nt. Robert Owen affirms that punishment
altogether is unjust, and that we should deal with crime only through
education. Now, without an appeal to expediency, it is impossible to
arbitrate among these conflicting views; each one has a maxim of
justice on its side. Then as to the apportioning of punishments to
offences. The rule that recommends itself to the primitive sentiment of
justice is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth; a rule formally
abandoned in European countries, although not without its hold upon the
popular mind. With many, the test of justice, in penal infliction, is
that it should be proportioned to the offence; while others maintain
that it is just to inflict only such an amount of punishment as will
deter from the commission of the offence.

Besides the differences of opinion already alluded to, as to the
payment of labour, how many, and irreconcileable, are the standards of
justice appealed to on the matter of taxation? One opinion is, that
taxes should be in proportion to pecuniary means; others think the
wealthy should pay a higher proportion. In point of natural justice, a
case might be made out for disregarding means, and taking the same sum
from each, as the privileges are equally bestowed: yet from feelings of
humanity and social expediency no one advocates that view. So that
there is no mode of extricating the question but the utilitarian.

To sum up. The great distinction between, the Just and the Expedient is
the distinction between the essentials of well-being--the moral rules
forbidding mankind to hurt one another--and the rules that only point
out the best mode of managing some department of human affairs. It is
in the higher moralities of protection from harm that each individual
has the greatest stake; and they are the moralities that compose the
obligations of justice. It is on account of these that punishment, or
retribution of evil for evil, is universally included in the idea. For
the carrying out of the process of retaliation, certain maxims are
necessary as instruments or as checks to abuse; as that involuntary
acts are not punishable; that no one shall be condemned unheard; that
punishment should be proportioned to the offence. Impartiality, the
first of judicial virtues, is necessary to the fulfilment of the other
conditions of justice: while from the highest form of doing to each
according to their deserts, it is the abstract standard of social and
distributive justice; and