s of emotions of
approval and emotions of disapproval, we have but to note with him that
both groups belong to the class of retributive emotions, and we see
that the origin and history of justice are typical of the origin and
history of morals: morality in general, just as much as justice in
particular, both originates independently of religion and
developes--where moral progress is made--independently of religion.

Let us now proceed to examine this view of the relation of religion and
morality and to consider whether their absolute independence of each
other is historic fact. It traces back justice to the feeling of
resentment experienced by the individual; but if the individual ever
existed by himself and apart from society, there could neither then be
justice nor anything analogous to justice, for justice implies, not
merely a plurality of individuals, but a society; it is a social
virtue. The individual existing by himself and apart from society is
not a historic fact but an impossible abstraction--a conception
essentially false because it expresses something which neither exists
nor has existed nor could possibly {226} exist. The origin of
justice--or of any virtue--cannot be found in the impossible and
self-contradictory conception of the individual existing apart from
society; it cannot be found in a mere plurality of such individuals: it
can only be found in a society--whether that society have the
organisation of a family, a tribe, or a nation. Justice in particular
and morality in general, like religion, imply the existence of a
society; neither is a merely individual affair. Justice is, as Mr.
Hobhouse states, "public action taken for the sake of public safety"
(I, 83): it is, from the outset of its history, public action; and back
of that we cannot go, for the individual did not, as a matter of
history, exist before society, and could not so have existed.

In the next place, justice is not the resentment of any individual, it
is the sentiment of the community expressing itself in public action,
taken not for the sake of any individual, but for the sake of public
safety. Its object from the beginning is not the gratification of
individual resentment, but the safety and welfare of the community
which takes common action. Proof of this, if proof were needed, would
be found in the fact that the existence of the individual, as such, is
not recognised. Not only does {227} the community which has suffered