rather than as a result to be striven for in any scheme of distributive justice. It is a verity the recognition of which is apodictically impelled upon us by our reason. It is not a condition over which we can exercise any influence either to aid or prevent. Its recognition serves, therefore, to furnish us, not with a canon of desert, but with the fundamental reason for distributive justice. It is because all men are persons in this ethical, spiritual sense, that we owe it to ourselves as well as to others, to seek the establishment of an order in which the utmost possible justice shall prevail. In fine, then, we have thus far accepted the idea of equality as playing an essential part in our scheme of justice, only in the sense that all individuals are entitled to an equality of consideration. And this, after all, is but another way of expressing that idea of impartiality which we accepted in the beginning, and which finds expression in the command, "Be a person, and respect all others as persons."

II. Natural Equality. In what we have had to say of spiritual equality, we have dwelt more or less upon the theory of natural equality. According to the theory of natural equality, strictly conceived, all men and women are naturally, that is, when born, substantially and potentially equal, physically and mentally. Whatever inequalities subsequently appear must, if we accept a doctrine of natural equality, be conceived to be due to differences in education and other objective conditions of life.

We are not acquainted with any writer who has

maintained the absolute congenital equality of all men, but there are many who have held that the natural differences are so slight that they may safely and properly be disregarded in the formulation of a just distributive scheme. Thus says Godwin: "In the uncultivated state of man, diseases, effeminacy, and luxury were little known, and of consequence the strength of every one much more. nearly approached to the strength of his neighbor. In the uncultivated state of man the understandings of all were limited, their ideas and their views nearly upon a level."1 To the following effect speaks also Hobbes: "Nature has made men so equal, in the faculties of the body and mind; as that though there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body, or of quicker mind than another, yet when all is reckoned together, the difference between man and man is not so considerable, as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit, to which another may not pretend as well as he. For as to strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest either by secret machination, or by confederacy with others, that are in the same danger with himself. And as to the faculties of mind, setting aside the arts grounded upon words, and especially that skill of proceeding upon general and infallible rules, called science; which very few have, but in few things; as being not a native faculty, born with us; nor attained, as prudence, while we look after

1 Political Justice, Book II, Chapter IV.

somewhat else, I find yet a greater equality amongst men than that of strength. For prudence is but experience; which equal time equally bestows on all men, in those things they equally apply themselves unto. That which may perhaps make such equality incredible, is but a vain conceit of one's own wisdom, which almost all men think they have in a greater degree than the vulgar; that is, that all men but themselves, and a few others, whom by fame or for concurring with themselves, they approve. For such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; yet they will hardly believe that there be many so wise as themselves; for they see their own wit at hand and other men's at a distance. But this proveth rather that men are in that point equal, than unequal. For there is not ordinarily a greater sign of the equal distribution of anything, than that every man is contented with his share." 1

Adam Smith, in his Wealth of Nations, says upon this point: "The difference of natural talents in different men is, in reality, much less than we are aware of, and the very different genius which appears to distinguish men of different professions, when grown up to maturity, is not upon many occasions so much the cause as the effect of the division of labor. The difference between the most dissimilar characters, between a philosopher and a common street-porter, for example, seems to arise, not so much from nature,

1 Leviathan, Chapter XIII.

as from habit, custom, and education. . . . By nature a philosopher is not in genius and disposition half so different from a street-porter as a mastiff is from a greyhound, or a greyhound from a spaniel, or this last from a shepherd's dog."1 Proudhon comes the nearest of all in declaring the original mental equality of men when he says, "Talent is a creation. rather than a gift of nature. . . . Without society, without the education and powerful assistance which it furnishes, the finest nature would not be superior to the most ordinary capacities in the very respect in which it ought to shine." In another place in the same work, however, Proudhon takes a contradictory position.

2

We do not, of course, need to stop for any length of time to demonstrate the fact of the natural inequalities among men. It is sufficient to say that every recent advance of science has served to show these inequalities to be greater than was before supposed. As a matter of fact, indeed, as we have seen, none of the writers who have dwelt most earnestly upon this point have done more than maintain a substantial equality. No one has dared to assert an absolute equality. There are, however, two observations which should be made before we leave this subject.

In the first place, attention should be called to the fact that, in admitting the existence of natural dif

1 Book I, Chapter II.

2 What is Property? Tucker translation, p. 198.
3 See post, p. 64, note.

ferences of physical and mental powers among men, there is given no support to a theory that would hold it possible, or rational, to group men into privileged classes, according to the simple principle of birth in this or that family line. The degree to which heredity is influential in determining the character and capacities of the individual is not, perhaps, exactly ascertainable. But no grounds exist for maintaining this power to be so potent as to make it reasonably certain that the distinctive traits of an ancestor will be handed down to his descendants. By this we do not mean that social and political exigencies may not require the existence of an aristocracy of birth; but if they do, it will be these exigencies, and not the facts of individual desert, which justify the discriminations shown. That is to say, the need for a class of individuals enjoying special opportunities for personal development, and charged with the performance of special functions in the political or social economy of a given people, being granted, the mere fact of birth may be accepted in default of any other sufficiently definite principle of distinction. For the same reason an hereditary kingship may be maintained, not because it is thought to secure for a nation the best kings, but because it guarantees a definite principle of royal succession.

For an aristocracy with special privileges without corresponding special functions to perform, there would seem to be no possible justification. Nevertheless, aristocracies of precisely this character have