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A TREATISE ON GOVERNMENT
TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK OF
ARISTOTLE
BY WILLIAM ELLIS, A.M.
LONDON &.TORONTO PUBLISHED BY J M DENT & SONS LTD.
&.IN NEW YORK BY E. P. DUTTON &. CO
FIRST ISSUE OF THIS EDITION 1912 REPRINTED 1919, 1923, 1928
INTRODUCTION
The Politics of Aristotle is the second part of a treatise of which
the Ethics is the first part. It looks back to the Ethics as the
Ethics looks forward to the Politics. For Aristotle did not separate,
as we are inclined to do, the spheres of the statesman and the
moralist. In the Ethics he has described the character necessary for
the good life, but that life is for him essentially to be lived in
society, and when in the last chapters of the Ethics he comes to the
practical application of his inquiries, that finds expression not in
moral exhortations addressed to the individual but in a description of
the legislative opportunities of the statesman. It is the legislator's
task to frame a society which shall make the good life possible.
Politics for Aristotle is not a struggle between individuals or
classes for power, nor a device for getting done such elementary tasks
as the maintenance of order and security without too great
encroachments on individual liberty. The state is "a community of
well-being in families and aggregations of families for the sake of a
perfect and self-sufficing life." The legislator is a craftsman whose
material is society and whose aim is the good life.
In an early dialogue of Plato's, the Protagoras, Socrates asks
Protagoras why it is not as easy to find teachers of virtue as it is
to find teachers of swordsmanship, riding, or any other art.
Protagoras' answer is that there are no special teachers of virtue,
because virtue is taught by the whole community. Plato and Aristotle
both accept the view of moral education implied in this answer. In a
passage of the Republic (492 b) Plato repudiates the notion that the
sophists have a corrupting moral influence upon young men. The public
themselves, he says, are the real sophists and the most complete and
thorough educators. No private education can hold out against the
irresistible force of public opinion and the ordinary moral standards
of society. But that makes it all the more essential that public
opinion and social environment should not be left to grow up at
haphazard as they ordinarily do, but should be made by the wise
legislator the expression of the good and be informed in all their
details by his knowledge. The legislator is the only possible teacher
of virtue.
Such a programme for a treatise on government might lead us to expect
in the Politics mainly a description of a Utopia or ideal state which
might inspire poets or philosophers but have little direct effect upon
political institutions. Plato's Republic is obviously impracticable,
for its author had turned away in despair from existing politics. He
has no proposals, in that dialogue at least, for making the best of
things as they are. The first lesson his philosopher has to learn is
to turn away from this world of becoming and decay, and to look upon
the unchanging eternal world of ideas. Thus his ideal city is, as he
says, a pattern laid up in heaven by which the just man may rule his
life, a pattern therefore in the meantime for the individual and not
for the statesman. It is a city, he admits in the Laws, for gods or
the children of gods, not for men as they are.
Aristotle has none of the high enthusiasm or poetic imagination of
Plato. He is even unduly impatient of Plato's idealism, as is shown by
the criticisms in the second book. But he has a power to see the
possibilities of good in things that are imperfect, and the patience
of the true politician who has learned that if he would make men what
they ought to be, he must take them as he finds them. His ideal is
constructed not of pure reason or poetry, but from careful and
sympathetic study of a wide range of facts. His criticism of Plato in
the light of history, in Book II. chap, v., though as a criticism it
is curiously inept, reveals his own attitude admirably: "Let us
remember that we should not disregard the experience of ages; in the
multitude of years, these things, if they were good, would certainly
not have been unknown; for almost everything has been found out,
although sometimes they are not put together; in other cases men do
not use the knowledge which they have." Aristotle in his Constitutions
had made a study of one hundred and fifty-eight constitutions of the
states of his day, and the fruits of that study are seen in the
continual reference to concrete political experience, which makes the
Politics in some respects a critical history of the workings of the
institutions of the Greek city state. In Books IV., V., and VI. the
ideal state seems far away, and we find a dispassionate survey of
imperfect states, the best ways of preserving them, and an analysis of
the causes of their instability. It is as though Aristotle were
saying: "I have shown you the proper and normal type of constitution,
but if you will not have it and insist on living under a perverted
form, you may as well know how to make the best of it." In this way
the Politics, though it defines the state in the light of its ideal,
discusses states and institutions as they are. Ostensibly it is merely
a continuation of the Ethics, but it comes to treat political
questions from a purely political standpoint.
This combination of idealism and respect for the teachings of
experience constitutes in some ways the strength and value of the
Politics, but it also makes it harder to follow. The large nation
states to which we are accustomed make it difficult for us to think
that the state could be constructed and modelled to express the good
life. We can appreciate Aristotle's critical analysis of
constitutions, but find it hard to take seriously his advice to the
legislator. Moreover, the idealism and the empiricism of the Politics
are never really reconciled by Aristotle himself.
It may help to an understanding of the Politics if something is said
on those two points.
We are accustomed since the growth of the historical method to the
belief that states are "not made but grow," and are apt to be
impatient with the belief which Aristotle and Plato show in the powers
of the lawgiver. But however true the maxim may be of the modern
nation state, it was not true of the much smaller and more
self-conscious Greek city. When Aristotle talks of the legislator, he
is not talking in the air. Students of the Academy had been actually
called on to give new constitutions to Greek states. For the Greeks
the constitution was not merely as it is so often with us, a matter of
political machinery. It was regarded as a way of life. Further, the
constitution within the framework of which the ordinary process of
administration and passing of decrees went on, was always regarded as
the work of a special man or body of men, the lawgivers. If we study
Greek history, we find that the position of the legislator corresponds
to that assigned to him by Plato and Aristotle. All Greek states,
except those perversions which Aristotle criticises as being "above
law," worked under rigid constitutions, and the constitution was only
changed when the whole people gave a commission to a lawgiver to draw
up a new one. Such was the position of the AEsumnetes, whom Aristotle
describes in Book III. chap, xiv., in earlier times, and of the pupils
of the Academy in the fourth century. The lawgiver was not an ordinary
politician. He was a state doctor, called in to prescribe for an
ailing constitution. So Herodotus recounts that when the people of
Cyrene asked the oracle of Delphi to help them in their dissensions,
the oracle told them to go to Mantinea, and the Mantineans lent them
Demonax, who acted as a "setter straight" and drew up a new
constitution for Cyrene. So again the Milesians, Herodotus tells us,
were long troubled by civil discord, till they asked help from Paros,
and the Parians sent ten commissioners who gave Miletus a new
constitution. So the Athenians, when they were founding their model
new colony at Thurii, employed Hippodamus of Miletus, whom Aristotle
mentions in Book II, as the best expert in town-planning, to plan the
streets of the city, and Protagoras as the best expert in law-making,
to give the city its laws. In the Laws Plato represents one of the
persons of the dialogue as having been asked by the people of Gortyna
to draw up laws for a colony which they were founding. The situation
described must have occurred frequently in actual life. The Greeks
thought administration should be democratic and law-making the work of
experts. We think more naturally of law-making as the special right of
the people and administration as necessarily confined to experts.
Aristotle's Politics, then, is a handbook for the legislator, the
expert who is to be called in when a state wants help. We have called
him a state doctor. It is one of the most marked characteristics of
Greek political theory that Plato and Aristotle think of the statesman
as one who has knowledge of what ought to be done, and can help those
who call him in to prescribe for them, rather than one who has power
to control the forces of society. The desire of society for the
statesman's advice is taken for granted, Plato in the Republic says
that a good constitution is only possible when the ruler does not want
to rule; where men contend for power, where they have not learnt to
distinguish between the art of getting hold of the helm of state and
the art of steering, which alone is statesmanship, true politics is
impossible.
With this position much that Aristotle has to say about government is
in agreement. He assumes the characteristic Platonic view that all men
seek the good, and go wrong through ignorance, not through evil will,
and so he naturally regards the state as a community which exists for
the sake of the good life. It is in the state that that common seeking
after the good which is the profoundest truth about men and nature
becomes explicit and knows itself. The state is for Aristotle prior to
the family and the village, although it succeeds them in time, for
only when the state with its conscious organisation is reached can man
understand the secret of his past struggles after something he knew
not what. If primitive society is understood in the light of the
state, the state is understood in the light of its most perfect form,
when the good after which all societies are seeking is realised in its
perfection. Hence for Aristotle as for Plato, the natural state or the
state as such is the ideal state, and the ideal state is the
starting-point of political inquiry.
In accordance with the same line of thought, imperfect states,
although called perversions, are regarded by Aristotle as the result
rather of misconception and ignorance than of perverse will. They all
represent, he says, some kind of justice. Oligarchs and democrats go
wrong in their conception of the good. They have come short of the
perfect state through misunderstanding of the end or through ignorance
of the proper means to the end. But if they are states at all, they
embody some common conception of the good, some common aspirations of
all their members.
The Greek doctrine that the essence of the state consists in community
of purpose is the counterpart of the notion often held in modern times
that the essence of the state is force. The existence of force is for
Plato and Aristotle a sign not of the state but of the state's
failure. It comes from the struggle between conflicting misconceptions
of the good. In so far as men conceive the good rightly they are
united. The state represents their common agreement, force their
failure to make that agreement complete. The cure, therefore, of
political ills is knowledge of the good life, and the statesman is he
who has such knowledge, for that alone can give men what they are
always seeking.
If the state is the organisation of men seeking a common good, power
and political position must be given to those who can forward this
end. This is the principle expressed in Aristotle's account of
political justice, the principle of "tools to those who can use them."
