governed by our Ideas. In Idea, Justice would assign Property without regard to previous possession; but in Fact, by rejecting the regard to previous possession it ceases to be Property.

The same opposition may be remarked, in other parts of Natural Law. In Idea, for instance, Justice requires that all classes of men should have equal Rights but in Fact, men form themselves into Classes, and by that very act make their Rights unequal. In Idea, men should make and perform their Contracts according to perfect Equality; but in Fact, the Terms of the Contract must be regarded by Justice, because Equality is too obscure and indefinite a foundation for a just decision. And the like may be

said in other cases.

487. The Steps by which the Conception of Justice has been unfolded and defined among men, have involved a recognition of both the maxims which have been stated. The Laws of all Countries annul Rights acquired in violent and illegal ways; and the Laws of all Countries allow undisturbed Possession, in the sincere belief of Right, to give, at least in some cases, and after some lapse of time, a complete Right. To all men, when the origin of existing Rights is shown to be some violent and unjust act, the Rights appear to be unjust. But when it is shown, on the other hand, that the traces of this arbitrary origin are only such as inevitably exist in all Rights, the Rights again seem just. When we consider how greatly the existing tenure of Land, in this country, depends upon the violent confiscations which took place in the Norman Conquest, the Rights of many of our landlords may appear to be unjust. But when we recollect that the Saxons, whom the Normans conquered, had themselves obtained possession of the land by a similar conquest; and that the transactions respecting property in England have, for nearly eight hundred years, assumed the validity

of the Rights acquired by the Norman Conquest; we see that it would be unjust to fix our attention on that particular event, as especially vitiating Rights.

488. The remoteness of an act of violence in point of time; the complexity of the events which have succeeded it; the degree in which it has faded into oblivion; the habit of disregarding it established in the community;-all these, are circumstances which make it just to disregard the bearing of the event upon existing Rights. Every circumstance, by which the effect of a past event upon men's thoughts and actions is enfeebled, makes it less of a reality in the present condition of things; and therefore, less an element for consideration in the assignment of Rights according to justice.

489. What has now been said, agrees with what was said formerly (218) in speaking of the Idea of Justice; namely, that though, in general, Justice is determined by Law, the Law must be framed in accordance with Justice. Justice is directly and positively determined by Law; for a man's just Rights are those which the Law gives him. The Law must be framed in accordance with Justice; and must therefore reject all that is arbitrary and unequal, as soon as it is seen to be so. Hence the Law, in order that it may accord with Justice, may be changed from time to time, in proportion as different external facts are made objects of attention. For instance, if one State, (suppose Helos,) act with great violence and cruelty towards another; (suppose Sparta ;) it may be just in Sparta, to punish Helos, by reducing its citizens to a condition of subjection, and depriving them of their property. But after several generations, when the transgression is fallen into oblivion, it would be unjust to make any Laws, on the ground of such transgression. When such a time has arrived, it may be just to make laws, in or

der to render the condition of the Helots less subject; or in order to restore to them their territory.

490. On this imaginary case, we may make one or two further remarks. It may be objected to the above statement, that it cannot be just to punish a whole State for the offence of some of its citizens; still less to continue the punishment to succeeding unoffending generations. And this is true, so far as such a remark can be applied, consistently with the nature of Punishment, and of a State. But when one State is injured by another, it must deal with the of fending State as a whole; and it cannot extend its regard to individuals, in such a manner as would render impossible the punishment of injuries done by the State. If individuals have offended against a foreign State; and if the State to which they belong, refuses to punish them, or to give them up; it makes itself a party to their wrong. And when, on this ground, a penal infliction takes place, this infliction must operate alike on the offenders and their fellow-citizens; alike on those citizens who were in being at the time of the wrong, and on succeeding generations. For the State, according to the conception of it, is a collective and perpetual body (470); its condition is communicated to contemporary and to successive members of it, by their being Members. In this, there is no injustice; any more than there is in the transmission of the Possessions, or of the Rank of a Family, to its Members, and to successive generations. Nations derive their prosperous or adverse condition from their history, and from their transactions with other nations; and individuals, more or less, share in the prosperous or adverse condition of

the nation.

491. States have not, nor can have, any way of punishing Injuries, or of asserting their Rights against other States, except War. They have no common Superior Tribunal to which they can appeal

VOL. I.-GG

(214): and they can seek Justice in no other way. Also War would not answer its purpose, nor would it be War, if it did not produce some inconvenience to the vanquished State, and consequently to its citizens. Innocent citizens must be involved with the guilty, in the punishment; as the children of a guilty parent are necessarily involved in his punishment.

With regard to the seizure of the Property of the vanquished by the victorious State; it may further be remarked, that the citizens of the vanquished State derived Rights from their State; and that, therefore, they necessarily lose their Rights, when their State loses its power of maintaining Rights*.

It is not therefore necessarily unjust that there should take place, between States, acts of violence, which affect, through succeeding generations, the distribution of property and the relation of classes. The possibility of such events, is a necessary condition of the existence of States. The Actions of States, as of individuals, produce permanent consequences. If they did not do so, questions of justice and injustice respecting such actions would be of little importance.

492. But if such violent events have at some time taken place, must their consequences remain unchanged? If calamities have been inflicted by one nation upon another, even as a just punishment; does justice require these inflictions to be perpetuated without limit? If a nation have been enslaved and despoiled, even for their wrongs, may not the time come when they may be restored to freedom and property? We reply, in accordance with what has been said, that in proportion as the traces of the wrong are obliterated in men's minds, Justice will aim at obliterating them in their condition also. The privations and subjection of the subjugated class, so soon

* Such maxims may be much mitigated in practice by International Law, as we shall see hereafter.

as they cease to be looked upon as penal, appear as arbitrary, and therefore unjust. As soon as the inequality appears as an arbitrary one, Justice requires that it shall be removed.

But then, no present inequality can be quite arbitrary, because every actual inequality depends upon the Laws and Habits by which the present is derived from the past; and such Laws and Habits are requisite, in order that there may be, between the present and the past, that connexion which the continuity of the Life of States (475) requires. The Events of History have, at every step, led to present inequalities; to a difference of high and low, rich and poor. Justice does not require that we should abolish all such distinctions; for to do this, would be to abolish Rights, the necessary conditions of Justice. What then is the course which Justice prescribes ?

493. We answer, that Justice requires us to aim constantly to remedy the inequalities which History produces.

We do not say that Justice requires us to restore any previous condition which has been unjustly changed, but to remedy the effects of the change. For, in fact, a previous State of things never can be restored; and when a change takes place, then, after a short time has elapsed, there have grown up, under the new State of things, new Rights, which it would be unjust to annul. What has once happened, can never cease to have happened. In the course of a nation's history, what has been done, cannot be undone. We may do something of an opposite tendency; and when what has been done was unjust, it is just to do something to remedy the injustice. If we are asked whether the consequences of events are to be perpetual; we may answer, that the consequences of events are perpetual; but that the consequence of a second event may counteract those of a former one. And we pronounce that such a second event ought to