Chapter 159

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The word πρεσβύτερα, which is here translated “prior,” may also mean “superior;” but Antoninus seems to say that piety and reverence of the gods precede all virtues, and that other virtues are derived from them, even justice, which in another passage (xi. 10) he makes the foundation of all virtues. The ancient notion of justice is that of giving to every one his due. It is not a legal definition, as some have supposed, but a moral rule which law cannot in all cases enforce. Besides, law has its own rules, which are sometimes moral and sometimes immoral; but it enforces them all simply because they are general rules, and if it did not or could not enforce them, so far Law would not be Law. Justice, or the doing what is just, implies a universal rule and obedience to it; and as we all live under universal Law, which commands both our body and our intelligence, and is the law of our nature, that is, the law of the whole constitution of a man, we must endeavor to discover what this supreme Law is. It is the will of the power that rules all. By acting in obedience to this will, we do justice, and by consequence everything else that we ought to do.