As the aim of the state is differently conceived, the qualifications
for government will vary. In the ideal state power will be given to
the man with most knowledge of the good; in other states to the men
who are most truly capable of achieving that end which the citizens
have set themselves to pursue. The justest distribution of political
power is that in which there is least waste of political ability.
Further, the belief that the constitution of a state is only the
outward expression of the common aspirations and beliefs of its
members, explains the paramount political importance which Aristotle
assigns to education. It is the great instrument by which the
legislator can ensure that the future citizens of his state will share
those common beliefs which make the state possible. The Greeks with
their small states had a far clearer apprehension than we can have of
the dependence of a constitution upon the people who have to work it.
Such is in brief the attitude in which Aristotle approaches political
problems, but in working out its application to men and institutions
as they are, Aristotle admits certain compromises which are not really
consistent with it.
1. Aristotle thinks of membership of a state as community in pursuit
of the good. He wishes to confine membership in it to those who are
capable of that pursuit in the highest and most explicit manner. His
citizens, therefore, must be men of leisure, capable of rational
thought upon the end of life. He does not recognise the significance
of that less conscious but deep-seated membership of the state which
finds its expression in loyalty and patriotism. His definition of
citizen includes only a small part of the population of any Greek
city. He is forced to admit that the state is not possible without the
co-operation of men whom he will not admit to membership in it, either
because they are not capable of sufficient rational appreciation of
political ends, like the barbarians whom he thought were natural
slaves, or because the leisure necessary for citizenship can only be
gained by the work of the artisans who by that very work make
themselves incapable of the life which they make possible for others.
"The artisan only attains excellence in proportion as he becomes a
slave," and the slave is only a living instrument of the good life. He
exists for the state, but the state does not exist for him.
2. Aristotle in his account of the ideal state seems to waver between
two ideals. There is the ideal of an aristocracy and the ideal of what
he calls constitutional government, a mixed constitution. The
principle of "tools to those who can use them" ought to lead him, as
it does Plato, to an aristocracy. Those who have complete knowledge of
the good must be few, and therefore Plato gave entire power in his
state into the hands of the small minority of philosopher guardians.
It is in accordance with this principle that Aristotle holds that
kingship is the proper form of government when there is in the state
one man of transcendent virtue. At the same time, Aristotle always
holds that absolute government is not properly political, that
government is not like the rule of a shepherd over his sheep, but the
rule of equals over equals. He admits that the democrats are right in
insisting that equality is a necessary element in the state, though he
thinks they do not admit the importance of other equally necessary
elements. Hence he comes to say that ruling and being ruled over by
turns is an essential feature of constitutional government, which he
admits as an alternative to aristocracy. The end of the state, which
is to be the standard of the distribution of political power, is
conceived sometimes as a good for the apprehension and attainment of
which "virtue" is necessary and sufficient (this is the principle of
aristocracy), and sometimes as a more complex good, which needs for
its attainment not only "virtue" but wealth and equality. This latter
conception is the principle on which the mixed constitution is based.
This in its distribution of political power gives some weight to
"virtue," some to wealth, and some to mere number. But the principle
of "ruling and being ruled by turns" is not really compatible with an
unmodified principle of "tools to those who can use them." Aristotle
is right in seeing that political government demands equality, not in
the sense that all members of the state should be equal in ability or
should have equal power, but in the sense that none of them can
properly be regarded simply as tools with which the legislator works,
that each has a right to say what will be made of his own life. The
analogy between the legislator and the craftsman on which Plato
insists, breaks down because the legislator is dealing with men like
himself, men who can to some extent conceive their own end in life and
cannot be treated merely as means to the end of the legislator. The
sense of the value of "ruling and being ruled in turn" is derived
from the experience that the ruler may use his power to subordinate
the lives of the citizens of the state not to the common good but to
his own private purposes. In modern terms, it is a simple,
rough-and-ready attempt to solve that constant problem of politics,
how efficient government is to be combined with popular control. This
problem arises from the imperfection of human nature, apparent in
rulers as well as in ruled, and if the principle which attempts to
solve it be admitted as a principle of importance in the formation of
the best constitution, then the starting-point of politics will be
man's actual imperfection, not his ideal nature. Instead, then, of
beginning with a state which would express man's ideal nature, and
adapting it as well as may be to man's actual shortcomings from that
ideal, we must recognise that the state and all political machinery
are as much the expression of man's weakness as of his ideal
possibilities. The state is possible only because men have common
aspirations, but government, and political power, the existence of
officials who are given authority to act in the name of the whole
state, are necessary because men's community is imperfect, because
man's social nature expresses itself in conflicting ways, in the clash
of interests, the rivalry of parties, and the struggle of classes,
instead of in the united seeking after a common good. Plato and
Aristotle were familiar with the legislator who was called in by the
whole people, and they tended therefore to take the general will or
common consent of the people for granted. Most political questions are
concerned with the construction and expression of the general will,
and with attempts to ensure that the political machinery made to
express the general will shall not be exploited for private or
sectional ends.
Aristotle's mixed constitution springs from a recognition of sectional
interests in the state. For the proper relation between the claims of
"virtue," wealth, and numbers is to be based not upon their relative
importance in the good life, but upon the strength of the parties
which they represent. The mixed constitution is practicable in a state
where the middle class is strong, as only the middle class can mediate
between the rich and the poor. The mixed constitution will be stable
if it represents the actual balance of power between different classes
in the state. When we come to Aristotle's analysis of existing
constitutions, we find that while he regards them as imperfect
approximations to the ideal, he also thinks of them as the result of
the struggle between classes. Democracy, he explains, is the
government not of the many but of the poor; oligarchy a government not
of the few but of the rich. And each class is thought of, not as
trying to express an ideal, but as struggling to acquire power or
maintain its position. If ever the class existed in unredeemed
nakedness, it was in the Greek cities of the fourth century, and its
existence is abundantly recognised by Aristotle. His account of the
causes of revolutions in Book V. shows how far were the existing
states of Greece from the ideal with which he starts. His analysis of
the facts forces him to look upon them as the scene of struggling
factions. The causes of revolutions are not described as primarily
changes in the conception of the common good, but changes in the
military or economic power of the several classes in the state. The
aim which he sets before oligarchs or democracies is not the good
life, but simple stability or permanence of the existing constitution.
With this spirit of realism which pervades Books IV., V., and VI. the
idealism of Books I., II., VII., and VIII. is never reconciled.
Aristotle is content to call existing constitutions perversions of the
true form. But we cannot read the Politics without recognising and
profiting from the insight into the nature of the state which is
revealed throughout. Aristotle's failure does not lie in this, that he
is both idealist and realist, but that he keeps these two tendencies
too far apart. He thinks too much of his ideal state, as something to
be reached once for all by knowledge, as a fixed type to which actual
states approximate or from which they are perversions. But if we are
to think of actual politics as intelligible in the light of the ideal,
we must think of that ideal as progressively revealed in history, not
as something to be discovered by turning our back on experience and
having recourse to abstract reasoning. If we stretch forward from what
exists to an ideal, it is to a better which may be in its turn
transcended, not to a single immutable best. Aristotle found in the
society of his time men who were not capable of political reflection,
and who, as he thought, did their best work under superintendence. He
therefore called them natural slaves. For, according to Aristotle,
that is a man's natural condition in which he does his best work. But
Aristotle also thinks of nature as something fixed and immutable; and
therefore sanctions the institution of slavery, which assumes that
what men are that they will always be, and sets up an artificial
barrier to their ever becoming anything else. We see in Aristotle's
defence of slavery how the conception of nature as the ideal can have
a debasing influence upon views of practical politics. His high ideal
of citizenship offers to those who can satisfy its claims the prospect
of a fair life; those who fall short are deemed to be different in
nature and shut out entirely from approach to the ideal.
A. D.
LINDSAY.
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A TREATISE ON GOVERNMENT
BOOK I
CHAPTER I
As we see that every city is a society, and every society Ed. is
established for some good purpose; for an apparent [Bekker 1252a] good
is the spring of all human actions; it is evident that this is the
principle upon which they are every one founded, and this is more
especially true of that which has for its object the best possible,
and is itself the most excellent, and comprehends all the rest. Now
this is called a city, and the society thereof a political society;
for those who think that the principles of a political, a regal, a
family, and a herile government are the same are mistaken, while they
suppose that each of these differ in the numbers to whom their power
extends, but not in their constitution: so that with them a herile
government is one composed of a very few, a domestic of more, a civil
and a regal of still more, as if there was no difference between a
large family and a small city, or that a regal government and a
political one are the same, only that in the one a single person is
continually at the head of public affairs; in the other, that each
member of the state has in his turn a share in the government, and is
at one time a magistrate, at another a private person, according to
the rules of political science. But now this is not true, as will be
evident to any one who will consider this question in the most
approved method. As, in an inquiry into every other subject, it is
necessary to separate the different parts of which it is compounded,
till we arrive at their first elements, which are the most minute
parts thereof; so by the same proceeding we shall acquire a knowledge
of the primary parts of a city and see wherein they differ from each
other, and whether the rules of art will give us any assistance in
examining into each of these things which are mentioned.
