is a plain thing: justice a very obscure
thing. How is an ordinary man to draw the line between right and wrong
otherwise than by accepting public opinion on the subject; and what more
conclusive expression of sincere public opinion can there be than market
demand? Even when we repudiate that and fall back on our private
judgment, the matter gathers doubt instead of clearness. The popular
notion of morality and piety is to simply beg all the most important
questions in life for other people; but when these questions come home
to ourselves, we suddenly discover that the devil's advocate has a
stronger case than we thought: we remember that the way of righteousness
or death was the way of the Inquisition; that hell is paved, not with
bad intentions, but with good ones; that the deeper seers have suggested
that the way to save your soul is perhaps to give it away, casting your
spiritual bread on the waters, so to speak. No doubt, if you are a man
of genius, a Ruskin or an Ibsen, you can divine your way and finally
force your passage. If you have the conceit of fanaticism you can die a
martyr like Charles I. If you are a criminal, or a gentleman of
independent means, you can leave society out of the question and prey on
it. But if you are an ordinary person you take your bread as it comes to
you, doing whatever you can make most money by doing. And you are really
shewing yourself a disciplined citizen and acting with perfect social
propriety in so doing. Society may be, and generally is, grossly wrong
in its offer to you; and you may be, and generally are, grossly wrong
in supporting the existing political structure; but this only means, to
the successful modern prizefighter, that he must reform society before
he can reform himself. A conclusion which I recommend to the
consideration of those foolish misers of personal righteousness who
think they can dispose of social problems by bidding reformers of
society reform themselves first.

Practically, then, the question raised is whether fighting with gloves
shall be brought, like cockfighting, bear-baiting, and gloveless fist
fighting, explicitly under the ban of the law. I do not propose to argue
that question out here. But of two things I am certain. First, that
glove fighting is quite as fierce a sport as fist fighting. Second, that
if an application were made to the Borough Council of which I am a
member, to hire the Town Hall for a boxing competition, I should vote
agains