of those who profess the most sublime contempt for the consequences of
actions as an element in their morality, attaches more importance to
the distinction than I do. While I dispute the pretensions of any
theory which sets up an imaginary standard of justice not grounded
on utility, I account the justice which is grounded on utility to be
the chief part, and incomparably the most sacred and binding part,
of all morality. justice is a name for certain classes of moral rules,
which concern the essentials of human well-being more nearly, and
are therefore of more absolute obligation, than any other rules for
the guidance of life; and the notion which we have found to be of
the essence of the idea of justice, that of a right residing in an
individual implies and testifies to this more binding obligation.

  The moral rules which forbid mankind to hurt one another (in which
we must never forget to include wrongful interference with each
other's freedom) are more vital to human well-being than any maxims,
however important, which only point out the best mode of managing some
department of human affairs. They have also the peculiarity, that they
are the main element in determining the whole of the social feelings
of mankind. It is their observance which alone preserves peace among
human beings: if obedience to them were not the rule, and disobedience
the exception, every one would see in every one else an enemy, against
whom he must be perpetually guarding himself. What is hardly less
important, these are the precepts which mankind have the strongest and
the most direct inducements for impressing upon one another. By merely
giving to each other prudential instruction or exhortation, they may
gain, or think they gain, nothing: in inculcating on each other the
duty of positive beneficence they have an unmistakable interest, but
far less in degree: a person may possibly not need the benefits of
others; but he always needs that they should not do him hurt. Thus the
moralities which protect every individual from being harmed by others,
either directly or by being hindered in his freedom of pursuing his
own good, are at once those which he himself has most at heart, and
those which he has the strongest interest in publishing and
enforcing by word and deed. It is by a person's observance of these
that his fitness to exist as one of the fellowship of human beings
is tested and decided; for on that depends his being a nuisance or not
to those with whom he is in contact. Now it is these moralities
primarily which compose the obligations of justice. The most marked
cases of injustice, and those which give the tone to the feeling of
repugnance which characterises the sentiment, are acts of wrongful
aggression, or wrongful exercise of power over some one; the next
are those which consist in wrongfully withholding from him something
which is his due; in both cases, inflicting on him a positive hurt,
either in the form of direct suffering, or of the privation of some
good which he had reasonable ground, either of a physical or of a
social kind, for counting upon.

  The same powerful motives which command the observance of these
primary moralities, enjoin the punishment of those who violate them;
and as the impulses of self-defence, of defence of others, and of
vengeance, are all called forth against such persons, retribution,
or evil for evil, becomes closely connected with the sentiment of
justice, and is universally included in the idea. Good for good is
also one of the dictates of justice; and this, though its social
utility is evident, and though it carries with it a natural human
feeling, has not at first sight that obvious connection with hurt or
injury, which, existing in the most elementary cases of just and
unjust, is the source of the characteristic intensity of the
sentiment. But the connection, though less obvious, is not less
real. He who accepts benefits, and denies a return of them when
needed, inflicts a real hurt, by disappointing one of the most natural
and reasonable of expectations, and one which he must at least tacitly
have encouraged, otherwise the benefits would seldom have been
conferred. The important rank, among human evils and wrongs, of the
disappointment of expectation, is shown in the fact that it
constitutes the principal criminality of two such highly immoral
acts as a breach of friendship and a breach of promise. Few hurts
which human beings can sustain are greater, and none wound more,
than when that on which they habitually and with full assurance
relied, fails them in the hour of need; and few wrongs are greater
than this mere withholding of good; none excite more resentment,
either in the person suffering, or in a sympathising spectator. The
principle, therefore, of giving to each what they deserve, that is,
good for good as well as evil for evil, is not only included within
the idea of justice as we have defined it, but is a proper object of
that intensity of sentiment, which places the just, in human
estimation, above the simply Expedient.

  Most of the maxims of justice current in the world, and commonly
appealed to in its transactions, are simply instrumental to carrying
into effect the principles of justice which we have now spoken of.
That a person is only responsible for what he has done voluntarily, or
could voluntarily have avoided; that it is unjust to condemn any
person unheard; that the punishment ought to be proportioned to the
offence, and the like, are maxims intended to prevent the just
principle of evil for evil from being perverted to the infliction of
evil without that justification. The greater part of these common
maxims have come into use from the practice of courts of justice,
which have been naturally led to a more complete recognition and
elaboration than was likely to suggest itself to others, of the
rules necessary to enable them to fulfil their double function, of
inflicting punishment when due, and of awarding to each person his
right.

  That first of judicial virtues, impartiality, is an obligation of
justice, partly for the reason last mentioned; as being a necessary
condition of the fulfilment of the other obligations of justice. But
this is not the only source of the exalted rank, among human
obligations, of those maxims of equality and impartiality, which, both