osed to the habit of Injustice. Justice itself
is a term used in various senses; and the senses in which injustice is
used vary correspondingly. Confusion is apt to arise from these varying
senses not being distinguished. Injustice includes law-breaking,
grasping and unfairness. Grasping is taking too much of what is good
only; unfairness is concerned with both what is good and what is
injurious. But in the legal sense, whatever law lays down is assumed to
be just. Law, however, covers the whole field of virtuous action as it
affects our neighbours, so that in this general sense justice is an
inclusive term equivalent to righteousness. We, however, must confine
ourselves to the specific sense of the terms.

Grasping is, in fact, included in unfairness, which is the real opposite
of specific justice; it includes law-breaking only so far as the law is
broken for the sake of gain. The justice with which we are concerned has
two branches: Distributive, of honours and the like among citizens by
the State, and of private property by contract and agreement; and
Corrective, the remedying of unfair distribution. There are always two
parties, and justice is the mean between the unfairness which favours A
and the unfairness which favours B. Distributive justice takes into
consideration the merits of the parties; corrective justice is concerned
only with restoring a balance which has been disturbed. The distribution
is a question not of equality, but of right proportion; and this applies
to retribution, which is recognised as one of its aspects, _e.g._, the
retribution for an officer striking a private and for a private striking
an officer. Proportional requital is the economic basis of society,
arrived at by the existence of a comparatively unfluctuating currency
which provides a criterion.

In the State, as such, justice is obtained from the law and its
administrators; justice is the virtue of the magistrate. Since he has
nothing to gain or lose himself, it has been supposed that justice is
"another's good," not our own. In the family, justice does not come in,
the whole household being, in a sense, parts of the _pater familias_;
and as you cannot be unjust to yourself, you cannot be unjust to your
household. In the State, what is just is fixed partly by the nature of
things, partly by law or convention.

As to individual acts, injury may arise from a miscalculation, or from
an incalculable accident; it becomes a wrong when it