Unto This Last, and Other Essays on Political EconomyRuskin, John
General
Unto This Last, and Other Essays on Political Economy
Ruskin, John
Art; Economics
[34] More accurately, Sun of Justness; but, instead of the harsh
word "Justness," the old English "Righteousness" being
commonly employed, has, by getting confused with
"godliness," or attracting about it various vague and broken
meanings, prevented most persons from receiving the force of
the passages in which it occurs. The word "righteousness"
properly refers to the justice of rule, or right, as
distinguished from "equity," which refers to the justice of
balance. More broadly, Righteousness is King's justice; and
Equity, Judge's justice; the King guiding or ruling all, the
Judge dividing or discerning between opposites (therefore,
the double question, "Man, who made me a ruler--[Greek:
dikastes]--or a divider--[Greek: meristes]--over you?")
Thus, with respect to the Justice of Choice (selection, the
feebler and passive justice), we have from lego,--lex,
legal, loi, and loyal; and with respect to the Justice of
Rule (direction, the stronger and active justice), we have
from rego,--rex, regal, roi, and royal.
[35] In another place written with the same meaning, "Just, and
having salvation."
I have just spoken of the flowing of streams to the sea as a partial
image of the action of wealth. In one respect it is not a partial, but
a perfect image. The popular economist thinks himself wise in having
discovered that wealth, or the forms of property in general, must go
where they are required; that where demand is, supply must follow. He
farther declares that this course of demand and supply cannot be
forbidden by human laws. Precisely in the same sense, and with the
same certainty, the waters of the world go where they are required.
Where the land falls, the water flows. The course neither of clouds
nor rivers can be forbidden by human will. But the disposition and
administration of them can be altered by human forethought. Whether
the stream shall be a curse or a blessing, depends upon man's labour,
and administrating intelligence. For centuries after centuries, great
districts of the world, rich in soil, and favoured in climate, have
lain desert under the rage of their own rivers; not only desert, but
plague-struck. The stream which, rightly directed, would have flowed
in soft irrigation from field to field--would have purified the air,
given food to man and beast, and carried their burdens for them on its
bosom--now overwhelms the plain, and poisons the wind; its breath
pestilence, and its work famine. In like manner this wealth "goes
where it is required." No human laws can withstand its flow. They can
only guide it: but this, the leading trench and limiting mound can do
so thoroughly, that it shall become water of life--the riches of the
hand of wisdom;[36] or, on the contrary, by leaving it to its own
lawless flow, they may make it, what it has been too often, the last
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