Communists consider it unjust that the produce of the labour of the
community should be shared on any other principle than that of exact
equality; others think it just that those should receive most whose
needs are greatest; while others hold that those who work harder, or who
produce more, or whose services are more valuable to the community, may
justly claim a larger quota in the division of the produce. And the
sense of natural justice may be plausibly appealed to in behalf of every
one of these opinions.

Among so many diverse applications of the term Justice, which yet is not
regarded as ambiguous, it is a matter of some difficulty to seize the
mental link which holds them together, and on which the moral sentiment
adhering to the term essentially depends. Perhaps, in this
embarrassment, some help may be derived from the history of the word, as
indicated by its etymology.

In most, if not in all languages, the etymology of the word which
corresponds to Just, points to an origin connected either with positive
law, or with that which was in most cases the primitive form of
law-authoritative custom. _Justum_ is a form of _jussum_, that which has
been ordered. _Jus_ is of the same origin. _Dichanou_ comes from
_dichae_, of which the principal meaning, at least in the historical
ages of Greece, was a suit at law. Originally, indeed, it meant only the
mode or _manner_ of doing things, but it early came to mean the
_prescribed_ manner; that which the recognized authorities, patriarchal,
judicial, or political, would enforce. _Recht_, from which came _right_
and _righteous_, is synonymous with law. The original meaning, indeed,
of _recht_ did not point to law, but to physical straightness; as
_wrong_ and its Latin equivalents meant twisted or tortuous; and from
this it is argued that right did not originally mean law, but on the