which has so organised its social life that all its citizens live in harmony.
Two aspects of justice were distinguished by Aristotle—justice as distributive and justice as corrective. Distributive justice in the state demands that all men should be, treated equitably in accordance with their merits. All men are not equal in capacity, and all men do not deserve equally well of the community, so distributive justice does not claim an equal distribution of goods to every man; but it does try to secure that all men shall be treated equitably and fairly. The just state will distribute goods to its citizens in proportion to their deserts.
Corrective justice becomes necessary when distributive justice has failed or has been overridden. If one citizen has obtained more than his due proportion of goods, either by such obviously unlawful means as theft or by subtler illegality or unfairness, it becomes the duty of the state to correct the disproportion. Thus justice in the strict legal sense is almost wholly corrective justice.
Justice should be understood in a sense wide enough to comprise benevolence and mercy. True justice should be so comprehensive that benevolence and mercy will become simply aspects of it. Mercy apart from justice is necessary only because justice has failed. The poor and the distressed are constantly reminding us that what they want is not mercy and charity, but justice. A true conception of moral justice would recognise that much of what is still regarded as charity or philanthropy, as works of mercy or grace, is really simply justice. Doles given to the aged poor used to be considered to be charity:
