ly qualified for political power, it would seem better
_prima facie_ that each man should have the share of power and
wealth which corresponds to his powers of using, or, perhaps, to his
powers of enjoying. Why should we not say, "To each man according to
his deserts"? One practical reason, of course, is the extreme
difficulty of saying what are the deserts, and how they are to be
ascertained. Undoubtedly, equality is the shortest and simplest way
but, if we take it merely as the most convenient assumption, it loses
its attractive appearance of abstract justice or _a priori_
self-certainty. Do a common labourer and Mr. Gladstone deserve the same
share of voting power? If not, how many votes should Mr. Gladstone
possess to give him his just influence? To ask such questions is to
show that answering is impossible, though political theorists have, now
and then, tried to put together some ostensible pretext for an answer.

What, let us ask, is the true relation between justice and equality? A
judge, to take the typical case, is perfectly just when he ascertains
the facts by logical inferences from the evidence, and then applies the
law in the spirit of a scientific reasoner. Given the facts, what is
the rule under which they come? To answer that question, generally
speaking, is his whole duty. In other words, he has to exclude all
irrelevant considerations, such as his own private interests or
affections. The parties are to be to him merely A and B, and he has to
work out the result as an arithmetician works out a sum. Among the
irrelevant considerations are frequently some moral aspects of the
case. A judge, for example, decides a will to be valid or invalid
without asking whether the testator acted justly or unjustly in a moral
sense, but simply whether his action was legal or illegal. He cannot go
behind the law, even from motives of benevolence or general maxims of
justice, without being an unjust judge. Cases may arise, indeed, as I
must say in passing, in which this is hardly true. A law may be so
flagrantly unjust that a virtuous judge would refuse to administer it.
One striking case was that of the fugitive slave law in the United
States, where a man had to choose between acting legally and outraging
humanity. So we consider a parent unjust who does not leave his fortune
equally among his children. Unless there should be some special reason
to the contrary, we shall hold him to be unfair for making distinctions
out