CHAPTER II
Now if in this particular science any one would attend to its original
seeds, and their first shoot, he would then as in others have the
subject perfectly before him; and perceive, in the first place, that
it is requisite that those should be joined together whose species
cannot exist without each other, as the male and the female, for the
business of propagation; and this not through choice, but by that
natural impulse which acts both upon plants and animals also, for the
purpose of their leaving behind them others like themselves. It is
also from natural causes that some beings command and others obey,
that each may obtain their mutual safety; for a being who is endowed
with a mind capable of reflection and forethought is by nature the
superior and governor, whereas he whose excellence is merely corporeal
is formect to be a slave; whence it follows that the different state
of master [1252b] and slave is equally advantageous to both. But there
is a natural difference between a female and a slave: for nature is
not like the artists who make the Delphic swords for the use of the
poor, but for every particular purpose she has her separate
instruments, and thus her ends are most complete, for whatsoever is
employed on one subject only, brings that one to much greater
perfection than when employed on many; and yet among the barbarians, a
female and a slave are upon a level in the community, the reason for
which is, that amongst them there are none qualified by nature to
govern, therefore their society can be nothing but between slaves of
different sexes. For which reason the poets say, it is proper for the
Greeks to govern the barbarians, as if a barbarian and a slave were by
nature one. Now of these two societies the domestic is the first, and
Hesiod is right when he says, "First a house, then a wife, then an ox
for the plough," for the poor man has always an ox before a household
slave. That society then which nature has established for daily
support is the domestic, and those who compose it are called by
Charondas _homosipuoi_, and by Epimenides the Cretan _homokapnoi_; but
the society of many families, which was first instituted for their
lasting, mutual advantage, is called a village, and a village is most
naturally composed of the descendants of one family, whom some persons
call homogalaktes, the children and the children's children thereof:
for which reason cities were originally governed by kings, as the
barbarian states now are, which are composed of those who had before
submitted to kingly government; for every family is governed by the
elder, as are the branches thereof, on account of their relationship
thereunto, which is what Homer says, "Each one ruled his wife and
child;" and in this scattered manner they formerly lived. And the
opinion which universally prevails, that the gods themselves are
subject to kingly government, arises from hence, that all men formerly
were, and many are so now; and as they imagined themselves to be made
in the likeness of the gods, so they supposed their manner of life
must needs be the same. And when many villages so entirely join
themselves together as in every respect to form but one society, that
society is a city, and contains in itself, if I may so speak, the end
and perfection of government: first founded that we might live, but
continued that we may live happily. For which reason every city must
be allowed to be the work of nature, if we admit that the original
society between male and female is; for to this as their end all
subordinate societies tend, and the end of everything is the nature of
it. For what every being is in its most perfect state, that certainly
is the nature of that being, whether it be a man, a horse, or a house:
besides, whatsoever produces the final cause and the end which we
[1253a] desire, must be best; but a government complete in itself is
that final cause and what is best. Hence it is evident that a city is
a natural production, and that man is naturally a political animal,
and that whosoever is naturally and not accidentally unfit for
society, must be either inferior or superior to man: thus the man in
Homer, who is reviled for being "without society, without law, without
family." Such a one must naturally be of a quarrelsome disposition,
and as solitary as the birds. The gift of speech also evidently proves
that man is a more social animal than the bees, or any of the herding
cattle: for nature, as we say, does nothing in vain, and man is the
only animal who enjoys it. Voice indeed, as being the token of
pleasure and pain, is imparted to others also, and thus much their
nature is capable of, to perceive pleasure and pain, and to impart
these sensations to others; but it is by speech that we are enabled to
express what is useful for us, and what is hurtful, and of course what
is just and what is unjust: for in this particular man differs from
other animals, that he alone has a perception of good and evil, of
just and unjust, and it is a participation of these common sentiments
which forms a family and a city. Besides, the notion of a city
naturally precedes that of a family or an individual, for the whole
must necessarily be prior to the parts, for if you take away the whole
man, you cannot say a foot or a hand remains, unless by equivocation,
as supposing a hand of stone to be made, but that would only be a dead
one; but everything is understood to be this or that by its energic
qualities and powers, so that when these no longer remain, neither can
that be said to be the same, but something of the same name. That a
city then precedes an individual is plain, for if an individual is not
in himself sufficient to compose a perfect government, he is to a city
as other parts are to a whole; but he that is incapable of society, or
so complete in himself as not to want it, makes no part of a city, as
a beast or a god. There is then in all persons a natural impetus to
associate with each other in this manner, and he who first founded
civil society was the cause of the greatest good; for as by the
completion of it man is the most excellent of all living beings, so
without law and justice he would be the worst of all, for nothing is
so difficult to subdue as injustice in arms: but these arms man is
born with, namely, prudence and valour, which he may apply to the most
opposite purposes, for he who abuses them will be the most wicked, the
most cruel, the most lustful, and most gluttonous being imaginable;
for justice is a political virtue, by the rules of it the state is
regulated, and these rules are the criterion of what is right.
CHAPTER III
SINCE it is now evident of what parts a city is composed, it will be
necessary to treat first of family government, for every city is made
up of families, and every family [1253b] has again its separate parts
of which it is composed. When a family is complete, it consists of
freemen and slaves; but as in every subject we should begin with
examining into the smallest parts of which it consists, and as the
first and smallest parts of a family are the master and slave, the
husband and wife, the father and child, let us first inquire into
these three, what each of them may be, and what they ought to be; that
is to say, the herile, the nuptial, and the paternal. Let these then
be considered as the three distinct parts of a family: some think that
the providing what is necessary for the family is something different
from the government of it, others that this is the greatest part of
it; it shall be considered separately; but we will first speak of a
master and a slave, that we may both understand the nature of those
things which are absolutely necessary, and also try if we can learn
anything better on this subject than what is already known. Some
persons have thought that the power of the master over his slave
originates from his superior knowledge, and that this knowledge is the
same in the master, the magistrate, and the king, as we have already
said; but others think that herile government is contrary to nature,
and that it is the law which makes one man a slave and another free,
but that in nature there is no difference; for which reason that power
cannot be founded in justice, but in force.
CHAPTER IV
Since then a subsistence is necessary in every family, the means of
procuring it certainly makes up part of the management of a family,
for without necessaries it is impossible to live, and to live well. As
in all arts which are brought to perfection it is necessary that they
should have their proper instruments if they would complete their
works, so is it in the art of managing a family: now of instruments
some of them are alive, others inanimate; thus with respect to the
pilot of the ship, the tiller is without life, the sailor is alive;
for a servant is as an instrument in many arts. Thus property is as an
instrument to living; an estate is a multitude of instruments; so a
slave is an animated instrument, but every one that can minister of
himself is more valuable than any other instrument; for if every
instrument, at command, or from a preconception of its master's will,
could accomplish its work (as the story goes of the statues of
Daedalus; or what the poet tells us of the tripods of Vulcan, "that
they moved of their own accord into the assembly of the gods "), the
shuttle would then weave, and the lyre play of itself; nor would the
architect want servants, or the [1254a] master slaves. Now what are
generally called instruments are the efficients of something else, but
possessions are what we simply use: thus with a shuttle we make
something else for our use; but we only use a coat, or a bed: since
then making and using differ from each other in species, and they both
require their instruments, it is necessary that these should be
different from each other. Now life is itself what we use, and not
what we employ as the efficient of something else; for which reason
the services of a slave are for use. A possession may be considered in
the same nature as a part of anything; now a part is not only a part
of something, but also is nothing else; so is a possession; therefore
a master is only the master of the slave, but no part of him; but the
slave is not only the slave of the master, but nothing else but that.
This fully explains what is the nature of a slave, and what are his
capacities; for that being who by nature is nothing of himself, but
totally another's, and is a man, is a slave by nature; and that man
who is the property of another, is his mere chattel, though he
continues a man; but a chattel is an instrument for use, separate from
the body.
CHAPTER V
But whether any person is such by nature, and whether it is
advantageous and just for any one to be a slave or no, or whether all
slavery is contrary to nature, shall be considered hereafter; not that
it is difficult to determine it upon general principles, or to
understand it from matters of fact; for that some should govern, and
others be governed, is not only necessary but useful, and from the
hour of their birth some are marked out for those purposes, and others
for the other, and there are many species of both sorts. And the
better those are who are governed the better also is the government,
as for instance of man, rather than the brute creation: for the more
excellent the materials are with which the work is finished, the more
excellent certainly is the work; and wherever there is a governor and
a governed, there certainly is some work produced; for whatsoever is
composed of many parts, which jointly become one, whether conjunct or
separate, evidently show the marks of governing and governed; and this
is true of every living thing in all nature; nay, even in some things
which partake not of life, as in music; but this probably would be a
disquisition too foreign to our present purpose. Every living thing in
the first place is composed of soul and body, of these the one is by
nature the governor, the other the governed; now if we would know what
is natural, we ought to search for it in those subjects in which
nature appears most perfect, and not in those which are corrupted; we
should therefore examine into a man who is most perfectly formed both
in soul and body, in whom this is evident, for in the depraved and
vicious the body seems [1254b] to rule rather than the soul, on
account of their being corrupt and contrary to nature. We may then, as
we affirm, perceive in an animal the first principles of herile and
political government; for the soul governs the body as the master
governs his slave; the mind governs the appetite with a political or a
kingly power, which shows that it is both natural and advantageous
that the body should be governed by the soul, and the pathetic part by
the mind, and that part which is possessed of reason; but to have no
ruling power, or an improper one, is hurtful to all; and this holds
true not only of man, but of other animals also, for tame animals are
naturally better than wild ones, and it is advantageous that both
should be under subjection to man; for this is productive of their
common safety: so is it naturally with the male and the female; the
one is superior, the other inferior; the one governs, the other is
governed; and the same rule must necessarily hold good with respect to
all mankind. Those men therefore who are as much inferior to others as
the body is to the soul, are to be thus disposed of, as the proper use
of them is their bodies, in which their excellence consists; and if
what I have said be true, they are slaves by nature, and it is
advantageous to them to be always under government. He then is by
nature formed a slave who is qualified to become the chattel of
another person, and on that account is so, and who has just reason
enough to know that there is such a faculty, without being indued with
the use of it; for other animals have no perception of reason, but are
entirely guided by appetite, and indeed they vary very little in their
use from each other; for the advantage which we receive, both from
slaves and tame animals, arises from their bodily strength
administering to our necessities; for it is the intention of nature to
make the bodies of slaves and freemen different from each other, that
the one should be robust for their necessary purposes, the others
erect, useless indeed for what slaves are employed in, but fit for
civil life, which is divided into the duties of war and peace; though
these rules do not always take place, for slaves have sometimes the
bodies of freemen, sometimes the souls; if then it is evident that if
some bodies are as much more excellent than others as the statues of
the gods excel the human form, every one will allow that the inferior
ought to be slaves to the superior; and if this is true with respect
to the body, it is still juster to determine in the same manner, when
we consider the soul; though it is not so easy to perceive the beauty
of [1255a] the soul as it is of the body. Since then some men are
slaves by nature, and others are freemen, it is clear that where
slavery is advantageous to any one, then it is just to make him a
slave.
