have been gradually displaced by an impersonal public or social valuation of the members who constitute a society.

You and I are subject to different valuations. We are valued for our characteristic qualities, the suitableness of our working qualities, and also simply as human beings and fellow-members of a society. These values may be formed by the individual according to his own viewpoint, or they may be formed by society, the individual merely adopting such social valuations. The one then is a personal valuation; the other is a societal valuation of the different aspects of the individual. Let us contrast these two valuations. The one is a valuation of our habits, of our traits of character and personality; the other is a valuation of us as fellow human beings in society. The one is a valuation of the qualities of human nature, the other of the human being as such without regard to his personal qualities. There is a personal valuation of our qualities by our friends, neighbors, and acquaintances. There are valuations also by such groups as the church or political parties. One is liked or disliked; one may be a popular idol for a moment and then be hated. There is a personal reaction to personal qualities of like and dislike for them which is often transient and fickle. There is also a societal valuation of these qualities with regard to their bearing upon group welfare and survival. Society often places a high value upon such qualities as thrift, loyalty, courage, etc., because of the serviceability of these traits in promoting the wellbeing and security of the group.

There is also the societal evaluation of the members of society as human beings born upon this globe, born into a system of social machinery and among other people. Now all these-nature with its resources, the social order with its institutions, and the other people with their activity-surround each member. Each one may try to utilize nature, the social order, and the people about him. with what force or favor he can muster. Society, however, places values upon its members, and according to these values recognizes claims and rights, rights of access to nature, to the social order, and of return from others for services rendered. These societal values tend to displace the individual attitude of fear and favor.

When the give-and-take is guided by personal responses to qualities, by attitudes of like and dislike, the distribution is not on an ethical basis. When the distribution in society is guided by the higher societal valuation of its members as human beings, giving a basis for rights or social claims, displacing the force of fear and favor upon the distributive process, then the distribution partakes of an ethical nature. If we wish to determine what is just and fair in case of a dispute, we resort to a third person who is not interested in either side and who, having no personal leanings, will be guided in his award, not by attitudes of like and dislike, but by the impersonal or social valuations of the persons involved. We indicate the ruling out of the personal feelings by blindfolding the symbolic figure of justice.

That distribution guided by personal response of like or dislike is not ethical is made more manifest by the study of distribution as it takes place in the animal world. The give-and-take among animals is governed by animal impulses. In the relations between man and animals the animals are governed solely by animal impulses. The dog's conduct toward children is governed by his like, dislike, or indifference. To speak of a dog being just is absurd; it is absurd because the dog can respond only according to his immediate impulses and cannot rise to a higher valuation which would inhibit these responses and thus place his conduct upon an ethical basis. Man's conduct, too, of course often does not rise above this plane.

What is the public or social valuation of the members of society? It is not a fixed thing. It has been subject to change, growth, and development. This social valuation which is ever displacing personal attitude toward qualities seems at present to be that human beings are equal. This is expressed in the popular phrases "free and equal,” “liberty, equality, and fraternity," "equality before the law"; also in the religious conceptions of the infinite and hence equal value of human souls.

If nature, man, and the social machinery have been created for the benefit of man, then the social judgment is that they have been created equally for the benefit of all. However individuals may favor and disfavor each other in personal reaction, society can find

no ground for favoritism. A study of the conditions under which nature, man, and the social order were evolved establishes no basis for special claims upon these by the chosen or favored ones. A man by being born upon this globe has a right to the use of it, by being born into a social order he has a right to the use of its machinery, by being born among men he has a right to services from men in return for those accepted from him. These rights, since society as a whole may have no favorites, are equal. Society weeds out of the social order the force and favor employed by the unsocialized member and displaces such chaotic and jungle forces which influence distribution by an orderly process guided by social evaluations and principles.

