Nicomachean Ethics
(Trans. Ross, with
bracketed alternative translations by Ostwald and Rackham;
chapter headings
and paragraph divisions follow Ostwald’s Library of Liberal Arts edition)
Book 2, Chapter
1. Moral virtue as the result of habits.
[1103a20] VIRTUE, then,
being of two kinds, intellectual and moral, intellectual virtue in the main
owes both its birth and its growth to teaching (for which reason it requires
experience and time), while moral virtue comes about as a result of habit,
whence also its name (ethike) is one that is
formed by a slight variation from the word ethos (habit). From this it is also
plain that none of the moral virtues arises in us by nature; for nothing that
exists by nature can form a habit contrary to its nature. For instance the stone which by nature moves downwards cannot be
habituated to move upwards, not even if one tries to train it by throwing it up
ten thousand times; nor can fire be habituated to move downwards, nor can
anything else that by nature behaves in one way be trained to behave in
another. Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature do the virtues arise
in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive them, and are made perfect by
habit.
Again, of all the
things that come to us by nature we first acquire the potentiality and later
exhibit the activity (this is plain in the case of the senses; for it was not
by often seeing or often hearing that we got these senses, but on the contrary
we had them before we used them, and did not come to have them by using them);
but the virtues we get by first exercising them, as also happens in the case of
the arts as well. For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we
learn by doing them, e.g. men become builders by building and lyre-players by
playing the lyre; [1103b] so too we become just by doing just
acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.
This is confirmed
by what happens in states; for legislators make the citizens good by forming
habits in them, and this is the wish of every legislator, and those who do not
effect it miss their mark, and it is in this that a good constitution differs
from a bad one.
Again, it is from
the same causes and by the same means that every virtue is both produced and
destroyed, and similarly every art; for it is from playing the lyre that both
good and bad lyre-players are produced. And the corresponding statement is true
of builders and of all the rest; men will be good or bad builders as a result
of building well or badly. For if this were not so, there would have been no
need of a teacher, but all men would have been born good or bad at their craft.
This, then, is the case with the virtues also; by doing the acts that we do in
our transactions with other men we become just or unjust, and by doing the acts
that we do in the presence of danger, and being habituated to feel fear or confidence,
we become brave or cowardly. The same is true of appetites and feelings of
anger; some men become temperate and good-tempered, others self-indulgent and
irascible, by behaving in one way or the other in the appropriate
circumstances. Thus, in one word, states of character arise out of like
activities. This is why the activities we exhibit must be of a certain kind; it
is because the states of character correspond to the differences between these.
It makes no small difference, then, whether we form habits of one kind or of
another from our very youth; it makes a very great difference, or rather all
the difference.
Book 2, Chapter
2. Method in the practical sciences.
Since, then, the
present inquiry does not aim at theoretical knowledge like the others (for we
are inquiring not in order to know what virtue is, but in order to become good,
since otherwise our inquiry would have been of no use), we must examine the
nature of actions, namely how we ought to do them; for these determine also the
nature of the states of character that are produced, as we have said.
Now, that we must
act according to the right rule [or “right reason”] is a common
principle and must be assumed—it will be discussed later, i.e. both what the
right rule [or “right reason”] is, and how it is related to
the other virtues. [1104a] But this must be agreed upon
beforehand, that the whole account of matters of conduct must be given in
outline and not precisely, as we said at the very beginning that the accounts
we demand must be in accordance with the subject-matter; matters concerned with
conduct and questions of what is good for us have no fixity, any more than
matters of health. The general account being of this nature, the account of
particular cases is yet more lacking in exactness; for they do not fall under
any art or precept but the agents themselves must in each case consider what is
appropriate to the occasion, as happens also in the art of medicine or of
navigation. But though our present account is of this nature we must give what
help we can.
First, then, let
us consider this, that it is the nature of such things to be destroyed by
defect and excess, as we see in the case of strength and of health (for to gain
light on things imperceptible we must use the evidence of sensible things);
both excessive and defective exercise destroys the strength, and similarly
drink or food which is above or below a certain amount destroys the health,
while that which is proportionate both produces and increases and preserves it.
