 Following a current in the natural law tradition, Leibniz supplements his account of justice as the charity of the wise with three principles handed down from Roman law via Justinian's Institutes (533 AD). The three principles are “to hurt no one” (neminem laedere), “to give each his due” (suum cuique tribuere), and “to live honorably” (honeste vivere) or, as Leibniz glosses it, to live piously. Leibniz suggests that these principles underwrite three distinct degrees of justice (PW, “Codex Iuris Gentium,” pp. 171–2). The lowest degree is “strict right” (ius strictum), which has as its precept that “no one is to be injured, so that he will not be given a motive for a legal action within the state, nor outside the state a right of war” (PW, “Codex Iuris Gentium,” p. 172). Strict right primarily includes a bare minimum set of negative duties, such as the duties not to harm, not to murder, and not to commit theft. The function of this degree of justice is the “conservation of peace.”  The second degree Leibniz calls “equity” or “charity” in the narrow sense of the term, which has its basis in the principle “to give each his due.”  This grade of justice includes, for example, duties of gratitude and of charitable donation, things we owe to others but which failure to fulfill is not sanctioned by law. Whereas strict right functions merely to avoid misery by fostering peace, the duties of equity actively promote the happiness of others as far as possible within this life.