Page:The ethics of Aristotle.djvu/146

 same force; fire, for instance, burns not here only but in Persia as well, but the Justs they see changed in various places.

Now this is not really so, and yet it is in a way (though among the gods perhaps by no means): still even amongst ourselves there is somewhat existing by nature: allowing that everything is subject to change, still there is that which does exist by nature, and that which does not.

Nay, we may go further, and say that it is practically plain what among things which can be otherwise does exist by nature, and what does not but is dependent upon enactment and conventional, even granting that both are alike subject to be changed: and the same distinctive illustration will apply to this and other cases; the right hand is naturally the stronger, still some men may become equally strong in both.

A parallel may be drawn between the Justs which depend upon convention and expedience, and measures; for wine and corn measures are not equal in all places, but where men buy they are large, and where these same sell again they are smaller: well, in like manner the Justs which are not natural, but of human invention, are not everywhere the same, for not even the forms of government are, and yet there is one only which by nature would be best in all places.

Now of Justs and Lawfuls each bears to the acts which embody and exemplify it the relation of an universal to a particular; the acts being many, but each of the principles only singular because each is an universal. And so there is a difference between an unjust act and the abstract Unjust, and the just act and the abstract Just: I mean, a thing is unjust in itself, by nature or by ordinance; well, when this has been embodied in act, there is an unjust act, but not till then, only some unjust thing. And similarly of a just act. (Perhaps is more correctly the common or generic term for just act, the word, which I have here used, meaning generally and properly the act corrective