So too is it, then, in the case of temperance and courage and the other
virtues. For the man who flies from and fears everything and does not stand his
ground against anything becomes a coward, and the man who fears nothing at all
but goes to meet every danger becomes rash; and similarly the man who indulges
in every pleasure and abstains from none becomes self-indulgent, while the man
who shuns every pleasure, as boors do, becomes in a way insensible; temperance
and courage, then, are destroyed by excess and defect, and preserved by the
mean.
But not only are
the sources and causes of their origination and growth the same as those of
their destruction, but also the sphere of their actualization will be the same;
for this is also true of the things which are more evident to sense, e.g. of
strength; it is produced by taking much food and undergoing much exertion, and
it is the strong man that will be most able to do
these things. So too is it with the virtues; by abstaining from pleasures we
become temperate, and it is when we have become so that we are most able to abstain from them; [1104b] and
similarly too in the case of courage; for by being habituated to despise things
that are terrible and to stand our ground against them we become brave, and it
is when we have become so that we shall be most able to stand our ground
against them.
Book 2, Chapter
3. Pleasure and pain as the test of virtue.
We must take as a
sign of states of character the pleasure or pain that ensues on acts; for the
man who abstains from bodily pleasures and delights in this very fact is
temperate, while the man who is annoyed at it is self-indulgent, and he who
stands his ground against things that are terrible and delights in this or at
least is not pained is brave, while the man who is pained is a coward. For
moral excellence is concerned with pleasures and pains; it is on account of the
pleasure that we do bad things, and on account of the pain that we abstain from
noble ones. Hence we ought to have been brought up in a particular way from our
very youth, as Plato says, so as both to delight in and to be pained by the
things that we ought; for this is the right education.
Again, if the
virtues are concerned with actions and passions, and every passion and every
action is accompanied by pleasure and pain, for this reason also virtue will be
concerned with pleasures and pains. This is indicated also by the fact that
punishment is inflicted by these means; for it is a kind of cure, and it is the
nature of cures to be effected by contraries. Again, as we said but lately,
every state of soul has a nature relative to and concerned with the kind of
things by which it tends to be made worse or better; but it is by reason of
pleasures and pains that men become bad, by pursuing and avoiding
these—either of the wrong kind or at the wrong time or in the wrong
manner or by going wrong in one of the other similar ways that may be
distinguished. Hence men even define the virtues as certain states of
impassivity and rest; not well, however, because they speak absolutely, and do
not say 'as one ought' and 'as one ought not' and 'when one ought or ought
not', and the other things that may be added. We assume, then, that this kind
of excellence tends to do what is best with regard to pleasures and pains, and
vice does the contrary.
The following
facts also may show us that virtue and vice are concerned with these same
things. There being three objects of choice and three of avoidance, the noble,
the advantageous, the pleasant, and their contraries, the base, the injurious, the
painful, about all of these the good man tends to go right and the bad man to
go wrong, and especially about pleasure; for this is common to the animals, and
also it accompanies all objects of choice; [1105a] for even
the noble and the advantageous appear pleasant. Again, it has grown up with us
all from our infancy; this is why it is difficult to rub off this passion,
engrained as it is in our life. And we measure even our actions, some of us
more and others less, by the rule of pleasure and pain. For this reason, then,
our whole inquiry must be about these; for to feel delight and pain rightly or
wrongly has no small effect on our actions. Again, it is harder to fight with
pleasure than with anger, to use Heraclitus' phrase', but both art and virtue are
always concerned with what is harder; for even the good is better when it is
harder. Therefore for this reason also the whole
concern both of virtue and of political science is with pleasures and pains;
for the man who uses these well will be good, he who uses them badly bad.
That virtue,
then, is concerned with pleasures and pains, and that by the acts from which it
arises it is both increased and, if they are done differently, destroyed, and
that the acts from which it arose are those in which it actualizes itself—let
this be taken as said.
Book 2, Chapter
6. Virtue defined: the differentia.
* * *
[V]irtue must have the quality of aiming at the intermediate.
I mean moral virtue; for it is this that is concerned with passions and
actions, and in these there is excess, defect, and the intermediate. For
instance, both fear and confidence and appetite and anger and pity and in
general pleasure and pain may be felt both too much and too little, and in both
cases not well; but to feel them at the right times, with reference to
the right objects, towards the right people, with the right motive, and in the
right way, is what is both intermediate and best, and this is characteristic of
virtue.
Similarly with regard to
actions also there is excess, defect, and the intermediate. Now virtue is
concerned with passions and actions, in which excess is a form of failure, and
so is defect, while the intermediate is praised and is a form of success; and
being praised and being successful are both characteristics of virtue.
