THE NATURE OF POLITICS 5

When Shyiock asks for justice and his pound of flesh, he means
that if the laws of Venice allow contracts to be made, and then
will not enforce them, business men will not come to Venice
and its prosperity will decline. The court might answer that if
his contract is carried out, Venice will get a name for barbarity
which will do it equal harm; it would be on surer ground if it
had stated beforehand that contracts involving pounds of flesh

Svould not be enforced. Laws may be just or unjust; but
uncertainty of law will always cause injustice. For this reason
lawgivers, or people believed to be lawgivers, hold an honoured
place in history and legend—Hammurabi among the Baby-
lonians, Lycurgus in Sparta, Alfred in England; their work is
to take a tangled mass of customs and arrange it so that it can
be understood.

Justice is most likely to flourish when the people who have to
obey the laws can say what they think of them. For laws are
just when they create the conditions for happiness; and no one
knows whether I am happy better than I do. Schoolmasters often
believe that the people in their charge, being young, do not
know what will make them happy; so they speak of "mfafofoing
discipline rather than justice. Some Governments argue that
their subjects are like children in their lack of ability or training,
and must therefore be disciplined. This may sometimes be true,
though if it is training that is lacking, good Governments will
work to supply it, since a man is happier when he can judge for
himself. The Government's discipline will not be just unless
the rulers possess the rare virtue of knowing what their subjects
like, as well as what they themselves like. A schoolmaster may
be excused because of the youth of his charges; but when

t Governments and politicians start talking of discipline rather
than justice, they are half-way to tyranny.

THE USE OF FORCE.

A further problem arises from the use of force in the State.
*Any Government's Sovereignty will be a dead letter unless it