To some people this second question will possibly seem superfluous.

If it can be shown, they will say, that a policy, the avowed object of which is the enrichment of the many at the expense of the relatively few, could be really carried out successfully, and if the many had the power of insisting on it, an inquiry into its abstract justice is merely a waste of time; for whenever the wolf is face to face with the lamb, it will eat up the lamb first and justify its conduct afterwards.

And in this argument there is a certain amount of truth; but those who take it for the whole truth allow their own cynicism to overreach them.

The fact remains that even the wolves of the human world are obliged to assume, as a kind of necessary armour, and often as their principal weapon, a semblance of justice, however they may despise the reality.

The brigand chief justifies his war on society by declaring that society has unjustly made war on him.