Therefore [moral] virtue is a kind of mean, since, as we have seen, it aims at
what is intermediate. Again, it is possible to fail in many ways (for evil
belongs to the class of the unlimited, as the Pythagoreans conjectured, and
good to that of the limited), while to succeed is possible only in one way (for
which reason also one is easy and the other difficult -- to miss the mark easy,
to hit it difficult); for these reasons also, then, excess and defect are
characteristic of vice, and the mean of virtue: for “men are good in but one
way, but bad in many.”
Book 2, Chapter
9. How to attain the mean.
(1) That moral
virtue is a mean, then, and in what sense it is so, and (2) that it is a mean
between two vices, the one involving excess, the other deficiency, and (3) that
it is such because its character is to aim at what is intermediate in passions
and in actions, has been sufficiently stated. Hence also it is no easy task to
be good. For in everything it is no easy task to find the middle, e.g. to find
the middle of a circle is not for everyone but for him who knows; so, too,
anyone can get angry—that is easy—or give or spend money; but to do
this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the
right motive, and in the right way, that is not for everyone, nor is it easy;
wherefore goodness is both rare and laudable and noble.
Hence he who aims
at the intermediate must first depart from what is the more contrary to it, as
Calypso advises—“Hold the ship out beyond that surf
and spray.” For of the extremes one is more erroneous, one less so; therefore,
since to hit the mean is hard in the extreme, we must as a second best, as
people say, take the least of the evils; and this will be done best in the way
we describe.[1109b]
Politics
Book 1, Chapters 1 & 2; Book 3, Chapters 1 & 4; Book 4,
Chapter 1.
Aristotle
Translated by
Horace Rackham
Book 1, Chapter 1 (Politics, I. 1) [The
Genetic Definition][1252a1]
Every state [polis] is as we see a sort of partnership
[association], and every partnership is formed with a view to some good (since
all the actions of all mankind are done with a view to what they think to be
good). It is therefore evident that, while all partnerships aim at some good
the partnership that is the most supreme of all and includes all the others
does so most of all and aims at the most supreme of all goods; and this is the
partnership entitled the state, the political association. Those then who think
that the natures of the statesman, the royal ruler, the head of an estate and
the master of a family are the same, are mistaken （they imagine that
the difference between these various forms of authority is one of greater and
smaller numbers, not a difference in the kind—that is, that the ruler over a
few people is a master, over more the head of an estate, over more still a
statesman or royal ruler, as if there were no difference between a large
household and a small city; and also as to the statesman and the royal ruler,
they think that one who governs as sole head is royal, and one who, while the
government follows the principles of the science of royalty, takes turns to
govern and be governed is a statesman; but these views are not true). And a
proof that these people are mistaken will appear if we examine the question in
accordance with our regular method of investigation. In every other matter it is
necessary to analyze the composite whole down to its uncompounded elements (for
these are the smallest parts of the whole); so too with the state, by
examining the elements of which it is composed we shall better discern in
relation to these different kinds of rulers what is the difference between
them, and whether it is possible to obtain any scientific precision in regard
to the various statements made above.
Book 1, Chapter 2 (Politics, I.2) In this
subject as in others the best method of investigation is to study things in the
process of development from the beginning. The first coupling together of
persons then to which necessity gives rise is that between those who are unable
to exist without one another: for instance the union of female and male for
the continuance of the species (and this not of deliberate purpose, but with
man as with the other animals and with plants there is a natural instinct to
desire to leave behind one another being of the same sort as oneself); and
the union of natural ruler and natural subject for the sake of
security (for he that can foresee with his mind is naturally ruler and
naturally master, and he that can do these things with his body is subject and
naturally a slave; so that master and slave have the same interest).
[1252b1] Thus the female and the slave are by
nature distinct (for nature makes nothing as the cutlers make the Delphic
knife, in a niggardly way, but one thing for one purpose; for so each tool will
be turned out in the finest perfection, if it serves not many uses but one).
