THE SCOPE OF SOCIOLOGY 369
individual desires, is justice. In other words, justice is the con- dition in which there is a balanced proportion between the interests of different persons who are equally entitled to the possession of interests. Equality is a conception corresponding to each one's right to be himself. Justice is a conception cor- responding to each one's duty to be no more than himself. Equality is a concept of individualization ; justice is a concept of coordination.
In this light the formula of justice, or of "equal freedom," which Spencer so egregiously overworked, is available, namely : Every man is free to do that which he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man." x Taken together with our formula of equality, this formula of freedom or justice would not require the author's subsequent explanation that it does not permit policies of perpetual aggressiveness on the rights of others, provided the others are free to resent in kind. A part of individuality is initiative, self-choice of the direc- tion which the activities of self shall take. Aggression violates equality, whether it violates justice or not, because it takes away from the man who wants to be peaceable the privilege of choosing to be peaceable, and compels him to repel aggression. Even if he proves better able than the aggressor to maintain himself, he has meanwhile been deprived of the use of his right of choice by the aggression. That is, the condition of equality has been disturbed. We might add, therefore, to Spencer's for- mula of justice, " Provided also that he infringes not the equality of any other man."
Whatever be the content which our theories put into the term "justice," some vague valuation of the term is a too common element of all social theory to need vindication in this connec- tion. However questionable any other term in our schedule of incidents may be, a dispute about the term "justice " as a necessary condition of stable social order could at this late date scarcely be provoked. All social order has presumed that justice is behind and beneath the laws defending and the sanctions sus- taining the order. All questions of social institutions have been
1 Ethics, Vol. II, p. 46.