CHAPTER VI
But it is not difficult to perceive that those who maintain the
contrary opinion have some reason on their side; for a man may become
a slave two different ways; for he may be so by law also, and this law
is a certain compact, by which whatsoever is taken in battle is
adjudged to be the property of the conquerors: but many persons who
are conversant in law call in question this pretended right, and say
that it would be hard that a man should be compelled by violence to be
the slave and subject of another who had the power to compel him, and
was his superior in strength; and upon this subject, even of those who
are wise, some think one way and some another; but the cause of this
doubt and variety of opinions arises from hence, that great abilities,
when accompanied with proper means, are generally able to succeed by
force: for victory is always owing to a superiority in some
advantageous circumstances; so that it seems that force never prevails
but in consequence of great abilities. But still the dispute
concerning the justice of it remains; for some persons think, that
justice consists in benevolence, others think it just that the
powerful should govern: in the midst of these contrary opinions, there
are no reasons sufficient to convince us, that the right of being
master and governor ought not to be placed with those who have the
greatest abilities. Some persons, entirely resting upon the right
which the law gives (for that which is legal is in some respects
just), insist upon it that slavery occasioned by war is just, not that
they say it is wholly so, for it may happen that the principle upon
which the wars were commenced is unjust; moreover no one will say that
a man who is unworthily in slavery is therefore a slave; for if so,
men of the noblest families might happen to be slaves, and the
descendants of slaves, if they should chance to be taken prisoners in
war and sold: to avoid this difficulty they say that such persons
should not be called slaves, but barbarians only should; but when they
say this, they do nothing more than inquire who is a slave by nature,
which was what we at first said; for we must acknowledge that there
are some persons who, wherever they are, must necessarily be slaves,
but others in no situation; thus also it is with those of noble
descent: it is not only in their own country that they are Esteemed as
such, but everywhere, but the barbarians are respected on this account
at home only; as if nobility and freedom were of two sorts, the one
universal, the other not so. Thus says the Helen of Theodectes:
"Who dares reproach me with the name of slave? When from the
immortal gods, on either side, I draw my lineage."
Those who express sentiments like these, shew only that they
distinguish the slave and the freeman, the noble and the ignoble from
each other by their virtues and their [1255b] vices; for they think it
reasonable, that as a man begets a man, and a beast a beast, so from a
good man, a good man should be descended; and this is what nature
desires to do, but frequently cannot accomplish it. It is evident then
that this doubt has some reason in it, and that these persons are not
slaves, and those freemen, by the appointment of nature; and also that
in some instances it is sufficiently clear, that it is advantageous to
both parties for this man to be a slave, and that to be a master, and
that it is right and just, that some should be governed, and others
govern, in the manner that nature intended; of which sort of
government is that which a master exercises over a slave. But to
govern ill is disadvantageous to both; for the same thing is useful to
the part and to the whole, to the body and to the soul; but the slave
is as it were a part of the master, as if he were an animated part of
his body, though separate. For which reason a mutual utility and
friendship may subsist between the master and the slave, I mean when
they are placed by nature in that relation to each other, for the
contrary takes place amongst those who are reduced to slavery by the
law, or by conquest.
CHAPTER VII
It is evident from what has been said, that a herile and a political
government are not the same, or that all governments are alike to each
other, as some affirm; for one is adapted to the nature of freemen,
the other to that of slaves. Domestic government is a monarchy, for
that is what prevails in every house; but a political state is the
government of free men and equals. The master is not so called from
his knowing how to manage his slave, but because he is so; for the
same reason a slave and a freeman have their respective appellations.
There is also one sort of knowledge proper for a master, another for a
slave; the slave's is of the nature of that which was taught by a
slave at Syracuse; for he for a stipulated sum instructed the boys in
all the business of a household slave, of which there are various
sorts to be learnt, as the art of cookery, and other such-like
services, of which some are allotted to some, and others to others;
some employments being more honourable, others more necessary;
according to the proverb, "One slave excels another, one master excels
another:" in such-like things the knowledge of a slave consists. The
knowledge of the master is to be able properly to employ his slaves,
for the mastership of slaves is the employment, not the mere
possession of them; not that this knowledge contains anything great or
respectable; for what a slave ought to know how to do, that a master
ought to know how to order; for which reason, those who have it in
their power to be free from these low attentions, employ a steward for
this business, and apply themselves either to public affairs or
philosophy: the knowledge of procuring what is necessary for a family
is different from that which belongs either to the master or the
slave: and to do this justly must be either by war or hunting. And
thus much of the difference between a master and a slave.
CHAPTER VIII
[1256a] As a slave is a particular species of property, let us by all
means inquire into the nature of property in general, and the
acquisition of money, according to the manner we have proposed. In the
first place then, some one may doubt whether the getting of money is
the same thing as economy, or whether it is a part of it, or something
subservient to it; and if so, whether it is as the art of making
shuttles is to the art of weaving, or the art of making brass to that
of statue founding, for they are not of the same service; for the one
supplies the tools, the other the matter: by the matter I mean the
subject out of which the work is finished, as wool for the cloth and
brass for the statue. It is evident then that the getting of money is
not the same thing as economy, for the business of the one is to
furnish the means of the other to use them; and what art is there
employed in the management of a family but economy, but whether this
is a part of it, or something of a different species, is a doubt; for
if it is the business of him who is to get money to find out how
riches and possessions may be procured, and both these arise from
various causes, we must first inquire whether the art of husbandry is
part of money-getting or something different, and in general, whether
the same is not true of every acquisition and every attention which
relates to provision. But as there are many sorts of provision, so are
the methods of living both of man and the brute creation very various;
and as it is impossible to live without food, the difference in that
particular makes the lives of animals so different from each other. Of
beasts, some live in herds, others separate, as is most convenient for
procuring themselves food; as some of them live upon flesh, others on
fruit, and others on whatsoever they light on, nature having so
distinguished their course of life, that they can very easily procure
themselves subsistence; and as the same things are not agreeable to
all, but one animal likes one thing and another another, it follows
that the lives of those beasts who live upon flesh must be different
from the lives of those who live on fruits; so is it with men, their
lives differ greatly from each other; and of all these the shepherd's
is the idlest, for they live upon the flesh of tame animals, without
any trouble, while they are obliged to change their habitations on
account of their flocks, which they are compelled to follow,
cultivating, as it were, a living farm. Others live exercising
violence over living creatures, one pursuing this thing, another that,
these preying upon men; those who live near lakes and marshes and
rivers, or the sea itself, on fishing, while others are fowlers, or
hunters of wild beasts; but the greater part of mankind live upon the
produce of the earth and its cultivated fruits; and the manner in
which all those live who follow the direction of nature, and labour
for their own subsistence, is nearly the same, without ever thinking
to procure any provision by way of exchange or merchandise, such are
shepherds, husband-men, [1256b] robbers, fishermen, and hunters: some
join different employments together, and thus live very agreeably;
supplying those deficiencies which were wanting to make their
subsistence depend upon themselves only: thus, for instance, the same
person shall be a shepherd and a robber, or a husbandman and a hunter;
and so with respect to the rest, they pursue that mode of life which
necessity points out. This provision then nature herself seems to have
furnished all animals with, as well immediately upon their first
origin as also when they are arrived at a state of maturity; for at
the first of these periods some of them are provided in the womb with
proper nourishment, which continues till that which is born can get
food for itself, as is the case with worms and birds; and as to those
which bring forth their young alive, they have the means for their
subsistence for a certain time within themselves, namely milk. It is
evident then that we may conclude of those things that are, that
plants are created for the sake of animals, and animals for the sake
of men; the tame for our use and provision; the wild, at least the
greater part, for our provision also, or for some other advantageous
purpose, as furnishing us with clothes, and the like. As nature
therefore makes nothing either imperfect or in vain, it necessarily
follows that she has made all these things for men: for which reason
what we gain in war is in a certain degree a natural acquisition; for
hunting is a part of it, which it is necessary for us to employ
against wild beasts; and those men who being intended by nature for
slavery are unwilling to submit to it, on which occasion such a. war
is by nature just: that species of acquisition then only which is
according to nature is part of economy; and this ought to be at hand,
or if not, immediately procured, namely, what is necessary to be kept
in store to live upon, and which are useful as well for the state as
the family. And true riches seem to consist in these; and the
acquisition of those possessions which are necessary for a happy life
is not infinite; though Solon says otherwise in this verse:
"No bounds to riches can be fixed for man;"
for they may be fixed as in other arts; for the instruments of no art
whatsoever are infinite, either in their number or their magnitude;
but riches are a number of instruments in domestic and civil economy;
it is therefore evident that the acquisition of certain things
according to nature is a part both of domestic and civil economy, and
for what reason.