Yet among barbarians the female and the slave have the same rank; and the cause
of this is that barbarians have no class of natural rulers, but with them the
conjugal partnership is a partnership of female slave and male slave. Hence the
saying of the poets—
“'Tis meet that Greeks should rule barbarians,”—
implying that barbarian and slave are the same
in nature. From these two partnerships then is first composed the household,
and Hesiod was right when he wrote
“First and
foremost a house and a wife and an ox for the ploughing”—
for the ox serves instead of a servant for the
poor. The partnership therefore that comes about in the course of nature for
everyday purposes is the ‘house’ [household or family], the
persons whom Charondas speaks of as
‘meal-tub-fellows’ and the Cretan Epimenides as
‘manger-fellows.’
On the other hand the
primary partnership made up of several households for the satisfaction of not
mere daily needs is the village. The village according to the most
natural account seems to be a colony from a household, formed of those whom
some people speak of as ‘fellow-sucklings,’ sons and
sons' sons. It is owing to this that our cities were at first under royal sway
and that foreign races are so still, because they were made up of parts that
were under royal rule; for every household is under the royal rule of its
eldest member, so that the colonies from the household were so too, because of
the kinship of their members. And this is what Homer means:
“ And each one giveth law/To sons and eke to
spouses”—
for his Cyclopes live in scattered
families; and that is the way in which people used to live in early
times. Also this explains why all races speak of the gods as ruled by
a king, because they themselves too are some of them actually now so ruled and
in other cases used to be of old; and as men imagine the gods in human form, so
also they suppose their manner of life to be like their own.
The partnership finally composed of several
villages is the city-state [polis]; it has at last attained the
limit of virtually complete self-sufficiency, and thus, while it comes into
existence for the sake of life, it exists for the good life. Hence every
city-state exists by nature, inasmuch as the first partnerships so exist; for
the city-state is the end of the other partnerships, and nature is an end,
since that which each thing is when its growth is completed we speak
of as being the nature of each thing, for instance of a man, a horse, a
household. Again, the object for which a thing exists, its end, is its chief
good; [1253a1] and self-sufficiency is an end, and a chief good. From these
things therefore it is clear that the city-state is a natural growth, and that
man is by nature a political animal, and a man that is by nature and not merely
by fortune city-less is either low in the scale of humanity or above it (like
the “ clanless,
lawless, hearthless” man reviled by Homer, for
one by nature unsocial is also ‘a lover of war’) inasmuch as he is solitary,
like an isolated piece at draughts [checkers]. And why man is a political
animal in a greater measure than any bee or any gregarious animal is clear. For
nature, as we declare, does nothing without purpose; and man alone of
the animals possesses speech. The mere voice, it is true, can indicate pain and
pleasure, and therefore is possessed by the other animals as well (for their
nature has been developed so far as to have sensations of what is painful and
pleasant and to indicate those sensations to one another), but speech is designed
to indicate the advantageous and the harmful, and therefore also the right and
the wrong; for it is the special property of man in distinction from the other
animals that he alone has perception of good and bad and right and wrong and
the other moral qualities, and it is partnership in these things that makes a
household and a city-state.
Thus also the city-state [polis]
is prior in nature to the household and to each of us individually. For the
whole must necessarily be prior to the part; since when the whole body is
destroyed, foot or hand will not exist except in an equivocal sense, like the
sense in which one speaks of a hand sculptured in stone as a hand; because a
hand in those circumstances will be a hand spoiled, and all things are defined
by their function and capacity, so that when they are no longer such as to
perform their function they must not be said to be the same things, but to bear
their names in an equivocal sense. It is clear therefore that the state is also
prior by nature to the individual; for if each individual when separate is not
self-sufficient, he must be related to the whole state as other parts are to
their whole, while a man who is incapable of entering into partnership, or who
is so self-sufficing that he has no need to do so, is no part of a state, so
that he must be either a lower animal or a god.
Therefore the impulse
to form a partnership of this kind is present in all men by nature; but the man
who first united people in such a partnership was the greatest of benefactors.
For as man is the best of the animals when perfected, so he is the worst of all
when sundered from law and justice. For unrighteousness is most pernicious when
possessed of weapons, and man is born possessing weapons for the use of wisdom
and virtue, which it is possible to employ entirely for the opposite ends.
Hence when devoid of virtue man is the most unholy and savage of animals, and
the worst in regard to sexual indulgence and gluttony. Justice on the
other hand is an element of the state; for judicial procedure, which means the
decision of what is just, is the regulation of the political partnership.
