Page:The ethics of Aristotle.djvu/305

 between the wares as between the persons, i.e. the ratio of equality. If we admit, the meaning may be, that you must not bring into the proportion the difference mentioned above since for the purposes of commerce all men are equal. Say that the Builder is to the Shoemaker as 10:1. Then there must be the same ratio between the wares: consequently the highest artist will carry on the most valuable wares, thus combining in himself both. The following are the three cases, given 100 pr. shoes1 house. Builder : Shoemaker : : 1 pr. shoes       : 1 house——wrong. ——————   ————————.     100 pr. shoes     : 1 house——right. ——————   ————————.     10 (100 pr. shoes) : 1 house——wrong.  . Every unjust act embodies, which is a violation of , and so implies a greater and a less share, the former being said to fall to the doer, the latter to the sufferer, of injury.  . In a pure democracy men are absolutely, i.e. numerically, equal, in other forms only proportionately equal. Thus the meanest British subject is proportionately equal to the Sovereign: that is to say, is as fully secured in his rights as the Sovereign in hers.  . Or, according to Cardwell’s reading : “but amongst ourselves there is just, which is naturally variable, but certainly all just is not such.” The sense of the passage is not affected by the reading. In Bekker's text we must take to mean the same as, i.e. “we admit there is no Just which has not been sometimes disallowed, still,” etc. With Cardwell's,  will mean “which not only does but naturally may vary.”  . Murder is unjust by the law of nature, Smuggling by enactment. Therefore any act which can be referred to either of these heads is an unjust act, or, as Bishop Butler phrases it, an act materially unjust. Thus much may be decided without reference to the agent. See on page 32, l. 16.  . “As distinct from pain or loss.” Bishop Butler's Sermon on Resentment. See also, Rhet. ii. 2 Def. of.  . This method of reading the passage is taken from Zell quoted in Cardwell's Notes, and seems to yield the best sense. The Paraphrast gives it as follows: “But the aggressor is not ignorant that he began, and so he feels himself to be wrong [and will not acknowledge that he is the aggressor], but the other does not.”  . As when a man is “justified at the Grass Market”, i.e. hung.

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