Created as an instruction manual to accompany the tool Nicholson invented for assuring fairness in any imaginable situation of division (see Museum Editions), this charming and erudite book is a meditation on the ways that Western civilization has over the centuries posited a relationship between mathematics and morality. Nicholson starts out counting on his fingers and ends up with the division of power in government, along the way quoting Nichomachus, Kepler and St. Matthew. Nicholson's list of paradigms for measuring justice make clear how powerful capitalist metaphors are in our thought and personal interactions. For example: You owe it to yourself to own this book.

2000, 16 pp., paperback

Related exhibition: Ben Nicholson, Thinking the Unthinkable House (1996)