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"Mere justice" implies a reference to this ideal. Equity in law had its origin in an attempt to get at a higher form of justice than mere justice. It gave relief to those who were wronged, yet had no legal remedy. In applying abstract laws to particular cases, injustice may result. It is the duty of the judge to prevent this. Yet the courts of equity must be governed by precedent, otherwise greater hardships will occur. And so a system of rigid but, on the whole, fairer law grows up, under the name of equity. Of the immense service done to humanity by the Roman courts of equity, out of whose decisions the majestic fabric of the civil law arose, this is not the place to speak.

What determines the ideals? The production (as geometers say) of the principles of justice which we already recognize, further than the common sense of society has yet carried them.

How difficult this may be is seen in the discussion of such a question as "fair wages." What are fair wages? Two or three answers may be given:

(1) Wages determined by free competition. Something between the highest the master can normally give, and the lowest the workman will normally take.

(2) Wages determined by the needs of the workman. But does this include the present or some higher (and from a moral point of view more desirable) standard of comfort? And if it can be shown that the maintenance of an industry is impossible except

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(3) Wages determined by the merits of the workIt seems impossible in such cases to reconcile the competing ideals.

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Justice then involves reference to some standard, -one already recognized or one which ought to be recognized. There is no doubt a great danger in subordinating the former to the latter, to disobey laws and to break contracts in obedience to ideals which are usually intangible, and frequently arbitrary and impossible. On the other hand, such substitution of ideal for conservative justice is sometimes the condition of moral advance.

1 Is there a right to live, and, if so, does it include the right to produce a dozen children?

CHAPTER VIII.

ETHICS IN RELATION TO THEOLOGY AND LAW.

§ 1. Ethics and Theology.

THE relations of Ethics and Theology are somewhat complicated. Ethics supplies arguments for the existence of God, and means of determining His attributes. Theologians tell us it is man's duty to seek God, and to believe in Him. This assumes that duty can exist and can be known prior to the acceptance of any form of religion. They apply to God certain ethical predicates; He is just, true, merciful, jealous, and so on. These terms must have a meaning apart from any theological implications. Christian teachers argue that the claim of Christianity to a Divine origin is proved by its exalted morality, which again assumes that ethical ideas are nobis notiora.

On the other hand Theology supplies special features: (1) in the form, and (2) in the content of morality. Theological study naturally leads to the acceptance of a jural form of Ethics. The Ten Commandments are a code of laws, and the more stringent demands of Christian morality take the form of glosses and interpretations of these, or that of supplementary

laws. Morality is imposed on us by a command of God; and obedience is exacted by means of sanctions, pleasures and pains in this life or the next.

This view, though the most obvious and the most widely spread amongst Christians, was not the only possible one. Thoughtful men soon saw that the obligations of morality could not be entirely, or even chiefly, ascribed to the will of God, and the sanctions. with which that will was enforced. It must in some way be determined by the divine nature itself.

God. is absolute Goodness, and man must desire God for this reason; Morality is no longer obedience to God's Law, but an effort to become like God, and to enter into the completest possible relation to Him.

This more idealistic view is supported by the doctrine of Sin, which has its origin in the ceremonialism and legalism of the priestly code, but is greatly developed by the prophets and by Christian theologians. Evil doing is looked on not only as the breach of a law, but as a personal defilement. Sin comes to be thought of as having a certain substantiality of its own, in antithesis to God.

In the content or matter of morality Theology has introduced the conception of duties to God as a separate kind of right conduct. It has given us the theological virtues, faith, hope, and love, and laid an especial stress on purity as opposed to mere temperance; it has given a much more important place to patience and humility.1

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In the same way it has made the conception of right conduct more strict. It has quickened sympathy and conscience, and thus led to more and more lofty ideals. It has insisted on the positive side of virtue, and on the importance of the Good Will as opposed to particular external compliances with law. Morality instead of being a sum of excellences having different sources, is constituted essentially from within by the will to comply with God's Law, or to be like Him.

Finally, Theology gives us a new motive to virtue, in the love of God. Christianity especially emphasizes the obligations of love and gratitude to the incarnate and crucified Son of God.

§ 2. Morality and Law.

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Law consists of a set of rules enforced by Government either directly or indirectly. Many of these rules are also supported by the social sanction. tive Morality may be regarded as a set of rules enforced by the social sanction; but there is a somewhat undetermined area, where the social sanction ceases to be definite, which yet belongs to the sphere of moral conduct. The acts enforced by both Law and the social sanction belong chiefly to the sphere of extra-regarding action-i.e., to justice and benevolence. Even here the social sanction is much more effective in the case of the normal individual because (1) more speedy, (2) more flexible and adaptable, (3) more continuous and (4) more certain. But Morality covers a much

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