Equity is the quality of fairness and impartiality. It can be demanded only in certain defined circumstances, not of human life in general. Only a moment’s reflection is necessary to prove that this is so. It isn’t fair that some people are born handsome and others are born ugly, or intelligent and unintelligent, or gifted and ungifted, in good homes or in bad.

Not until everyone is a clone and brought up in precisely the same circumstances will life be fair—and then, it will be horrible. But exam papers can be marked, and sports refereed, fairly.

One might have thought that equity in the choice o