(3) It is strictly true that the end, human welfare, justifies any means necessary to attain it.  Whatever pain must be caused to bring about the greatest possible human happiness is thereby exempt from reprobation.  Whatever conduct is necessary for that supreme end becomes morality, or virtue; for that is precisely what morality is.  For example, it is undoubtedly necessary at times to murder, to steal, and to lie for the sake of human welfare; in such cases these acts are universally approved.  Only, we give the acts in such cases new names, that the words “murder,” etc, may retain their air of reprobation.  We call murder of which we approve “capital punishment” or “justifiable homicide” or “patriotic courage.”  If taking a man’s property without his consent is stealing, then the State steals; but, approving the act, we call it “eminent domain.”

(4) The motto has its chief danger, perhaps, in the tendency it encourages to ignore remoter consequences for the sake of immediate gain.  This point we will consider under the following topic.

What is the justification of justice and chivalry?

If the greatest total of human happiness is the supreme end of conduct, was not Caiaphas right in deeming it expedient that one man should die for the people, even though he were innocent of all sin?  Were not the French army officers sane in preferring to make Dreyfus their scapegoat rather than bring dishonor and shame upon their army?  For that matter, does not the aggregate of enjoyment of a score of cannibals outweigh the suffering of the one man whom they have sacrificed to their appetite, or the delirious excitement with which a brutal crowd witnesses a lynching overbalance the pain of their solitary victim?  Yet our souls revolt against such things.  We cry, ruat caelum, fiat justitia!  Justice is prior to all expediency!  Is this irrational, or can it be shown to be teleologically justifiable?

Justice is undoubtedly justifiable; and the only reason that we ever hesitate to acknowledge it in any concrete case is that we tend to overlook indirect and remote results and see only the immediate effect of action.  The harm done by injustice consists not merely in the pain inflicted upon the victim.  There is the sympathetic pain caused in all those who are at all tender hearted.  There is the sense of insecurity caused in each by the realization that he too might some day be a victim; when justice is not enforced no man is safe.  There is the stimulation given to human passions by one indulgence which will breed a whole crop of pain.  There is the danger that if injustice is allowed in one case where a great good seems to warrant it, it will be practiced in other cases where no such necessity exists.  Men are not to be trusted to judge clearly of relative advantages where their passions are concerned; they must bind themselves by an inflexible code.  The cases cited are comparatively clear.  No one would