and compel to officiate the
only qualified medical practitioner.'[20] Wherefore, since to steal or
to kidnap is essentially wrong, it may sometimes be allowable to do
wrong. Mr. Mill's explanation of the paradox is, that 'there are
particular cases in which some other social duty is so important as to
overrule any one of the general maxims of justice; but that in such
cases we usually say, not that justice must give way to some other moral
principle, but that what is just in ordinary cases is, by reason of that
other principle, not just in the particular case.'[21] I submit,
however, that there is no real occasion to resort to any such 'useful
accommodation of language,' in order to be 'saved from the necessity of
admitting that there may be laudable injustice.' Let us never shrink
from looking error in the face, for fear that, after she has slunk away
abashed, some insoluble mystery may remain behind. It is better, at any
rate, to be puzzled than deceived. There can be no doubt about theft
being essentially unjust, and no skill in the arrangement of words can
convert injustice into justice, or prevent injustice from being wrong.
But when, as occasionally happens, the only choice open to us is between
two immoral courses, it is morally incumbent on us to select the less
immoral of the two. The wrong we decide upon does not, however, itself
become smaller because it prevents a larger. A sworn bravo, who had
taken in advance the wages of assassination, would sin less by breaking
than by keeping faith with his employer; but, in either case, would sin.
Abstinence from murder would not absolve him from the guilt of perjury.
If, unless a loaf were stolen, a life would be lost, Anti-utilitarianism
might pardon, but would scarcely applaud the theft. At all events it
would not, like the rival doctrine in a similar strait, be reduced to
double on itself, declaring that wrong had become right and black white,
that the Ethiopian had changed his skin and the leopard his spots. It
would still insist as positively as ever that to steal another man's
bread cannot be just, however benevolent the purpose for which it is
stolen.

One more illustration and I have done. Whoever believes as I do in the
indefeasible sanctity of honestly acquired _moveable_ property, is
logically bound to hold equally sacred the rights of bequest and
inheritance. With whatever is exclusively your own, you may surely do
anything you please except harm; nor nee