But this right many jurists impeach, as they would an
orator who brought forward an unconstitutional measure: they detest
the notion that, because one man has the power of doing violence and
is superior in brute strength, another shall be his slave and subject.
Even among philosophers there is a difference of opinion. The origin
of the dispute, and what makes the views invade each other's
territory, is as follows: in some sense virtue, when furnished with
means, has actually the greatest power of exercising force; and as
superior power is only found where there is superior excellence of
some kind, power seems to imply virtue, and the dispute to be simply
one about justice (for it is due to one party identifying justice with
goodwill while the other identifies it with the mere rule of the
stronger). If these views are thus set out separately, the other views
have no force or plausibility against the view that the superior in
virtue ought to rule, or be master. Others, clinging, as they think,
simply to a principle of justice (for law and custom are a sort of
justice), assume that slavery in accordance with the custom of war
is justified by law, but at the same moment they deny this. For what
if the cause of the war be unjust? And again, no one would ever say he
is a slave who is unworthy to be a slave.
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