he
acclaim with which this definition was hailed, I question that it was
any improvement on that of Aristotle, who tersely defined justice as
"that virtue of the soul which is distributive according to desert."
Indeed, I think Aristotle was nearer the mark.

Upon the revival of the study of law and jurisprudence in the 11th
and 12th centuries several of the more famous jurists of that time,
Azo, Irnerius, Placentinus and others, essayed definitions of justice,
but they do not seem to have improved upon Ulpian. Their definitions
were vitiated by theological assumptions and none of them has become
a text for commentators or students. Neither in modern times has any
definition of justice been suggested which has received such universal
assent as did that of Ulpian in his time and for centuries afterward.
We may therefore return to Ulpian's definition as our point of
departure, since his definition is substantially that suggested
earlier by Aristotle, and observations on the later will also apply in
many respects to the earlier.

Ulpian's definition is elegant in style, but it does not carry us very
far in our inquiry. We are told indeed that justice is a state or
disposition of the mind, the disposition to render to everyone his
right or, as put by Aristotle, is the disposition to distribute
according to desert. It was this statement that captured the medieval
jurists and which they made their text, but it is now regarded as
incomplete and even inaccurate. One may have the disposition, the
desire, the will, to render to every one his right, but unless he can
know what is his fellow's right he may unwittingly fail to accord it
to him and thus unwittingly do injustice. It evidently is not enough
to have the disposition or will; hence the definition is incomplete,
and any definition is incomplete which does not furnish a criterion
for determining what is the given man's right.

But the definition as far as it does go is not strictly accurate. The
man of malevolent disposition who would wrong his fellow if he dared,
may yet, to avoid unpleasant consequences to himself, render fully to
every other man his right. It would seem, therefore, that justice is
an attribute or quality of conduct rather than a disposition or state
of mind, and of conduct toward others rather than of conduct toward
one's self. It is only of the conduct of men in their relations to
other men that we can predicate justice or injustice. One's conduct
ma