Injustice a Limitation of Life 363 



the advantages of association and the relation of 

 morality and self-interest, has been the cause of 

 an incalculable amount of evil and suffering for the 

 human race. In its essence, justice is synonymous 

 with expansion of life; injustice with its limitation, 

 or in other words, with partial death. 



Suppose a skilled workman can make seventy- 

 two pieces of pottery a week, for which he receives 

 twenty-five cents each. Then suppose a new 

 tariff limits his market so that he can sell only 

 forty-eight pieces of pottery a week. The result 

 to him is the same as if two of his fingers had been 

 cut off so that he could make only forty-eight 

 instead of seventy-two pieces a week. In other 

 words, injustice is equivalent to a mutilation. 



Suppose a lecturer delivers ten addresses a 

 month and receives fifty dollars a lecture. Sup- 

 pose the government refuses to allow him to speak 

 in certain public buildings, or otherwise restricts 

 freedom of speech, so that he is able to lecture 

 only five times a month. His annual income is 

 reduced one-half. The result to him is the same 

 as if a nervous breakdown had limited his ac- 

 tivity. It is, figuratively, a mutilation. 



This illustrates what has been called passive 

 injustice. But active injustice is an equally 

 injurious mutilation of the one who inflicts it. 



Suppose Paul is a weaver and earns two dollars 

 a day. With it he can buy each day, let us say, 

 ten commodities. But one day all the other 

 members of Paul's group are accidentally stricken 



