The philosophers ought to be better informed: they have argued so much about justice and injustice! Unhappily, an examination proves that their knowledge amounts to nothing, and that with them--as with the savages whose every prayer to the sun is simply _O! O!_--it is a cry of admiration, love, and enthusiasm; but who does not know that the sun attaches little meaning to the interjection O! That is exactly our position toward the philosophers in regard to justice.Justice, they say, is a DAUGHTER OF HEAVEN; A LIGHT WHICH ILLUMINES EVERY MAN THAT COMESINTO THE WORLD; THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PREROGATIVE OF OUR NATURE;THAT WHICH DISTINGUISHES US FROM THE BEASTS AND LIKENS US TOGOD--and a thousand other similar things.What, I ask, does this pious litany amount to? To the prayer of the savages: O!
All the most reasonable teachings of human wisdom concerning justice are summed up in that famous adage: DO UNTO OTHERS THATWHICH YOU WOULD THAT OTHERS SHOULD DO UNTO YOU; DO NOT UNTOOTHERS THAT WHICH YOU WOULD NOT THAT OTHERS SHOULD DO UNTO YOU.
But this rule of moral practice is unscientific: what have I a right to wish that others should do or not do to me? It is of no use to tell me that my duty is equal to my right, unless I am told at the same time what my right is.
Let us try to arrive at something more precise and positive.
Justice is the central star which governs societies, the pole around which the political world revolves, the principle and the regulator of all transactions.Nothing takes place between men save in the name of RIGHT; nothing without the invocation of justice.Justice is not the work of the law: on the contrary, the law is only a declaration and application of JUSTICE in all circumstances where men are liable to come in contact.If, then, the idea that we form of justice and right were ill-defined, if it were imperfect or even false, it is clear that all our legislative applications would be wrong, our institutions vicious, our politics erroneous: consequently there would be disorder and social chaos.
This hypothesis of the perversion of justice in our minds, and, as a necessary result, in our acts, becomes a demonstrated fact when it is shown that the opinions of men have not borne a constant relation to the notion of justice and its applications;that at different periods they have undergone modifications: in a word, that there has been progress in ideas.Now, that is what history proves by the most overwhelming testimony.
Eighteen Hundred years ago, the world, under the rule of the Caesars, exhausted itself in slavery, superstition, and voluptuousness.The people--intoxicated and, as it were, stupefied by their long-continued orgies--had lost the very notion of right and duty: war and dissipation by turns swept them away; usury and the labor of machines (that is of slaves), by depriving them of the means of subsistence, hindered them from continuing the species.Barbarism sprang up again, in a hideous form, from this mass of corruption, and spread like a devouring leprosy over the depopulated provinces.The wise foresaw the downfall of the empire, but could devise no remedy.What could they think indeed? To save this old society it would have been necessary to change the objects of public esteem and veneration, and to abolish the rights affirmed by a justice purely secular;they said: "Rome has conquered through her politics and her gods; any change in theology and public opinion would be folly and sacrilege.Rome, merciful toward conquered nations, though binding them in chains, spared their lives; slaves are the most fertile source of her wealth; freedom of the nations would be the negation of her rights and the ruin of her finances.
Rome, in fact, enveloped in the pleasures and gorged with the spoils of the universe, is kept alive by victory and government;her luxury and her pleasures are the price of her conquests: she can neither abdicate nor dispossess herself." Thus Rome had the facts and the law on her side.Her pretensions were justified by universal custom and the law of nations.Her institutions were based upon idolatry in religion, slavery in the State, and epicurism in private life; to touch those was to shake society to its foundations, and, to use our modern expression, to open the abyss of revolutions.So the idea occurred to no one; and yet humanity was dying in blood and luxury.
All at once a man appeared, calling himself The Word of God.
It is not known to this day who he was, whence he came, nor what suggested to him his ideas.He went about proclaiming everywhere that the end of the existing society was at hand, that the world was about to experience a new birth; that the priests were vipers, the lawyers ignoramuses, and the philosophers hypocrites and liars; that master and slave were equals, that usury and every thing akin to it was robbery, that proprietors and idlers would one day burn, while the poor and pure in heart would find a haven of peace.
This man--The Word of God--was denounced and arrested as a public enemy by the priests and the lawyers, who well understood how to induce the people to demand his death.But this judicial murder, though it put the finishing stroke to their crimes, did not destroy the doctrinal seeds which The Word of God had sown.After his death, his original disciples travelled about in all directions, preaching what they called the GOOD NEWS, creating in their turn millions of missionaries; and, when their task seemed to be accomplished, dying by the sword of Roman justice.This persistent agitation, the war of the executioners and martyrs, lasted nearly three centuries, ending in the conversion of the world.Idolatry was destroyed, slavery abolished, dissolution made room for a more austere morality, and the contempt for wealth was sometimes pushed almost to privation.
