rrow and
mischievous interest, better for its liberality. It follows that no
interest can be condemned except upon grounds that recognize its
claims, and aim so far as possible to provide for it among the rest.
No interest can rationally be rejected as having no value, but only as
involving too great a cost.

But though these considerations are sufficient to expose moral
snobbery, they do not fully define justice. For justice imputes a
certain inviolability to the claims of that unit of life which we term
loosely a human, personal, moral, free, or rational being. There is
some sense in which you are a finality; making it improper for me
simply to dispose of you, even if it be my sincere intention to promote
thereby the well-being of humanity. You are not merely one interest
among the rest, to be counted, adjusted, or suppressed by some court of
moral appraisement. I think I may safely assume that there is to-day
an established conscience supporting Kant's dictum, "So act as to treat
humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every
case as an end withal, never as means only." [11]

Let me state briefly what appears to me to be the proper basis of this
judgment. I have said that I am not entitled simply to suppress your
{65} action as may be approved by my own judgment. Now, did I propose
to do so, what justification should I offer? I should present, no
doubt, the facts in the case. I should show you the incompatibility of
your presently adopted course with the general good. But let us
suppose that you defend your action on the same grounds. In that case
your endorsement of your action has precisely the same formal
justification as my condemnation of it. Our equality lies in the fact
that we are both claiming candidly to represent the truth. In the last
analysis our equality is based on the identity of the objective content
to which we appeal. As witnesses of a specific truth within the range
of both, the meanest mortal alive and the omniscient intelligence are
equal; and simply because the identical truth is as valid in the mouth
of one as in the mouth of the other. Where it is a matter of
disagreement between you and me, our equality lies in the fact that
neither can do more than appeal to the object. Neither has any
authority; there _is_ no authority in matters of truth, but only
evidence. The only rational solution of disagreement is agreement;
that is, the coalescence of opin