Justice the Condition of Association 371 



them apart. For centuries statesmen have believed 

 the violation of their neighbours' rights to be sage 

 wisdom and good politics, and the memory, con- 

 scious or unconscious, of these accumulated injus- 

 tices, has given rise to national hatreds that seem 

 ineradicable. But as surely as injustice has pro- 

 duced hate, just action would provoke respect and 

 sympathy. 



Association is another synonym of justice. 

 Universal justice and universal association are one 

 and the same. My happiness is in direct propor- 

 tion to the number and power of my associates. 

 It is to my interest that they attain their maximum 

 vital intensity. I do not attain my maximum 

 development by violating their rights. I attain 

 it by co-operation. Imagine a world in which 

 every man was hostile to every other: hella om- 

 nium contra omnes. Each individual would have 

 to devote a large share of his time to fighting the 

 others ; the total production and the individual pro- 

 duction would be correspondingly lessened. His- 

 tory is a record of increasing solidarity. Man has 

 felt himself a part of ever larger groups — of the 

 horde, the clan, the tribe, the city, the state, and 

 nation. And always his interests have in reality 

 been identical with a larger group than that of 

 which he was consciously a member. The people 

 of New York and Virginia, of Breton and Proven gal 

 know it is not to their interests to violate each 

 other's rights. Some day the people of Germany 

 and England will know it too. Universal happi- 



