There are certain situations in which justice loses its authority. 'Thus, to save a life, it may be allowable ... to steal or take by force the necessary food or medicine, or kidnap and compel to officiate the only qualified medical practitioner.'[20] Wherefore, since to steal or to kidnap is essentially wrong, it may sometimes be allowable to do wrong. Mr. Mill's explanation of the paradox is, that 'there are particular cases in which some other social duty is so important as to overrule any one of the general maxims of justice; but that in such cases we usually say, not that justice must give way to some other moral principle, but that what is just in ordinary cases is, by reason of that other principle, not just in the particular case.'[21] I submit, however, that there is no real occasion to resort to any such 'useful accommodation of language,' in order to be 'saved from the necessity of admitting that there may be laudable injustice.' Let us never shrink from looking error in the face, for fear that, after she has slunk away abashed, some insoluble mystery may remain behind. It is better, at any rate, to be puzzled than deceived. There can be no doubt about theft being essentially unjust, and no skill in the arrangement of words can convert injustice into justice, or prevent injustice from being wrong. But when, as occasionally happens, the only choice open to us is between two immoral courses, it is morally incumbent on us to select the less immoral of the two. The wrong we decide upon does not, however, itself become smaller because it prevents a larger. A sworn bravo, who had taken in advance the wages of assassination, would sin less by breaking than by keeping faith with his employer; but, in either case, would sin. Abstinence from murder would not absolve him from the guilt of perjury. If, unless a loaf were stolen, a life would be lost, Anti-utilitarianism might pardon, but would scarcely applaud the theft. At all events it would not, like the rival doctrine in a similar strait, be reduced to double on itself, declaring that wrong had become right and black white, that the Ethiopian had changed his skin and the leopard his spots. It would still insist as positively as ever that to steal another man's bread cannot be just, however benevolent the purpose for which it is stolen.