because he had found that the other boy's gown 

 fitted him better, while his own fitted the other boy 

 better. Cyrus decided in favour of the robber ; but his 

 tutor pointed out to him that the question here was not 

 whom the gown fitted but whose it was, and that some 

 day he would more rightly make use of this way of judg- 

 ing when he himself had gowns to distribute. For equity 



and the absence of evil is a good/ (Mollat, p. 70.) Thus * the gover- 

 nors of societies and certain magistrates are obliged not only to 

 prevent evil but also to promote good.' (Mollat, p. 68.) ' The science 

 of the just and that of the useful, that is, the science of public and 

 that of private good are mutually involved, and it is not easy for 

 any one to be happy in the midst of the miserable/ Juris et aequi 

 elementa (Mollat, p. 23). 



s * Regarding the lowest degree of right, Leibniz says : l This is 

 that equality which is commonly called arithmetical, that all are so 

 far regarded as having the same merit, and, no account of persons 

 being taken, each receives just as much as he gave up/ De tribus 

 juris naturae et gentium gradibus (Mollat, p. 15). l The distribution of 

 goods and evils is often made in proportion to people's virtues and 

 merits, or vices and faults, and this is called geometrical equality, 

 because in this very inequality an equality of ratios is observed, so 

 that unequal things are given to unequal persons, the same pro- 

 portion being kept between the things given as there is between 

 the persons,' loc. tit., p. 16. The distinction and the names are due 

 to Aristotle, although Leibniz's application of them is somewhat 

 different. Cf. Ethics, v. 3, H3i b 12 sqq. and v. 4, H3i b 25 sqq. See 

 also Plato, Laws, bk. vi. 757 A sqq., and Grotius, De jure belli et pads, 

 bk. i. ch. i, 8, 2. 



35 Cyropaedia, bk. i. ch. 3, 17. The story is quoted by Grotius. 

 bk. i. ch. i, 8. 



