Chapter XII
JUSTICE

1. DEFINITION

Though Gaelic expressly warned that the subject of conflict had still many other facets for consideration, he felt its general principle was well enough understood. His next subject was its logical extension.

"I would speak to you of justice, not strictly from its moral aspect, but as defining another fundamental through which the individual touches directly the primal source.

"Wherever a man is involved in personal conflict, either of interest or intellectually, his natural unmodified course is to react selfishly. In the overwhelming majority of cases so to act with sole reference to one's own feeling or interest is to act unjustly. The instinctive and instant reactions of savages and untaught children are but scantily informed with this virtue, because each primitive nature is in the extreme individualistic. They think of themselves within the circumference of their own interests and without reference to any thought but that which originates and acts within that circumference.

"The beginnings of justice are born when the individual thinks not only his own thoughts but to a certain extent the thoughts of another; when, even though partially and fragmentarily, he places aside for the moment certain considerations of his own to admit certain considerations of another. In other words, he thinks beyond the confines of himself.

"That is the first beginning of justice in fair play. Nevertheless, it is but a beginning. He is thinking with only two points of view; his own and - partially one other's. His own point of view may be both fallacious and self-centered; the point of view of the other man, though different may be also self-centered and fallacious. While an average struck between the two may be more nearly acceptable to both than either undiluted, the average represents more nearly fair play than justice. It is a compromise, a modus vivendi; creditable perhaps, and hopeful, but nothing more."

2. HOW ATTAINED

"To compass anything approaching real Justice this process must be extended. One must think, not with two brains, but with many. One must be able to substitute for the instinctive selfish reaction that of a nation, a people, not only of the present, but of the experienced past, so that he reflects on his little present problem the verdict of his race. In his sense of, his perception of, this feeling of that verdict, he is for the moment at one with his race; and the more perfect the justice with which he acts the more perfectly he has touched and mingled with the unity. And since it is a fact that a given container can hold but a given quantity, it follows that with the admission of a thousand million brains to think out his problems so to speak, his own individual and selfish reaction must be infinitely diluted and almost crowded out.

"Therefore it is that through Justice, as well as through Love, that the individual man touches that unity in consciousness of which we have many times spoken.

3. HOW RECOGNIZED

"That is the basic reason why Justice is esteemed as one of the great moving spirits of the universe. Its presence implies a joining with, and its absence implies an insulation from. We cannot pass judgment on the absolute justice or injustice of a thing unless we can think with the brain of him who does the act in question. Only thus can we determine to what extent the person is in touch with the verdict of his race. If we can do so, we are justified in passing judgment. It is often possible. An action originating in human impulse or human brain is, at least theoretically, always understandable through the equipment of other human beings. The attainments of any quality of consciousness are, or should be, available to the creatures manifesting that quality, provided the method is understood and the proper means of development are employed; and provided perversions and stuntings and twistings have not taken place. There is no reason why any creature should not help himself at need to all sustenance he requires, through the umbilical cord of what you call your subconscious, from the quality that has made him. The bee possesses the wisdom of all bees. So the appraisement of justice or injustice as administered by the human race may be within the province of any member of the race. All that is required is that he think with the brains, not of one or two, or of a patriotic little community, but with the brains of all."

4. THE NECESSITY OF SUSPENDED JUDGMENT

"But outside his own quality of consciousness how can he pronounce, how can he say that it is divinely unjust, that this calamity happens to him or strikes his neighbor? From what quality of consciousness, from what remote inception, extending through what train of events have such things come about? He cannot tell. It is impossible for him to think, so to speak, of such things, not only with his own brain, but with the mysterious and unknown Intelligence, that has somehow directed, not that the drought blast his field, but that in the long sequence certain patterns form or fade. Since he cannot think with these Intelligences, how can he pronounce judgment as to what he is often pleased to call divine injustice?"