The second example to be briefly considered is the finite trait commonly mistaken for justice. A typical illustration of this is presented by the merchant who ascribes to himself a just character on the ground that he is punctual in the payment of his debts, that his word is as good as his bond; or by the manufacturer who entertains the same opinion of himself because he pays scrupulously the wages on which he has agreed with his employees.[66] One wonders that so great and profound a notion as that of justice should be understood so superficially, restricted to such narrow limits, and that rational human beings should claim to possess so lofty a virtue on the score of credentials so inadequate. The reason is that the empirical substratum of justice is mistaken for the ethical virtue itself. This substratum may be described as an inborn propensity toward order in things and in relations, a natural impatience of loose fringes, a certain mental neatness. Hence insistence on explicitly defined arrangements and on simple, over-simple formulas. These are favored because they keep out of sight the complex elements which if considered might introduce uncertainty and possibly disorder into the situation. Thus a manufacturer, impatient of looseness, over-rating explicitness, will be led to grasp at a formula of justice which reduces it to the bare literal performance of a fixed agreement, no matter with what unfreedom, owing to the pressure of want, it was entered into by the wage-earners, and no matter how deteriorating the effect of the insufficient wage may prove to be on their standard of living. But it is a far cry from this empirical predisposition to the sublime ethical idea itself. The idea of “the just” as exemplified in any act performed by me includes the totality of all those conditions which make for the development of the ethical personality of others in so far as it can be affected by my action. To do a just act is to act with the totality of these conditions in view, in order to promote the end in view, which is the liberation of personality or at least the idea of personality in others and in myself. It is thus evident that a just act—an ideally, perfectly just act,—can be performed by no man. First because the right conditions of human development are but very imperfectly known, and are only brought to light by slow degrees. Secondly because even as to the known conditions of justice, for instance the abolition of the evils of the present industrial wage system, a single employer, or even a group of well-intentioned employers can bring about the desired changes only to a very limited extent.