etween good and
evil, and to bring himself more and more into the resemblance of God
through liberty and justice.... No; the holy image of virtue was never
graven save on the heart of man." Words full of feeling, but void of
sense.

Man is a rational and social animal--{GREEK ' c g}--said Aristotle. This
definition is worth more than all which have been given since. I do not
except even M. de Bonald's celebrated definition,--MAN IS AN INTELLECT
SERVED BY ORGANS--a definition which has the double fault of explaining
the known by the unknown; that is, the living being by the intellect;
and of neglecting man's essential quality,--animality.

Man, then, is an animal living in society. Society means the sum total
of relationships; in short, system. Now, all systems exist only on
certain conditions. What, then, are the conditions, the LAWS, of human
society?

What are the RIGHTS of men with respect to each other; what is JUSTICE?

It amounts to nothing to say,--with the philosophers of various
schools,--"It is a divine instinct, an immortal and heavenly voice, a
guide given us by Nature, a light revealed unto every man on coming
into the world, a law engraved upon our hearts; it is the voice of
conscience, the dictum of reason, the inspiration of sentiment, the
penchant of feeling; it is the love of self in others; it is enlightened
self-interest; or else it is an innate idea, the imperative command of
applied reason, which has its source in the concepts of pure reason;
it is a passional attraction," &c., &c. This may be as true as it seems
beautiful; but it is utterly meaningless. Though we should prolong
this litany through ten pages (it has been filtered through a thousand
volumes), we should be no nearer to the solution of the question.

"Justice is public utility," says Aristotle. That is true, but it is a
tautology. "The principle that the public welfare ought to be the
object of the legislator"--says M. Ch. Comte in his "Treatise on
Legislation"--"cannot be overthrown. But legislation is advanced no
farther by its announcement and demonstration, than is medicine when it
is said that it is the business of physicians to cure the sick."

Let us take another course. RUGHT is the sum total of the principles
which govern society. Justice, in man, is the respect and observation of
those principles. To practise justice is to obey the social instinct;
to do an act of justice is to do a social act. If, then, we watch the