o obliterate the structure and
replace society by a vast multitude of independent atoms, each supposed
to aim directly at the good of the whole, but so to harmonise and
develop or restrain the smaller interests of families, of groups and
associations, that they may spontaneously co-operate towards the
general welfare. It is a long and difficult task to which we have to
apply ourselves; a task not to be effected by the demonstration or
application of a single abstract dogma, but to be worked out gradually
by the co-operation of many classes and of many generations. If it is
fairly solved in the course of a thousand years or so, I for one shall
be very fairly satisfied. But distant as the realisation may be, we may
or rather ought to consider seriously the end to which we should be
working. The conception implies a distinction of primary importance
towards any clear treatment of the problem. We have, that is, two
different, though not altogether distinct, provinces of what I may,
perhaps, call organic and functional morality. We may take the existing
order for granted, and ask what is then our duty; or we may ask how far
the structure itself requires modification, and, if so, what kind of
modification. A man who assumes the existence of the present structure
may act justly or unjustly within the limits so prescribed. He must
generally be guided in a number of cases by some principle of equality.
The judge should endeavour to give the same law to rich and poor; the
parent should not make arbitrary distinctions between his children; the
statesman should try to distribute his burdens without favouring one
particular class, and so forth. A man who, in such a sense, acts justly
may be described as up to the level of his age and its accepted
established moral ideas, and is, therefore, entitled at least to the
negative praise of not being corrupt or dishonest. He fulfils
accurately the functions imposed upon him, and is not governed by what
Bentham called the sinister interests which would prevent them from
being effectually discharged for the welfare of the community. But the
problem which we have to consider is the deeper and more difficult one
of organic justice; and our question is what justice means in this
case, or what are the irrelevant considerations to be excluded from our
motives of conduct.

Between these two classes of justice there are distinctions which it is
necessary to state briefly. Justice, as we generally us