4. THE CODES OF COMMUNITIES: JUSTICE.--In view of the existing tendency
in the average man, and even in some philosophers, to pass lightly over
the diversities exhibited by different codes, it is well to cast a brief
preliminary glance at the content of morals as accepted, both by
communities of men, and by their more reflective spokesmen, the
moralists. Let us first take a look at the codes of communities.

We have seen that Butler viewed justice, veracity and regard to common
good as virtues accepted among men everywhere. But we may also see, if we
look into his pages, that he neglected to point out that there may be the
widest divergencies in men's notions of what constitutes justice,
veracity and common good. And men differ widely on the score of the
degree of emphasis to be laid upon their observance.

Take justice. Where men possess a code, written or unwritten, that may
properly be called moral, we expect of them the judgment that guilt
should be punished. But what shall be accounted guilt? What shall be the
measure of retribution? Who shall be fixed upon as guilty?

As to what constitutes guilt. We have only to remind ourselves that the
Dyak head-hunter is not condemned by his fellows, but is admired;
[Footnote: WESTERMARCK, _The Origin and Development of the Moral
Ideas_, London, 1906, I, chapter xiv.] that the fattening and eating
of a slave may, in a given primitive community, be accounted no crime;
[Footnote: WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._ II, chapter xlvi.] that
infanticide has been most widely approved, and that not merely in
primitive communities, for Greece and Rome, when they were far from
primitive, practiced certain forms of it with a view to the good of the
state; [Footnote: _Ibid._, I, chapter xvii.] that the holding of a
fellow-creature in bondage, and exploiting him for one's own advantage,