Six centuries later Addison, famed as a clear thinker and writer, thus wrote of justice: "There is no virtue so truly great and godlike as justice.... Omniscience and omnipotence are requisites for the full exercise of it." Almost in our own time Daniel Webster, called in his day the great expounder and even now reckoned among the greatest of men intellectually, in his eulogy upon Justice Story thus apostrophized justice: "Justice is the great interest of man on earth. It is the ligament which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together. Wherever her temple stands and so long as it is duly honored, there is a foundation for social security, general happiness, and the improvement and progress of our race." Perhaps, however, none of these laudations is so vividly impressive as is the pithy remark of an old English judge that "injustice cuts to the bone." But what is this justice, declared to be so great a virtue, so ineffable, so supremely important? I have said we feel certain of some attributes of truth. Do we know or can we know anything certain about justice? Is it something above and apart from the will of men, or is it simply a matter of convention among men? Is it immutable, or does its nature change with changing times and conditions? If mutable, does it change of itself or do men change it? Is it universal or local, the same everywhere or is it different in different localities? Is it the same for all men and races of men or does it differ according to classes and races? Again, is it single or diverse in its nature? Is there more than one kind of justice? We hear of natural justice, social justice, industrial justice, political justice. What do they who use those terms mean by them? Do nature, society, industry, politics, each have a different criterion? Still again, and briefly, is justice an inexorable law like the law of gravitation or can its operation have exceptions? Is it simply a quality of action or conduct, or, as stated by Ulpian, is it a disposition or state of mind? Finally, is it a reality or, as Falstaff said of honor, is it after all "a word," "a mere scutcheon?" I am not so presumptuous as to venture an answer to any of these questions except perhaps the last. As to that, I appeal to our consciousness, to our innate conviction that there does exist something, some virtue, some sentiment, however undefinable in terms, holding men together in society despite their natural selfishness, and without which they would fall apart. It is this virtue, this ligament of society, that we call justice. We feel that the word is not a mere word, but that it connotes a vital reality in human relationship. If this reality be ignored, men cannot be held together in any society.