in his appointed groove and thus prevent the friction
with his fellows which the older conception sought
only to mitigate. Thus in Plato's ideal state every
member of the community is to be assigned to the
class for which he proves to be best fitted; then the
law is to keep him there and so, it was conceived,
"a perfect harmony and unity will characterize both
the state and every person in it." To Aristotle also,
rights, that is interests to be protected by law, ex-
isted only between those who were free and equal.
The law was in the first instance to take account of
relations of inequality in which individuals were
treated according to their worth. Then, each being
in his proper place, the law would keep him there
and would preserve among equals a unanimity in
which there would be no violation of mutual rights.
The well-known exhortation in which St. Paul calls
upon everyone to exert himself to do his duty in the
class in which he finds himself, brings out this same
idea.

Roman legal genius gave practical effect to this
conception of justice as a preservation of the social
status quo by conceiving it to be the province of the
state to define and protect the interests and powers
of action which in their aggregate make up the legal
personality of the individual. As laid down in the
Institutes of Justinian, the precepts of law are three:
to live honorably, not to injure another, to give to
everyone his due. What the interests of another are
which one is not to injure, what constitutes anyone's
due which is to be given him, are questions left to the
traditional and authoritative social organization. In

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