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Clambers downward to his messmates cheer- So be henceforth a duke, and accept as your

From The Nineteenth Century.
ON JUSTICE.

BY HERBERT SPENCER.

IV.

who refused to believe that a new moon would in a month become full, and, disregarding observations accumulated throughout the past, insisted on watching the successive phases for three weeks before he was convinced, would be consid ered inductive in an irrational degree. But there might not unfairly be classed with him those who, slighting the inductive proof of unlimited adjustability, bodily and mental, which the animal kingdom at large presents, will not admit the adjusta bility of human nature to social life until the adjustment has taken place; nay, even ignore the evidence that it is taking place. Here we shall assume it to be an inevitable inference from the doctrine of

THE SENTIMENT OF JUSTICE. ACCEPTANCE of the doctrine of organic evolution determines certain ethical conceptions. The doctrine implies that the numerous organs in each of the innumerable species of animals, have been either directly or indirectly moulded into fitness for the requirements of life by constant converse with those requirements. Simultaneously, through nervous modifications, there have been developments of the sensations, instincts, emotions, and intellectual aptitudes, needed for the ap-organic evolution, that the highest type of propriate uses of these organs; as we see in caged rodents that exercise their incisors by purposeless gnawing, in gregarious creatures which are miserable if they cannot join their fellows, in beavers which, kept in confinement, show their passion for dam-building by heaping up whatever sticks and stones they can find.

Has this process of mental adaptation ended with primitive man? Are human beings incapable of having their feelings and ideas progressively adjusted to the modes of life imposed on them by the social state into which they have grown? Shall we suppose that the nature which fitted them to the exigencies of savage life has remained unchanged, and will remain unchanged, by the exigencies of civilized life? Or shall we suppose that this aboriginal nature, by repression of some traits and fostering of others, is made to approach more and more to a nature which finds developed society its appropriate environment, and the required activities its normal ones? There are many believers in the doctrine of evolution who seem to have no faith in the continued adaptability of mankind. While glancing but carelessly at the evidence furnished by comparisons of different human races with one another, and of the same races in different ages, they ignore entirely the induction from the phenomena of life at large. But if there is an abuse of the deductive method of reasoning there is also an abuse of the inductive method. One

living being, no less than all lower types, must go on moulding itself to those requirements which circumstances impose. And we shall, by implication, assume that moral changes are among the changes thus wrought out.

The fact that when surfeit of a favorite food has caused sickness, there is apt to follow an aversion to that food, shows how, in the region of the sensations, experiences establish associations which influence conduct. And the fact that the house in which a wife or child died, or in which a long illness was suffered, becomes so associated with painful states of mind as to be shunned, sufficiently illustrates, in the emotional region, the mode in which actions may be determined by mental connections formed in the course of life. When the circumstances of a species make certain relations between conduct and consequence habitual, the appropriately linked feelings may come to characterize the species. Either inheritances of modifications produced by habit, or more numerous survivals of individuals having nervous structures which have varied in fit ways, gradually form guiding tendencies, prompting appropriate behavior and deterring from inappropriate. The contrast between fearless birds found on islands never before visited by man, and the birds around us, which show fear of man immediately they are out of the nest, exemplifies such adaptations.

By virtue of this process there have of the raw materials serving for making been produced to some extent among weapons and tools and for other purposes, lower creatures, and there are being fur- then by possession of the coin which purther produced in man, the sentiments chases them as well as things at large, appropriate to social life. Aggressive then by possession of promises to pay exactions, while they are habitually injurious changeable for the coin, then by a lien on a. to the group in which they occur, are not banker, registered in a pass-book. That. unfrequently injurious to the individuals is, there comes to be pleasure in an ownercommitting them; since, though certain ship more and more abstract and remote pleasures may be gained by them, they from material satisfactions. Similarly often entail pains greater than the pleas- with the sentiment of justice. Beginning ures. Conversely, conduct restrained with the joy felt in ability to use the bodily within the required limits, calling out no powers and gain the resulting benefits, antagonistic passions, favors harmonious accompanied by irritation at direct interco-operation, profits the group, and, by ferences, this gradually responds to wider implication, profits the average of its relations; being excited now by the inciindividuals. Consequently, there results, dents of personal bondage, now by those other things equal, a tendency for groups of political bondage, now by those of formed of members having this adaptation class privilege, and now by small politof nature, to survive and spread. ical changes. Eventually this sentiment, sometimes so little developed in the negro that he jeers at a liberated companion be-cause he has no master to take care of him, becomes so much developed in the Englishman that the slightest infraction of some mode of formal procedure at a public meeting or in Parliament, which cannot intrinsically concern him, is vehemently opposed because in some distant and indirect way it may help to give possible powers to un-named authorities who may perhaps impose unforeseen burdens or restrictions.

Among the social sentiments thus evolved, one of chief importance is the sentiment of justice. Let us now consider more closely its nature.

