Nay, we may go further, and say that it is practically plain what among
things which can be otherwise does exist by nature, and what does not
but is dependent upon enactment and conventional, even granting that
both are alike subject to be changed: and the same distinctive
illustration will apply to this and other cases; the right hand is
naturally the stronger, still some men may become equally strong in
both.
A parallel may be drawn between the Justs which depend upon convention
and expedience, and measures; for wine and corn measures are not equal
in all places, but where men buy they are large, and where these same
sell again they are smaller: well, in like manner the Justs which are
not natural, but of human invention, are not everywhere the same, for
not even the forms of government are, and yet there is one only which
by nature would be best in all places.
Chapter XI.
Now of Justs and Lawfuls each bears to the acts which embody and
exemplify it the relation of an universal to a particular; the acts
being many, but each of the principles only singular because each is an
universal. And so there is a difference between an unjust act and the
abstract Unjust, and the just act and the abstract Just: I mean, a
thing is unjust in itself, by nature or by ordinance; well, when this
has been embodied in act, there is an unjust act, but not till then,
only some unjust thing.[24] And similarly of a just act. (Perhaps
δικαιοπράγημα is more correctly the common or generic term for just
act, the word δικαίωμα, which I have here used, meaning generally and
properly the act corrective of the unjust act.) Now as to each of them,
what kinds there are, and how many, and what is their object-matter, we
must examine afterwards.
For the present we proceed to say that, the Justs and the Unjusts being
what have been mentioned, a man is said to act unjustly or justly when
he embodies these abstracts in voluntary actions, but when in
involuntary, then he neither acts unjustly or justly except
accidentally; I mean that the being just or unjust is really only
accidental to the agents in such cases.
So both unjust and just actions are limited by the being voluntary or
the contrary: for when an embodying of the Unjust is voluntary, then it
is blamed and is at the same time also an unjust action: but, if
voluntariness does not attach, there will be a thing which is in itself
unjust but not yet an unjust action.