ments
are occasionally suggested by those, as wrong actions by these. But
though it is one thing to believe that we have natural feelings of
justice, and another to acknowledge them as an ultimate criterion of
conduct, these two opinions are very closely connected in point of fact.
Mankind are always predisposed to believe that any subjective feeling,
not otherwise accounted for, is a revelation of some objective reality.
Our present object is to determine whether the reality, to which the
feeling of justice corresponds, is one which needs any such special
revelation; whether the justice or injustice of an action is a thing
intrinsically peculiar, and distinct from all its other qualities, or
only a combination of certain of those qualities, presented under a
peculiar aspect. For the purpose of this inquiry, it is practically
important to consider whether the feeling itself, of justice and
injustice, is _sui generis_ like our sensations of colour and taste, or
a derivative feeling, formed by a combination of others. And this it is
the more essential to examine, as people are in general willing enough
to allow, that objectively the dictates of justice coincide with a part
of the field of General Expediency; but inasmuch as the subjective
mental feeling of Justice is different from that which commonly attaches
to simple expediency, and, except in extreme cases of the latter, is far
more imperative in its demands, people find it difficult to see, in
Justice, only a particular kind or branch of general utility, and think
that its superior binding force requires a totally different origin.

To throw light upon this question, it is necessary to attempt to
ascertain what is the distinguishing character of justice, or of
injustice: what is the quality, or whether there is any quality,
attributed in common to all modes of conduct designated as unjust (for
justice, like many other moral attributes, is best defined by its
opposite), and distinguishing them from such modes of conduct as are
disapproved, but without having that particular epithet of
disapprobation applied to them. If, in everything which men are
accustomed to characterize as just or unjust, some one common attribute
or collection of attributes is always present, we may judge whether this
particular attribute or combination of attributes would be capable of
gathering round it a sentiment of that peculiar character and intensity
by virtue of the general laws of our em