jtrssiEU. 347 JUSTICE. nephew of Antoine Laurent Jussieu. Among his writings the' most popular is Himon de yantua, oil le marchand forain (1818). It passed through more than thirty editions, and was translated into nearly a dozen languages. For a work of similar description, entitled QJuvres i/osthuiiies dc tSimon de yantua ( 1829), he received the ilontyon Prize. From 1839 to 1842 he was a member of the Cham- ber of Depvities. JUSTE, zhust, Theodore (1818-88). A Bel- gian historian, born in Brussels. He was very successful in arousing interest in Belgian his- torv'. and in promoting, as secretary of the board of education, the national method of instruction. Among his numerous works, very unequal in merit, may be mentioned: Histoire de Belgique (1840); Precis de I'histoire moderne considirre dans ses rapports avec la Belgique (184.5); Precis de I'histoire du mot/en age (1847-49); Histoire du congris national de Belgique, on dc la fondation de la monarchic hclge (1850) ; His- toire dc la rcrohition des Pai/s-Bas sous Philippe II. (1835-63) ; Le soulcvement de la Hollande en ISIS et la fondation du roi/a'tme des Pays-Bas (1870); La revolution beige de 18M (1872); Ouillaume le Tnciturne. etc. (1873) ; La revolu- tion dc juillet. 1S30 (1883) ; and the biographical work. Lcs fondateurs de la monarchie beige (27 vols., 1865-81). JUSTI. yijos'tg, Ferdixaxd (1837—). A German Orientalist. He was born at JIarburg: educated there and at Gc'ittingcn. In 1861 he be- came docent. and in 1805 professor of compara- tive philo!og', at Marburg. He wrote: Ueber die Zusammensetzung der yamen in den indoger- manischcn Sprachen (1861) ; nandbuch der Zend- sprache (1864); an edition of the Bundchesch (1868); Geschichte des altcn Persiens (1879); Dictionnaire kurde-francais (1879); Kurdische Orammatik (1880) ; Geschichte der orientalischen Viilker im Altertum (1884) ; Iranisches yatnen- huch (1895): Hessisches Trachtenbuch (1900); and the monograph, "Geschichte Irans von den altesten Zeiten bis zum Ausgang der Sassaniden," in the Grundriss der iranischen Philologie. JUSTICE (OF., Fr. justice, from Lat. justitia, justice, from Justus, just, from jus, right, law). One of the cardinal virtues of the ancients, and the name for a principal aspect of social and moral duty in all ages. If we inquire into the nature of justice by examining moral and legal judgments current in civilized communities, we find such instances as the following: It is un- just to deprive a man of his personal liberty, his property, or any other thing by law belonging to him; justice, therefore, requires us to re- spect each one's rights lx>fore the law. Some- times, however, we call the law itself unjust, in which case we may s^-mpathize even with dis- obedience to it. It is then supposed that there is some higher law that should have preference — as, for example, the moral law. Thus, it is con- ceived by most men at the present day to be unjust to hold human beings in slaverv, even though slavery may be countenanced by the law of the land. It is. however, only when the law has failed to keep pace with the growth of public opinion on moral questions that an institution like slavery can be sanctioned by the law and yet condemned as unjust by the most intelligent members of society. Other differences between legal and moral justice arise from the limitations Vol. XL— 23. of the law, which cannot expediently undertake to regulate all .the details of human life. Only those acts which it is for the welfare of society to enforce by external sanction may properly come under the cognizance of the law ; hence there are necessarily many kinds of conduct which are morally unjust, and yet which are not recognized by law as unjust. Moral justice may, perhaps, be defined as allowing each man such freedom of action, security of possession, and realization of expectations based on custom as are compatible with the welfare of society. There is no such thing as absolute justice, if by that is meant anv particular method of treatment ■which any man has a right to expect of society, regardless of the times in which he lives and of the character of his life. Consult the authorities referred to under Ethics ; also Willoughby, So- ciulJustice (XewYork, 1900). JUSTICE. In legal language, justice is some- times identified with law. as when we speak of the 'administration of justice' or of 'courts of justice.' Even in le,gal discussion, however, the term is constantly used in an ethical sense, as when it is said that a decision is legally correct, but unjust. To the layman, such an admission is a confession that the law is wrong and should be amended. This, however, is not alwaj's true. Law and ju.stice cannot be brought into perfect harmony-. It is necessary, above all things, that law be certain; that the individual shall be able to ascertain in advance the results which the law will attach to his acts or his omissions. Perfect justice demands that every controversy be ad- judged on its peculiar merits; that the intelli- gence of each party, the circumstances under which he acted, his ignorance or knowledge, his good or bad intent, and an indefinite number of other considerations be taken into account. Should the law attempt to pVovide in advance for all these endless variations in so complex an organ- ism as human society — an organism, moreover, which is often in process of change — the law would become so vast in its bulk and so confused in its provisions that it would be impossible for the keenest intelligence and the greatest industry to master its rules; and even then it would be incomplete, since, as Grotius has said, "there can be no finite rule of an infinite matter." Should the courts be empowered to do justice in the single case without regard to the law, there would no longer be any law. In either case an uncertainty, a lack of social order, would result which would be a greater evil than occasional or even frequent injustice. The practical solution of the difficulty is found in compromise. The law classifies persons, acts, and relations, and it shapes its rules to suit the average person, the ordinary act, the normal rela- tion. The classification, rough at first, becomes increasingly refined ; hut in its highest develop- ment law deals, and must deal, with generic per- sons and cases, and not with the real individual or the special case. Law is not primarily a system of justice, but a system of order. Courts were not established to do justice, but to terminate controversy. Equity, as was finely said bv Aristotle, corrects the law where the law is defective by rea.son of its imiversality ; but. historically, equity has never meant anything but a greater approxima- tion of law and justice. In England, as Lord Bacon said, it was "ordained to supply the law
