Quotation of the Day…

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… is from pages 162-163 of the American jurist James Coolidge Carter’s profound yet unfortunately neglected (posthumous) 1907 book, Law: Its Origin, Growth and Function:

Justice is, therefore, not an absolute, but a relative virtue, finding its play in that field of our conduct which … relates to our dealings and intercourse with each other in society, and enforcing in that field the things necessary for the existence of society. This existence is assured when, and only when, each receives from all the treatment he may fairly expect. Then men love to live together; otherwise they fly apart as if charged with resinous electricity. Justice may therefore be defined to be the principle which dictates that conduct between man and man which may fairly be expected by both, and as none may fairly expect from another what is not in accordance with custom, justice consists in the compliance with custom in all matters of difference between men. It is the right arm of Peace and the antithesis of force.