CHAPTER IX
There is also another species of acquisition which they [1257a]
particularly call pecuniary, and with great propriety; and by this
indeed it seems that there are no bounds to riches and wealth. Now
many persons suppose, from their near relation to each other, that
this is one and the same with that we have just mentioned, but it is
not the same as that, though not very different; one of these is
natural, the other is not, but rather owing to some art and skill; we
will enter into a particular examination of this subject. The uses of
every possession are two, both dependent upon the thing itself, but
not in the same manner, the one supposing an inseparable connection
with it, the other not; as a shoe, for instance, which may be either
worn, or exchanged for something else, both these are the uses of the
shoe; for he who exchanges a shoe with some man who wants one, for
money or provisions, uses the shoe as a shoe, but not according to the
original intention, for shoes were not at first made to be exchanged.
The same thing holds true of all other possessions; for barter, in
general, had its original beginning in nature, some men having a
surplus, others too little of what was necessary for them: hence it
is evident, that the selling provisions for money is not according to
the natural use of things; for they were obliged to use barter for
those things which they wanted; but it is plain that barter could have
no place in the first, that is to say, in family society; but must
have begun when the number of those who composed the community was
enlarged: for the first of these had all things in common; but when
they came to be separated they were obliged to exchange with each
other many different things which both parties wanted. Which custom of
barter is still preserved amongst many barbarous nations, who procure
one necessary with another, but never sell anything; as giving and
receiving wine for corn and the like. This sort of barter is not
contradictory to nature, nor is it any species of money-getting; but
is necessary in procuring that subsistence which is so consonant
thereunto. But this barter introduced the use of money, as might be
expected; for a convenient place from whence to import what you
wanted, or to export what you had a surplus of, being often at a great
distance, money necessarily made its way into commerce; for it is not
everything which is naturally most useful that is easiest of carriage;
for which reason they invented something to exchange with each other
which they should mutually give and take, that being really valuable
itself, should have the additional advantage of being of easy
conveyance, for the purposes of life, as iron and silver, or anything
else of the same nature: and this at first passed in value simply
according to its weight or size; but in process of time it had a
certain stamp, to save the trouble of weighing, which stamp expressed
its value. [1257b]
Money then being established as the necessary medium of exchange,
another species of money-getting spon took place, namely, by buying
and selling, at probably first in a simple manner, afterwards with
more skill and experience, where and how the greatest profits might be
made. For which reason the art of money-getting seems to be chiefly
conversant about trade, and the business of it to be able to tell
where the greatest profits can be made, being the means of procuring
abundance of wealth and possessions: and thus wealth is very often
supposed to consist in the quantity of money which any one possesses,
as this is the medium by which all trade is conducted and a fortune
made, others again regard it as of no value, as being of none by
nature, but arbitrarily made so by compact; so that if those who use
it should alter their sentiments, it would be worth nothing, as being
of no service for any necessary purpose. Besides, he who abounds in
money often wants necessary food; and it is impossible to say that any
person is in good circumstances when with all his possessions he may
perish with hunger.
Like Midas in the fable, who from his insatiable wish had everything
he touched turned into gold. For which reason others endeavour to
procure other riches and other property, and rightly, for there are
other riches and property in nature; and these are the proper objects
of economy: while trade only procures money, not by all means, but by
the exchange of it, and for that purpose it is this which it is
chiefly employed about, for money is the first principle and the end
of trade; nor are there any bounds to be set to what is thereby
acquired. Thus also there are no limits to the art of medicine, with
respect to the health which it attempts to procure; the same also is
true of all other arts; no line can be drawn to terminate their
bounds, the several professors of them being desirous to extend them
as far as possible. (But still the means to be employed for that
purpose are limited; and these are the limits beyond which the art
cannot proceed.) Thus in the art of acquiring riches there are no
limits, for the object of that is money and possessions; but economy
has a boundary, though this has not: for acquiring riches is not the
business of that, for which reason it should seem that some boundary
should be set to riches, though we see the contrary to this is what is
practised; for all those who get riches add to their money without
end; the cause of which is the near connection of these two arts with
each other, which sometimes occasions the one to change employments
with the other, as getting of money is their common object: for
economy requires the possession of wealth, but not on its own account
but with another view, to purchase things necessary therewith; but the
other procures it merely to increase it: so that some persons are
confirmed in their belief, that this is the proper object of economy,
and think that for this purpose money should be saved and hoarded up
without end; the reason for which disposition is, that they are intent
upon living, but not upon living well; and this desire being boundless
in its extent, the means which they aim at for that purpose are
boundless also; and those who propose to live well, often confine that
to the enjoyment of the pleasures of sense; so that as this also seems
to depend upon what a man has, all their care is to get money, and
hence arises the other cause for this art; for as this enjoyment is
excessive in its degree, they endeavour to procure means proportionate
to supply it; and if they cannot do this merely by the art of dealing
in money, they will endeavour to do it by other ways, and apply all
their powers to a purpose they were not by nature intended for. Thus,
for instance, courage was intended to inspire fortitude, not to get
money by; neither is this the end of the soldier's or the physician's
art, but victory and health. But such persons make everything
subservient to money-getting, as if this was the only end; and to the
end everything ought to refer.
We have now considered that art of money-getting which is not
necessary, and have seen in what manner we became in want of it; and
also that which is necessary, which is different from it; for that
economy which is natural, and whose object is to provide food, is not
like this unlimited in its extent, but has its bounds.
CHAPTER X
We have now determined what was before doubtful, whether or no the art
of getting money is his business who is at the head of a family or a
state, and though not strictly so, it is however very necessary; for
as a politician does not make men, but receiving them from the hand of
nature employs them to proper purposes; thus the earth, or the sea, or
something else ought to supply them with provisions, and this it is
the business of the master of the family to manage properly; for it is
not the weaver's business to make yarn, but to use it, and to
distinguish what is good and useful from what is bad and of no
service; and indeed some one may inquire why getting money should be a
part of economy when the art of healing is not, as it is as requisite
that the family should be in health as that they should eat, or have
anything else which is necessary; and as it is indeed in some
particulars the business both of the master of the family, and he to
whom the government of the state is entrusted, to see after the health
of those under their care, but in others not, but the physician's; so
also as to money; in some respects it is the business of the master of
the family, in others not, but of the servant; but as we have already
said, it is chiefly nature's, for it is her part to supply her
offspring with food; for everything finds nourishment left for it in
what produced it; for which reason the natural riches of all men arise
from fruits and animals. Now money-making, as we say, being twofold,
it may be applied to two purposes, the service of the house or retail
trade; of which the first is necessary and commendable, the other
justly censurable; for it has not its origin in [1258b] nature, but by
it men gain from each other; for usury is most reasonably detested, as
it is increasing our fortune by money itself, and not employing it for
the purpose it was originally intended, namely exchange.
And this is the explanation of the name (TOKOS), which means the
breeding of money. For as offspring resemble their parents, so usury
is money bred of money. Whence of all forms of money-making it is most
against nature.
CHAPTER XI
Having already sufficiently considered the general principles of this
subject, let us now go into the practical part thereof; the one is a
liberal employment for the mind, the other necessary. These things
are useful in the management of one's affairs; to be skilful in the
nature of cattle, which are most profitable, and where, and how; as
for instance, what advantage will arise from keeping horses, or oxen,
or sheep, or any other live stock; it is also necessary to be
acquainted with the comparative value of these things, and which of
them in particular places are worth most; for some do better in one
place, some in another. Agriculture also should be understood, and the
management of arable grounds and orchards; and also the care of bees,
and fish, and birds, from whence any profit may arise; these are the
first and most proper parts of domestic management.
With respect to gaining money by exchange, the principal method of
doing this is by merchandise, which is carried on in three different
ways, either by sending the commodity for sale by sea or by land, or
else selling it on the place where it grows; and these differ from
each other in this, that the one is more profitable, the other safer.
The second method is by usury. The third by receiving wages for work
done, and this either by being employed in some mean art, or else in
mere bodily labour. There is also a third species of improving a
fortune, that is something between this and the first; for it partly
depends upon nature, partly upon exchange; the subject of which is,
things that are immediately from the earth, or their produce, which,
though they bear no fruit, are yet useful, such as selling of timber
and the whole art of metallurgy, which includes many different
species, for there are various sorts of things dug out of the earth.
