Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 37.djvu/201

Rh the altruistic sentiment, of justice are perpetually seared bymilitant activities. Contrariwise, in proportion as the régime of status is replaced by the régime of contract, or, in other words, as fast as voluntary co-operation, which characterizes the industrial type of society, becomes more general than involuntary co-operation, which characterizes the militant type of society, individual activities become less restrained, and the sentiment which rejoices in the scope for them is encouraged; while, simultaneously, the occasions for repressing the sympathies become less frequent. Hence during warlike phases of social life the sentiment of justice retrogrades, while it advances during peaceful phases, and can reach its full development only in a permanently peaceful state.

—While describing the sentiment of justice, the way has been prepared for describing the idea of justice. Though the two are intimately connected they may be clearly distinguished.

One who had dropped his pocket-book, and, turning round, finds that another who has picked it up will not surrender it, is indignant. If the goods sent home by a shopkeeper are not those he purchased, he protests against the fraud. Should his seat at a theatre be usurped during a momentary absence he feels himself ill-used. Morning noises from a neighbor's poultry he complains of as grievances. And meanwhile he sympathizes with the anger of a friend who has been led by false statements to join a disastrous enterprise, or whose action at law has been rendered futile by a flaw in the procedure. But though in these cases his sense of justice is offended, he may fail to distinguish the essential trait which in each case causes the offense. He may have the sentiment of justice in full measure while his idea of justice remains vague.

This relation between sentiment and idea is a matter of course. The ways in which men trespass on one another become more numerous in their kinds, and more involved, as society grows more complex; and they must be experienced in their many forms, generation after generation, before analysis can make clear the essential distinction between legitimate acts and illegitimate acts.

A special reason for this should be recognized. Ideas as well as sentiments must on the average be adjusted to the social state. Hence, as war has been frequent or habitual in nearly all societies, such ideas of justice as have existed have been perpetually