Book 3, Chapter 1 (Politics, III.1) [The Analytic Definition][1274b32] For the student of
government, and of nature and characteristics of the various forms of
constitution, almost the first question to consider is in regard to the state:
what exactly is the essential nature of a state? As it is, this is a matter of
dispute: a public act is spoken of by some people as the action of the state,
others speak of it as the action not of the state but of the oligarchy or the
tyrant in power1; and we see that the activity of the statesman and lawgiver is
entirely concerned with a state as its object, and a constitution is a form of
organization of the inhabitants of a state. But a state is a composite thing,
in the same sense as any other of the things that are wholes but consist of
many parts; it is therefore clear that we must first inquire into the nature of
a citizen; for a state is a collection of citizens, [1275a1] so that we have to
consider who is entitled to the name of citizen, and what the essential nature
of a citizen is. For there is often a difference of opinion as to this: people
do not all agree that the same person is a citizen; often somebody who would be
a citizen in a democracy is not a citizen under an oligarchy. We need not here
consider those who acquire the title of citizen in some exceptional manner, for
example those who are citizens by adoption; and citizenship is not constituted
by domicile in a certain place (for resident aliens and slaves share the
domicile of citizens), nor are those
citizens who participate in a common system of justice, conferring the right to
defend an action and to bring one in the law-courts (for this right
belongs also to the parties under a commercial treaty, as they too can sue and
be sued at law—or rather, in many places even the right of legal action is not
shared completely by resident aliens, but they are obliged to produce a patron,
so that they only share in a common legal procedure to an incomplete degree), but these are only citizens in the manner in
which children who are as yet too young to have been enrolled in the list and
old men who have been discharged must be pronounced to be citizens in a sense,
yet not quite absolutely, but with the added qualification of ‘under age’ in
the case of the former and ‘superannuated’ or some other similar term (it makes
no difference, the meaning being clear) in that of the latter. For we seek to define a citizen in the
absolute sense, and one possessing no disqualification of this nature that
requires a correcting term, since similar difficulties may also be raised, and
solved, about citizens who have been disfranchised or exiled. A citizen pure
and simple is defined by nothing else so much as by the right to participate in
judicial functions and in office. But some offices of government are definitely
limited in regard to time, so that some of them are not allowed to be held
twice by the same person at all, or only after certain fixed intervals of time;
other officials are without limit of tenure, for example the juryman and the
member of the assembly. It might perhaps be said that such persons are not
officials at all, and that the exercise of these functions does not constitute
the holding of office; and yet it is absurd to deny the title of official to
those who have the greatest power in the state. But it need not make any
difference, as it is only the question of a name, since there is no common name
for a juryman and a member of the assembly that is properly applied to both.
For the sake of distinction therefore let us call the combination of the two
functions ‘office’ without limitation. Accordingly, we lay it down
that those are citizens who participate in office in this manner.
Such more or less is the definition of
‘citizen’ that would best fit with all of those to whom the name is applied.
But it must not be forgotten that things in the case of which the things to
which they are related differ in kind, one of them being primary, another one
secondary and so on, either do not contain a common nature at all, as being
what they are, or barely do so. Now we see that constitutions differ from one
another in kind, and that some are subsequent and others prior; [1275b1] for
erroneous and divergent forms are necessarily subsequent to correct forms （in what sense we
employ the terms ‘divergent’ of constitutions will appear later). Hence the citizen corresponding to each form
of constitution will also necessarily be different. Therefore the
definition of a citizen that we have given applies especially to citizenship in
a democracy; under other forms of government it may hold good, but will not
necessarily do so. For in some states there is no body of common citizens, and
they do not have the custom of a popular assembly but councils of specially
convened members, and the office of trying law-suits goes by sections—for
example at Sparta suits for breach of contract are tried by different ephors in different cases, while cases of homicide are
tried by the ephors and doubtless other
suits by some other magistrate. The same method is not1 followed at Carthage,
where certain magistrates judge all the law-suits. But still, our definition of
a citizen admits of correction. For under the other forms of constitution a
member of the assembly and of a jury-court is not ‘an official’ without
restriction, but an official defined according to his office; either all of
them or some among them are assigned deliberative and judicial duties either in
all matters or in certain matters. What constitutes a citizen is therefore
clear from these considerations: we now declare that one who has the right to
participate in deliberative or judicial office is a citizen of the state in
which he has that right, and a state is a collection of such persons
sufficiently numerous, speaking broadly, to secure independence of life.