These we have now mentioned in general, but to enter into particulars
concerning each of them, though it might be useful to the artist,
would be tiresome to dwell on. Now of all the works of art, those are
the most excellent wherein chance has the least to do, and those are
the meanest which deprave the body, those the most servile in which
bodily strength alone is chiefly wanted, those most illiberal which
require least skill; but as there are books written on these subjects
by some persons, as by Chares the Panian, and Apollodorus the Lemnian,
upon husbandry and planting; and by others on other matters, [1259b]
let those who have occasion consult them thereon; besides, every
person should collect together whatsoever he hears occasionally
mentioned, by means of which many of those who aimed at making a
fortune have succeeded in their intentions; for all these are useful
to those who make a point of getting money, as in the contrivance of
Thales the Milesian (which was certainly a gainful one, but as it was
his it was attributed to his wisdom, though the method he used was a
general one, and would universally succeed), when they reviled him for
his poverty, as if the study of philosophy was useless: for they say
that he, perceiving by his skill in astrology that there would be
great plenty of olives that year, while it was yet winter, having got
a little money, he gave earnest for all the oil works that were in
Miletus and Chios, which he hired at a low price, there being no one
to bid against him; but when the season came for making oil, many
persons wanting them, he all at once let them upon what terms he
pleased; and raising a large sum of money by that means, convinced
them that it was easy for philosophers to be rich if they chose it,
but that that was not what they aimed at; in this manner is Thales
said to have shown his wisdom. It indeed is, as we have said,
generally gainful for a person to contrive to make a monopoly of
anything; for which reason some cities also take this method when they
want money, and monopolise their commodities. There was a certain
person in Sicily who laid out a sum of money which was deposited in
his hand in buying up all the iron from the iron merchants; so that
when the dealers came from the markets to purchase, there was no one
had any to sell but himself; and though he put no great advance upon
it, yet by laying out fifty talents he made an hundred. When Dionysius
heard this he permitted him to take his money with him, but forbid him
to continue any longer in Sicily, as being one who contrived means for
getting money inconsistent with his affairs. This man's view and
Thales's was exactly the same; both of them contrived to procure a
monopoly for themselves: it is useful also for politicians to
understand these things, for many states want to raise money and by
such means, as well as private families, nay more so; for which reason
some persons who are employed in the management of public affairs
confine themselves to this province only.
CHAPTER XII
There are then three parts of domestic government, the masters, of
which we have already treated, the fathers, and the husbands; now the
government of the wife and children should both be that of free
persons, but not the [I259b] same; for the wife should be treated as a
citizen of a free state, the children should be under kingly power;
for the male is by nature superior to the female, except when
something happens contrary to the usual course of nature, as is the
elder and perfect to the younger and imperfect. Now in the generality
of free states, the governors and the governed alternately change
place; for an equality without any preference is what nature chooses;
however, when one governs and another is governed, she endeavours that
there should be a distinction between them in forms, expressions, and
honours; according to what Amasis said of his laver. This then should
be the established rule between the, man and the woman. The government
of children should be kingly; for the power of the father over the
child is founded in affection and seniority, which is a species of
kingly government; for which reason Homer very properly calls Jupiter
"the father of gods and men," who was king of both these; for nature
requires that a king should be of the same species with those whom he
governs, though superior in some particulars, as is the case between
the elder and the younger, the father and the son.
CHAPTER XIII
It is evident then that in the due government of a family, greater
attention should be paid to the several members of it and their
virtues than to the possessions or riches of it; and greater to the
freemen than the slaves: but here some one may doubt whether there is
any other virtue in a slave than his organic services, and of higher
estimation than these, as temperance, fortitude, justice, and
such-like habits, or whether they possess only bodily qualities: each
side of the question has its difficulties; for if they possess these
virtues, wherein do they differ from freemen? and that they do not,
since they are men, and partakers of reason, is absurd. Nearly the
same inquiry may be made concerning a woman and a child, whether these
also have their proper virtues; whether a woman ought to be temperate,
brave, and just, and whether a child is temperate or no; and indeed
this inquiry ought to be general, whether the virtues of those who, by
nature, either govern or are governed, are the same or different; for
if it is necessary that both of them should partake of the fair and
good, why is it also necessary that, without exception, the one should
govern, the other always be governed? for this cannot arise from their
possessing these qualities in different degrees; for to govern, and to
be governed, are things different in species, but more or less are
not. And yet it is wonderful that one party ought to have them, and
the other not; for if he who is to govern should not be temperate and
just, how can he govern well? or if he is to be governed, how can he
be governed well? for he who is intemperate [1260a] and a coward will
never do what he ought: it is evident then that both parties ought to
be virtuous; but there is a difference between them, as there is
between those who by nature command and who by nature obey, and this
originates in the soul; for in this nature has planted the governing
and submitting principle, the virtues of which we say are different,
as are those of a rational and an irrational being. It is plain then
that the same principle may be extended farther, and that there are in
nature a variety of things which govern and are governed; for a
freeman is governed in a different manner from a slave, a male from a
female, and a man from a child: and all these have parts of mind
within them, but in a different manner. Thus a slave can have no power
of determination, a woman but a weak one, a child an imperfect one.
Thus also must it necessarily be with respect to moral virtues; all
must be supposed to possess them, but not in the same manner, but as
is best suited to every one's employment; on which account he who is
to govern ought to be perfect in moral virtue, for his business is
entirely that of an architect, and reason is the architect; while
others want only that portion of it which may be sufficient for their
station; from whence it is evident, that although moral virtue is
common to all those we have spoken of, yet the temperance of a man and
a woman are not the same, nor their courage, nor their justice, though
Socrates thought otherwise; for the courage of the man consists in
commanding, the woman's in obeying; and the same is true in other
particulars: and this will be evident to those who will examine
different virtues separately; for those who use general terms deceive
themselves when they say, that virtue consists in a good disposition
of mind, or doing what is right, or something of this sort. They do
much better who enumerate the different virtues as Georgias did, than
those who thus define them; and as Sophocles speaks of a woman, we
think of all persons, that their 'virtues should be applicable to
their characters, for says he,
"Silence is a woman's ornament,"
but it is not a man's; and as a child is incomplete, it is evident
that his virtue is not to be referred to himself in his present
situation, but to that in which he will be complete, and his
preceptor. In like manner the virtue of a slave is to be referred to
his master; for we laid it down as a maxim, that the use of a slave
was to employ him in what you wanted; so that it is clear enough that
few virtues are wanted in his station, only that he may not neglect
his work through idleness or fear: some person may question if what I
have said is true, whether virtue is not necessary for artificers in
their calling, for they often through idleness neglect their work, but
the difference between them is very great; for a slave is connected
with you for life, but the artificer not so nearly: as near therefore
as the artificer approaches to the situation of a slave, just so much
ought he to have of the virtues of one; for a mean artificer is to a
certain point a slave; but then a slave is one of those things which
are by nature what they are, but this is not true [1260b] of a
shoemaker, or any other artist. It is evident then that a slave ought
to be trained to those virtues which are proper for his situation by
his master; and not by him who has the power of a master, to teach him
any particular art. Those therefore are in the wrong who would deprive
slaves of reason, and say that they have only to follow their orders;
for slaves want more instruction than children, and thus we determine
this matter. It is necessary, I am sensible, for every one who treats
upon government, to enter particularly into the relations of husband
and wife, and of parent and child, and to show what are the virtues of
each and their respective connections with each other; what is right
and what is wrong; and how the one ought to be followed, and the other
avoided. Since then every family is part of a city, and each of those
individuals is part of a family, and the virtue of the parts ought to
correspond to the virtue of the whole; it is necessary, that both the
wives and children of the community should be instructed correspondent
to the nature thereof, if it is of consequence to the virtue of the
state, that the wives and children therein should be virtuous, and of
consequence it certainly is, for the wives are one half of the free
persons; and of the children the succeeding citizens are to be formed.
As then we have determined these points, we will leave the rest to be
spoken to in another place, as if the subject was now finished; and
beginning again anew, first consider the sentiments of those who have
treated of the most perfect forms of government.
BOOK II
CHAPTER I
Since then we propose to inquire what civil society is of all others
best for those who have it in their power to live entirely as they
wish, it is necessary to examine into the polity of those states which
are allowed to be well governed; and if there should be any others
which some persons have described, and which appear properly
regulated, to note what is right and useful in them; and when we point
out wherein they have failed, let not this be imputed to an
affectation of wisdom, for it is because there are great defects in
all those which are already 'established, that I have been induced to
undertake this work. We will begin with that part of the subject which
naturally presents itself first to our consideration. The members of
every state must of necessity have all things in common, or some
things common, and not others, or nothing at all common. To have
nothing in common is evidently impossible, for society itself is one
species of [1261a] community; and the first thing necessary thereunto
is a common place of habitation, namely the city, which must be one,
and this every citizen must have a share in. But in a government which
is to be well founded, will it be best to admit of a community in
everything which is capable thereof, or only in some particulars, but
in others not? for it is possible that the citizens may have their
wives, and children, and goods in common, as in Plato's Commonwealth;
for in that Socrates affirms that all these particulars ought to be
so. Which then shall we prefer? the custom which is already
established, or the laws which are proposed in that treatise?