Stop an animal's nostrils, and it makes frantic efforts to free its head. Tie its limbs together, and its struggles to get them at liberty are violent. Chain it by the neck or leg, and it is some time before it ceases its attempts to escape. Put it in a cage, and it long continues restless. Generalizing these instances we see that in proportion as the restraints on actions by which life is maintained are extreme, the resistances to them are great. Conversely, the eagerness with which a bird seizes the opportunity for taking flight, and the joy of a dog when liberated, show how strong is the love of unfettered move

ment.

Displaying like feelings in like ways, man displays them in other and wider ways. He is irritated by invisible restraints as well as by visible ones; and as his evolution becomes higher, he is affected by circumstances and actions which in more remote ways aid or hinder the pursuit of ends. A parallel will elucidate this truth. Primitively the sentiment of property is gratified only by possession of food and shelter, and, presently, of clothing; but afterwards it is gratified by possession of the weapons and tools which aid in obtaining these, then by possession

Clearly, then, the egoistic sentiment of justice is a subjective attribute which answers to that objective requirement constituting justice the requirement that each adult shall receive the good and evil effects of his own nature. For unless the faculties of all kinds have free play, these results cannot be gained or suffered, and unless there exists a sentiment which prompts maintenance of the sphere for this free play, it will be trenched upon and the free play impeded.

While we may thus understand how the egoistic sentiment of justice is developed, it is much less easy to understand how there is developed the altruistic sentiment of justice. On the one hand, the implication is that the altruistic sentiment of justice can come into existence only in the course of adaptation to social life. On the other hand the implication is that social

life is made possible only by maintenance | vate war, are restricted; and, simulta-
of those equitable relations which imply neously, there grow up interdicts on the
the altruistic sentiment of justice. How acts which cause them. Dread of the pen-
can these reciprocal requirements be ful-alties which follow breaches of these is an
filled?
added restraint.

The answer is that the altruistic senti- Ancestor-worship in general, developing
ment of justice can come into existence as the society develops into special propi-
-only by the aid of a sentiment which tem- tiation of the dead chief's ghost, and pres-
porarily supplies its place and restrains ently the dead king's ghost, gives to the
the actions prompted by pure egoism -a injunctions he uttered during life in-
pro-altruistic sentiment of justice as we creased sanctity; and when, with estab-
may call it.
This has several compo-lishment of the cult, he becomes a god,
nents, which we must successively glance his injunctions become divine commands
with dreaded punishments for breaches of
them.

at.

These four kinds of fear co-operate.

The first deterrent from aggression is -one which we see among animals at large -the fear of retaliation. Among crea- [The dread of retaliation, the dread of sotures of the same species the food ob- cial dislike, the dread of legal punishment, tained by one or place of vantage taken possession of by it, is in some measure insured to it by the dread which most others feel of the vengeance which may follow any attempt to take it away; and among men, especially during primitive stages of social life, it is chiefly such dread which secures for each man free scope for his activities, and exclusive use of whatever they bring him.

and the dread of divine vengeance, united in various proportions, form a body of feeling which checks the primitive tendency to pursue the objects of desire without regard to the interests of fellowmen. Containing none of the altruistic sentiment of justice, properly so-called, this pro-altruistic sentiment of justice serves temporarily to cause respect for one another's claims, and so to make social co-operation possible.

A further restraint is the fear of reprobation shown by unconcerned members of the group. Though in the expulsion of a Creatures which become gregarious "rogue" elephant from the herd, or the tend to become sympathetic in degrees slaying of a sinning member of the flock proportionate to their intelligences. Not, by rooks or storks, we see that even indeed, that the resulting sympathetic tenamong animals individuals suffer from an dency is exclusively, or even mainly, of adverse public opinion; yet it is scarcely that kind which the words ordinarily improbable that among animals expectation ply; for in some there is little beyond of general dislike prevents encroachment. | sympathy in fear, and in others little beBut among mankind, "looking before and after " to a greater extent, the thought of social disgrace is usually an additional check on ill-behavior of man to man.

To these feelings, which come into play before there is any social organization, have to be added those which arise after political authority establishes itself. When a successful leader in war acquires permanent headship, and comes to have at heart the maintenance of his power, there arises in him a desire to prevent the trespasses of his people one against another; since the resulting dissensions weaken his tribe. The rights of personal vengeance and, as in feudal times, of pri

yond sympathy in ferocity. All that is meant is that in gregarious creatures a feeling displayed by one is apt to arouse kindred feelings in others, and is apt to do this in proportion as others are intelligent enough to appreciate the signs of the feeling. In two chapters of the "Principles of Psychology-"Sociality and Sympathy" and "Altruistic Sentiments

-I have endeavored to show how sympathy in general arises, and how there is eventually produced altruistic sympathy.

The implication is, then, that the associated state having been maintained among men by the aid of the pro-altruis tic sentiment of justice, there have been