When this social valuation of the members of society governs the distribution of give-and-take in the social order the division called for is a one-to-one division, equal service for equal service, the equilibrium of give-and-take. This division we know as social justice. It is popularly represented by a figure holding a pair of balanced scales symbolizing the equilibrium of give-and-take. This conception of justice is often manifested in children. A boy playfully strikes another, who then strikes back, but harder. The first then might exclaim, "That isn't fair; you hit me harder than I did you." Children are often quite sensitive to the division of give-and-take within the family, showing a keen sense of proportion and readily complaining against an unfair division. It is not that when we grow up we lose our sense of justice and turn our backs upon it as the rule of division, but that the fields of giveand-take of adult and child life are so different-one is complex and indirect, the other relatively simple and direct. Within the family and in the social intercourse between playmates the exchange of give-and-take is direct and comes under immediate observation; hence the persons, if ethically inclined, are fully aware of the division of give-and-take and are fairly satisfied with their judgment of whether or not what they give is balanced by what they take. But in the other organizations of the social order the multiform exchange of give-and-take is not made in a direct manner, one's services being exchanged directly for another's services, but these being exchanged through a monetary medium. Moreover, the process of

give-and-take does not come under immediate observation; we exchange services over a broad area, with people far away, and for services of the nature of which we may know very little. All this obscures the very basic fact of give-and-take and increases the difficulty of measuring such give-and-take according to the rule of justice.

In order to avoid the application of the rule of justice to the distribution of the burdens and blessings of the social order, powerful classes have set themselves apart, forming castes and claiming themselves to be of a superior order of human being. The exchange of services between such superior beings and the inferior classes naturally would not follow the just or one-to-one division but would be at a two-to-one, ten-to-one, or perhaps one-hundred-to-one ratio. The groups who did and do accept such a valuation of the members of society really do believe that the superior classes should bear little of the burdens and drudgery of life; that it is not their place to do so. They really think that the members of such castes should have leisure, should enjoy the choice fruits of the social order, and should be surrounded by its finest products. This valuation of inequality does not refer to differences in the qualities of human nature, of habits, personality, and character, but refers to differences in birth which are the bases of superior claims upon inferiors, upon nature, and upon the social order. It does not refer to inequality of ability or efficiency in taking part in the organized endeavor within the social order. The differences in this respect are too obvious and too clearly do not follow the caste lines. Nor does this presumed superiority refer to the content of human life, that is, the stream of human experiences, nor to the native physiological capacity for such experiences. We know there are among people such differences, even great ones, but the lines of demarcation of these differences do not follow the caste lines of cleavage among the members of society. This mysterious and undefinable superiority is called one of "blood" or "birth" for want of ability to point out some definite thing as the foundation of this valuation of the members of society into superior and inferior groups with corresponding inferior and superior claims upon nature, man, and the social machinery.

Justice, the one-to-one rule, the rule of the equilibrium of giveand-take, rests upon the denial that there is some mysterious quality in some of the members of society which sets them apart and gives a value to their services over and above the content of the service simply because they, the superior beings, render such services. If A, the superior being, contributes a service, and B, the inferior, gives an identical service, B must take less in return for the service rendered than A, simply because he is in some mysterious manner an inferior human being with a correspondingly inferior claim upon A. Deny this valuation of A and B, and society is undeceiving itself about such a valuation-and there are left only two bases upon which the division of the burdens and benefits of the organized activity in society may be ordered: personal attitude and impulse backed up by might, or the social valuation of the members as equal in rights. This latter valuation gives rise to the rule of justice in distribution. It must be service for service, a one-to-one ratio of exchange. It completely cuts the ground from under any justification of special privileges to special members in society. It is the social doctrine of rights and claims applied to distribution versus the jungle method of force, fear, and favor. The only contribution a human being can make in the social order is his service; all he can give is part of his time with its human content of burdens, pleasures, and sacrifices. This is all any other member can give in exchange for his services, and these services with their content are to be equalized in the give-and-take and nothing else dragged in to mar the balance of justice.

It is not an easy matter to measure these services, content against content. But at least society can aim in that direction, even if it cannot balance the scales of give-and-take to a hair's breadth. This is one of the several reasons why, when society was unable to set up a positive rule of justice to govern distribution in the social order, it developed an ethical code in negative form to modify the natural distribution determined by force and favor. This at least enabled society to go more progressively in the direction of social justice.

It is not that deception and underhanded and upperhanded methods are in themselves unethical. How could they be? Since