CHAPTER II
Now as a community of wives is attended with many other difficulties,
so neither does the cause for which he would frame his government in
this manner seem agreeable to reason, nor is it capable of producing
that end which he has proposed, and for which he says it ought to take
place; nor has he given any particular directions for putting it in
practice. Now I also am willing to agree with Socrates in the
principle which he proceeds upon, and admit that the city ought to be
one as much as possible; and yet it is evident that if it is
contracted too much, it will be no longer a city, for that necessarily
supposes a multitude; so that if we proceed in this manner, we shall
reduce a city to a family, and a family to a single person: for we
admit that a family is one in a greater degree than a city, and a
single person than a family; so that if this end could be obtained, it
should never be put in practice, as it would annihilate the city; for
a city does not only consist of a large number of inhabitants, but
there must also be different sorts; for were they all alike, there
could be no city; for a confederacy and a city are two different
things; for a confederacy is valuable from its numbers, although all
those who compose it are men of the same calling; for this is entered
into for the sake of mutual defence, as we add an additional weight to
make the scale go down. The same distinction prevails between a city
and a nation when the people are not collected into separate villages,
but live as the Arcadians. Now those things in which a city should be
one are of different sorts, and in preserving an alternate
reciprocation of power between these, the safety thereof consists (as
I have already mentioned in my treatise on Morals), for amongst
freemen and equals this is absolutely necessary; for all cannot govern
at the same time, but either by the year, or according to some other
regulation or time, by which means every one in his turn will be in
office; as if the shoemakers and carpenters should exchange
occupations, and not always be employed in the same calling. But as it
is evidently better, that these should continue to exercise their
respective trades; so also in civil society, where it is possible, it
would be better that the government should continue in the same hands;
but where it [1261b] is not (as nature has made all men equal, and
therefore it is just, be the administration good or bad, that all
should partake of it), there it is best to observe a rotation, and let
those who are their equals by turns submit to those who are at that
time magistrates, as they will, in their turns, alternately be
governors and governed, as if they were different men: by the same
method different persons will execute different offices. From hence it
is evident, that a city cannot be one in the manner that some persons
propose; and that what has been said to be the greatest good which it
could enjoy, is absolutely its destruction, which cannot be: for the
good of anything is that which preserves it. For another reaton also
it is clear, that it is not for the best to endeavour to make a city
too much one, because a family is more sufficient in itself than a
single person, a city than a family; and indeed Plato supposes that a
city owes its existence to that sufficiency in themselves which the
members of it enjoy. If then this sufficiency is so desirable, the
less the city is one the better.
CHAPTER III
But admitting that it is most advantageous for a city to be one as
much as possible, it does not seem to follow that this will take place
by permitting all at once to say this is mine, and this is not mine
(though this is what Socrates regards as a proof that a city is
entirely one), for the word All is used in two senses; if it means
each individual, what Socrates proposes will nearly take place; for
each person will say, this is his own son, and his own wife, and his
own property, and of everything else that may happen to belong to him,
that it is his own. But those who have their wives and children in
common will not say so, but all will say so, though not as
individuals; therefore, to use the word all is evidently a fallacious
mode of speech; for this word is sometimes used distributively, and
sometimes collectively, on account of its double meaning, and is the
cause of inconclusive syllogisms in reasoning. Therefore for all
persons to say the same thing was their own, using the word all in its
distributive sense, would be well, but is impossible: in its
collective sense it would by no means contribute to the concord of the
state. Besides, there would be another inconvenience attending this
proposal, for what is common to many is taken least care of; for all
men regard more what is their own than what others share with them in,
to which they pay less attention than is incumbent on every one: let
me add also, that every one is more negligent of what another is to
see to, as well as himself, than of his own private business; as in a
family one is often worse served by many servants than by a few. Let
each citizen then in the state have a thousand children, but let none
of them be considered as the children of that individual, but let the
relation of father and child be common to them all, and they will all
be neglected. Besides, in consequence of this, [1262a] whenever any
citizen behaved well or ill, every person, be the number what it
would, might say, this is my son, or this man's or that; and in this
manner would they speak, and thus would they doubt of the whole
thousand, or of whatever number the city consisted; and it would be
uncertain to whom each child belonged, and when it was born, who was
to take care of it: and which do you think is better, for every one to
say this is mine, while they may apply it equally to two thousand or
ten thousand; or as we say, this is mine in our present forms of
government, where one man calls another his son, another calls that
same person his brother, another nephew, or some other relation,
either by blood or marriage, and first extends his care to him and
his, while another regards him as one of the same parish and the same
tribe; and it is better for any one to be a nephew in his private
capacity than a son after that manner. Besides, it will be impossible
to prevent some persons from suspecting that they are brothers and
sisters, fathers and mothers to each other; for, from the mutual
likeness there is between the sire and the offspring, they will
necessarily conclude in what relation they stand to each other, which
circumstance, we are informed by those writers who describe different
parts of the world, does sometimes happen; for in Upper Africa there
are wives in common who yet deliver their children to their respective
fathers, being guided by their likeness to them. There are also some
mares and cows which naturally bring forth their young so like the
male, that we can easily distinguish by which of them they were
impregnated: such was the mare called Just, in Pharsalia.
CHAPTER IV
Besides, those who contrive this plan of community cannot easily avoid
the following evils; namely, blows, murders involuntary or voluntary,
quarrels, and reproaches, all which it would be impious indeed to be
guilty of towards our fathers and mothers, or those who are nearly
related to us; though not to those who are not connected to us by any
tie of affinity: and certainly these mischiefs must necessarily happen
oftener amongst those who do not know how they are connected to each
other than those who do; and when they do happen, if it is among the
first of these, they admit of a legal expiation, but amongst the
latter that cannot be done. It is also absurd for those who promote a
community of children to forbid those who love each other from
indulging themselves in the last excesses of that passion, while they
do not restrain them from the passion itself, or those intercourses
which are of all things most improper, between a Father and a son, a
brother and a brother, and indeed the thing itself is most absurd. It
is also ridiculous to prevent this intercourse between the nearest
relations, for no other reason than the violence of the pleasure,
while they think that the relation of father and daughter, the brother
and sister, is of no consequence at all. It seems also more
advantageous for the state, that the husbandmen should have their
wives and children in common than the military, for there will be less
affection [1262b] among them in that case than when otherwise; for
such persons ought to be under subjection, that they may obey the
laws, and not seek after innovations. Upon the whole, the consequences
of such a law as this would be directly contrary to those things which
good laws ought to establish, and which Socrates endeavoured to
establish by his regulations concerning women and children: for we
think that friendship is the greatest good which can happen to any
city, as nothing so much prevents seditions: and amity in a city is
what Socrates commends above all things, which appears to be, as
indeed he says, the effect of friendship; as we learn from
Aristophanes in the Erotics, who says, that those who love one another
from the excess of that passion, desire to breathe the same soul, and
from being two to be blended into one: from whence it would
necessarily follow, that both or one of them must be destroyed. But
now in a city which admits of this community, the tie of friendship
must, from that very cause, be extremely weak, when no father can say,
this is my son; or son, this is my father; for as a very little of
what is sweet, being mixed with a great deal of water is imperceptible
after the mixture, so must all family connections, and the names they
go by, be necessarily disregarded in such a community, it being then
by no means necessary that the father should have any regard for him
he called a son, or the brothers for those they call brothers. There
are two things which principally inspire mankind with care and love of
their offspring, knowing it is their own, and what ought to be the
object of their affection, neither of which can take place in this
sort of community. As for exchanging the children of the artificers
and husbandmen with those of the military, and theirs reciprocally
with these, it will occasion great confusion in whatever manner it
shall be done; for of necessity, those who carry the children must
know from whom they took and to whom they gave them; and by this means
those evils which I have already mentioned will necessarily be the
more likely to happen, as blows, incestuous love, murders, and the
like; for those who are given from their own parents to other
citizens, the military, for instance, will not call them brothers,
sons, fathers, or mothers. The same thing would happen to those of the
military who were placed among the other citizens; so that by this
means every one would be in fear how to act in consequence of
consanguinity. And thus let us determine concerning a community of
wives and children.
CHAPTER V
We proceed next to consider in what manner property should be
regulated in a state which is formed after the most perfect mode of
government, whether it should be common or not; for this may be
considered as a separate question from what had been determined
concerning [1263a] wives and children; I mean, whether it is better
that these should be held separate, as they now everywhere are, or
that not only possessions but also the usufruct of them should be in
common; or that the soil should have a particular owner, but that the
produce should be brought together and used as one common stock, as
some nations at present do; or on the contrary, should the soil be
common, and should it also be cultivated in common, while the produce
is divided amongst the individuals for their particular use, which is
said to be practised by some barbarians; or shall both the soil and
the fruit be common? When the business of the husbandman devolves not
on the citizen, the matter is much easier settled; but when those
labour together who have a common right of possession, this may
occasion several difficulties; for there may not be an equal
proportion between their labour and what they consume; and those who
labour hard and have but a small proportion of the produce, will
certainly complain of those who take a large share of it and do but
little for that. Upon the whole, as a community between man and man so
entire as to include everything possible, and thus to have all things
that man can possess in common, is very difficult, so is it
particularly so with respect to property; and this is evident from
that community which takes place between those who go out to settle a
colony; for they frequently have disputes with each other upon the
most common occasions, and come to blows upon trifles: we find, too,
that we oftenest correct those slaves who are generally employed in
the common offices of the family: a community of property then has
these and other inconveniences attending it.
But the manner of life which is now established, more particularly
when embellished with good morals and a system of equal laws, is far
superior to it, for it will have the advantage of both; by both I mean
properties being common, and divided also; for in some respects it
ought to be in a manner common, but upon the whole private: for every
man's attention being employed on his own particular concerns, will
prevent mutual complaints against each other; nay, by this means
industry will be increased, as each person will labour to improve his
own private property; and it will then be, that from a principle of
virtue they will mutually perform good offices to each other,
according to the proverb, "All things are common amongst friends;" and
in some cities there are traces of this custom to be seen, so that it
is not impracticable, and particularly in those which are best
governed; some things are by this means in a manner common, and others
might be so; for there, every person enjoying his own private
property, some things he assists his friend with, others are
considered as in common; as in Lacedaemon, where they use each other's
slaves, as if they were, so to speak, their own, as they do their
horses and dogs, or even any provision they may want in a journey.
