ls of
statutes, the swaying of judicial opinion, there is some law of nature
or in nature, some criterion, which if ascertained and obeyed would be
perfect justice.

This question of the origin, the foundation of justice, whether it
be of God or of men, seems to have been much more debated than the
question what is the nature of justice whatever its origin or
foundation. Yet some attempts, other than those attributed to
Socrates, have been made of old to give a definition of justice. The
earliest description I have found is that of the early Pythagoreans,
who, in accordance with their practise of symbolizing the virtues by
geometrical figures, designated justice by the square, and the just
man by the cube. Plato seems to have had a theory of justice when he
wrote in the "Gorgias," "Nature herself intimates that it is just for
the better to have more than the worse, the stronger than the weaker,
and in many ways she shows that among men as well as among animals
justice consists in the superior ruling over and having more than the
inferior." In these days our first impulse may be to denounce Plato's
statement as altogether wrong if not worse. We should remember,
however, that Plato was not considering any altruistic virtue such as
kindness, sympathy, benevolence, generosity and the like, but only
what nature indicates to be the essential condition of successful
association. Thus interpreted, are we prepared to confute the
statement? Do we know of any state of society in human or animal life
at any time, past or present, of which the contrary of Plato's
statement is true?

But passing over all other attempts of the ancients to define justice,
none of which seems to have been much regarded by contemporary
opinion, I will only cite the most famous, that by Ulpian, the
renowned jurist of the best period of Roman jurisprudence, whose
writings were most drawn upon by the learned compilers of the
Institutes and Digest of Justinian; viz., "Justitia est constans et
perpetua voluntas jus suum cuique tribuendi," or "Justice is the
constant and perpetual will to render to every one his right." This
definition was adopted by the compilers as correct and made the
introduction to the Institutes. It thus received the imperial sanction
and was quoted wherever the law of Rome prevailed, down through
medieval times and later, almost as if it were an inspired or at least
authoritative definition not to be questioned. But notwithstanding t