Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
H. Rackham, Ed.

We have next to speak of Equity and the equitable, and of their relation to Justice and to what is just respectively. For upon examination it appears that Justice and Equity are neither absolutely identical nor generically different. Sometimes, it is true, we praise equity and the equitable man, so much so that we even apply the word ‘equitable’¹ as a term of approval to other things besides what is just, and use it as the equivalent of ‘good,’ denoting by ‘more equitable’ merely that a thing is better. Yet at other times, when we think the matter out, it seems strange that the equitable should be praiseworthy if it is something other than the just. If they are different, either the just or the equitable is not good; if both are good, they are the same thing.