It is evident then that it is best to have property private, but to
make the use of it common; but how the citizens are to be brought to
it is the particular [1263b] business of the legislator. And also
with respect to pleasure, it is unspeakable how advantageous it is,
that a man should think he has something which he may call his own;
for it is by no means to no purpose, that each person should have an
affection for himself, for that is natural, and yet to be a self-lover
is justly censured; for we mean by that, not one that simply loves
himself, but one that loves himself more than he ought; in like manner
we blame a money-lover, and yet both money and self is what all men
love. Besides, it is very pleasing to us to oblige and assist our
friends and companions, as well as those whom we are connected with by
the rights of hospitality; and this cannot be done without the
establishment of private property, which cannot take place with those
who make a city too much one; besides, they prevent every opportunity
of exercising two principal virtues, modesty and liberality. Modesty
with respect to the female sex, for this virtue requires you to
abstain from her who is another's; liberality, which depends upon
private property, for without that no one can appear liberal, or do
any generous action; for liberality consists in imparting to others
what is our own.
This system of polity does indeed recommend itself by its good
appearance and specious pretences to humanity; and when first proposed
to any one, must give him great pleasure, as he will conclude it to be
a wonderful bond of friendship, connecting all to all; particularly
when any one censures the evils which are now to be found in society,
as arising from properties not being common, I mean the disputes which
happen between man and man, upon their different contracts with each
other; those judgments which are passed in court in consequence of
fraud, and perjury, and flattering the rich, none of which arise from
properties being private, but from the vices of mankind. Besides,
those who live in one general community, and have all things in
common, oftener dispute with each other than those who have their
property separate; from the very small number indeed of those who have
their property in common, compared with those where it is
appropriated, the instances of their quarrels are but few. It is also
but right to mention, not only the inconveniences they are preserved
from who live in a communion of goods, but also the advantages they
are deprived of; for when the whole comes to be considered, this
manner of life will be found impracticable.
We must suppose, then, that Socrates's mistake arose from the
principle he set out with being false; we admit, indeed, that both a
family and a city ought to be one in some particulars, but not
entirely; for there is a point beyond which if a city proceeds in
reducing itself to one, it will be no longer a city.
There is also another point at which it will still continue to be a
city, but it will approach so near to not being one, that it will be
worse than none; as if any one should reduce the voices of those who
sing in concert to one, or a verse to a foot. But the people ought to
be made one, and a community, as I have already said, by education; as
property at Lacedsemon, and their public tables at Crete, were made
common by their legislators. But yet, whosoever shall introduce any
education, and think thereby to make his city excellent and
respectable, will be absurd, while he expects to form it by such
regulations, and not by manners, philosophy, and laws. And whoever
[1264a] would establish a government upon a community of goods,
ought to know that he should consult the experience of many years,
which would plainly enough inform him whether such a scheme is useful;
for almost all things have already been found out, but some have been
neglected, and others which have been known have not been put in
practice. But this would be most evident, if any one could see such a
government really established: for it would be impossible to frame
such a city without dividing and separating it into its distinct
parts, as public tables, wards, and tribes; so that here the laws will
do nothing more than forbid the military to engage in agriculture,
which is what the Lacedaemonians are at present endeavouring to do.
Nor has Socrates told us (nor is it easy to say) what plan of
government should be pursued with respect to the individuals in the
state where there is a community of goods established; for though the
majority of his citizens will in general consist of a multitude of
persons of different occupations, of those he has determined nothing;
whether the property of the husbandman ought to be in common, or
whether each person should have his share to himself; and also,
whether their wives and children ought to be in common: for if all
things are to be alike common to all, where will be the difference
between them and the military, or what would they get by submitting to
their government? and upon what principles would they do it, unless
they should establish the wise practice of the Cretans? for they,
allowing everything else to their slaves, forbid them only gymnastic
exercises and the use of arms. And if they are not, but these should
be in the same situation with respect to their property which they are
in other cities, what sort of a community will there be? in one city
there must of necessity be two, and those contrary to each other; for
he makes the military the guardians of the state, and the husbandman,
artisans, and others, citizens; and all those quarrels, accusations,
and things of the like sort, which he says are the bane of other
cities, will be found in his also: notwithstanding Socrates says they
will not want many laws in consequence of their education, but such
only as may be necessary for regulating the streets, the markets, and
the like, while at the same time it is the education of the military
only that he has taken any care of. Besides, he makes the husbandmen
masters of property upon paying a tribute; but this would be likely to
make them far more troublesome and high-spirited than the Helots, the
Penestise, or the slaves which others employ; nor has he ever
determined whether it is necessary to give any attention to them in
these particulars, nor thought of what is connected therewith, their
polity, their education, their laws; besides, it is of no little
consequence, nor is it easy to determine, how these should be framed
so as to preserve the community of the military.
Besides, if he makes the wives common, while the property [1264b]
continues separate, who shall manage the domestic concerns with the
same care which the man bestows upon his fields? nor will the
inconvenience be remedied by making property as well as wives common;
and it is absurd to draw a comparison from the brute creation, and
say, that the same principle should regulate the connection of a man
and a woman which regulates theirs amongst whom there is no family
association.
It is also very hazardous to settle the magistracy as Socrates has
done; for he would have persons of the same rank always in office,
which becomes the cause of sedition even amongst those who are of no
account, but more particularly amongst those who are of a courageous
and warlike disposition; it is indeed evidently necessary that he
should frame his community in this manner; for that golden particle
which God has mixed up in the soul of man flies not from one to the
other, but always continues with the same; for he says, that some of
our species have gold, and others silver, blended in their composition
from the moment of their birth: but those who are to be husbandmen and
artists, brass and iron; besides, though he deprives the military of
happiness, he says, that the legislator ought to make all the citizens
happy; but it is impossible that the whole city can be happy, without
all, or the greater, or some part of it be happy. For happiness is not
like that numerical equality which arises from certain numbers when
added together, although neither of them may separately contain it;
for happiness cannot be thus added together, but must exist in every
individual, as some properties belong to every integral; and if the
military are not happy, who else are so? for the artisans are not, nor
the multitude of those who are employed in inferior offices. The state
which Socrates has described has all these defects, and others which
are not of less consequence.
CHAPTER VI
It is also nearly the same in the treatise upon Laws which was writ
afterwards, for which reason it will be proper in this place to
consider briefly what he has there said upon government, for Socrates
has thoroughly settled but very few parts of it; as for instance, in
what manner the community of wives and children ought to be regulated,
how property should be established, and government conducted.
Now he divides the inhabitants into two parts, husbandmen and
soldiers, and from these he select a third part who are to be senators
and govern the city; but he has not said whether or no the husbandman
and artificer shall have any or what share in the government, or
whether they shall have arms, and join with the others in war, or not.
He thinks also that the women ought to go to war, and have the same
education as the soldiers; as to other particulars, he has filled his
treatise with matter foreign to the purpose; and with respect to
education, he has only said what that of the guards ought to be.
[1265a] As to his book of Laws, laws are the principal thing which
that contains, for he has there said but little concerning government;
and this government, which he was so desirous of framing in such a
manner as to impart to its members a more entire community of goods
than is to be found in other cities, he almost brings round again to
be the same as that other government which he had first proposed; for
except the community of wives and goods, he has framed both his
governments alike, for the education of the citizens is to be the same
in both; they are in both to live without any servile employ, and
their common tables are to be the same, excepting that in that he says
the women should have common tables, and that there should be a
thousand men-at-arms, in this, that there should be five thousand.
All the discourses of Socrates are masterly, noble, new, and
inquisitive; but that they are all true it may probably be too much to
say. For now with respect to the number just spoken of, it must be
acknowledged that he would want the country of Babylonia for them, or
some one like it, of an immeasurable extent, to support five thousand
idle persons, besides a much greater number of women and servants.
Every one, it is true, may frame an hypothesis as he pleases, but yet
it ought to be possible. It has been said, that a legislator should
have two things in view when he frames his laws, the country and the
people. He will also do well, if he has some regard to the
neighbouring states, if he intends that his community should maintain
any political intercourse with them, for it is not only necessary that
they should understand that practice of war which is adapted to their
own country, but to others also; for admitting that any one chooses
not this life either in public or private, yet there is not the less
occasion for their being formidable to their enemies, not only when
they invade their country, but also when they retire out of it.
It may also be considered whether the quantity of each person's
property may not be settled in a different manner from what he has
done it in, by making it more determinate; for he says, that every one
ought to have enough whereon to live moderately, as if any one had
said to live well, which is the most comprehensive expression.
Besides, a man may live moderately and miserably at the same time; he
had therefore better have proposed, that they should live both
moderately and liberally; for unless these two conspire, luxury will
come in on the one hand, or wretchedness on the other, since these two
modes of living are the only ones applicable to the employment of our
substance; for we cannot say with respect to a man's fortune, that he
is mild or courageous, but we may say that he is prudent and liberal,
which are the only qualities connected therewith.
It is also absurd to render property equal, and not to provide for the
increasing number of the citizens; but to leave that circumstance
uncertain, as if it would regulate itself according to the number of
women who [1265b] should happen to be childless, let that be what it
would because this seems to take place in other cities; but the case
would not be the same in such a state which he proposes and those
which now a |