Book 3, Chapter 4 (Politics, III.4) [1276b11] The next
thing to consider after what has now been said is the question whether we are
to hold that the goodness of a good man is the same as that of a good citizen,
or not the same. However, if this point really is to receive investigation, we
must first ascertain in some general outline what constitutes the excellence of
a citizen. Now a citizen we pronounced to be one sort of partner in a
community, as is a sailor. And although sailors differ from each other in
function—one is an oarsman, another helmsman, another look-out man, and another
has some other similar special designation—and so clearly the most exact
definition of their excellence will be special to each, yet there will also be
a common definition of excellence that will apply alike to all of them; for
security in navigation is the business of them all, since each of the sailors
aims at that. Similarly therefore with the
citizens, although they are dissimilar from one another, their business is the
security of their community, and this community is the constitution, so that
the goodness of a citizen must necessarily be relative to the constitution of
the state. If therefore there are various forms of constitution, it is clear
that there cannot be one single goodness which is the perfect goodness of the
good citizen; but when we speak of a good man we mean that he
possesses one single goodness, perfect goodness. Hence it is manifestly
possible to be a good citizen without possessing the goodness that constitutes
a good man. Moreover it is also feasible to
pursue the same topic by raising the question in another manner in relation to
the best form of constitution. If it is impossible1 for a state to consist
entirely of good men, and if it is necessary for each person to perform well
the work of his position, and to do this springs from goodness, then because it
is impossible for all the citizens to be alike, [1277a1] the goodness of a good
citizen would not be one and the same as the goodness of a good man; for all
ought to possess the goodness of the good citizen (that is a necessary
condition of the state's being the best possible), but it is impossible that
all should possess the goodness of a good man, if it is not necessary that all
the citizens in a good state should be good men. Again, since the state
consists of unlike persons—just as an animal (to take this instance
first) consists of soul and body, and a soul of reason and appetite, and a
household of husband and wife and [ownership involves]1 a master and slave, in
the same manner a state consists of all of these persons and also of others of
different classes in addition to these,—it necessarily follows that the
goodness of all the citizens is not one and the same, just as among dancers the
skill of a head dancer is not the same as that of a subordinate leader. It is
clear then from these considerations that the goodness of a good citizen and
that of a good man are not the same in general; but will the goodness of a good
citizen of a particular sort be the same as that of a good man? Now
we say that a good ruler is virtuous and wise, and that a citizen taking part
in politics must be wise. Also some people say that even the
education of a ruler must be different, as indeed we see that the sons of kings
are educated in horsemanship and military exercises, and Euripides makes his
king say
“No subtleties
for me, but what the state/Requireth”—
implying that there is a special education for a
ruler. And if the goodness of a good ruler is the same as the goodness of a
good man, yet the person ruled is also a citizen, so that the goodness of a
citizen in general will not be the same as that of a man, although that of a
particular citizen will; for goodness as a ruler is not the same as goodness as
a citizen, and no doubt this is the reason why Jason3 said that when he was not
tyrant he went hungry, meaning that he did not know the art of being a private
person. Another point is that we praise the ability to rule and to be ruled,
and it is doubtless held that the goodness of a citizen consists in ability
both to rule and to be ruled well. If then we lay it down that the goodness of
the good man is displayed in ruling, whereas that of the citizen is shown in
both capacities, the two capacities cannot be equally laudable. Since therefore
both views are sometimes accepted, and it is thought that the ruler and the
subject do not have to learn the same arts but that the citizen must know both
arts and share in both capacities, . . . . And
it may be discerned from the following illustration: one form of authority is
that of a master; by this we mean the exercise of authority in regard to the
necessary work of the house, which it is not necessary for the master to know
how to execute, but rather how to utilize; the other capacity, I mean the
ability actually to serve in these menial tasks, is indeed a slave's quality.
But we distinguish several kinds of slave, as their employments are several.
One department belongs to the handicraftsmen, who as their name implies are the
persons that live by their hands, [1277b1] a class that includes the mechanic
artisan. Hence in some states manual laborers were not admitted to office in
old times, before the development of extreme democracy. The tasks of those who
are under this form of authority therefore it is not proper for the good man or
the man fit for citizenship or the good citizen to learn, except for his own
private use occasionally (for then it ceases to be a case of the one party
being master and the other slave). But there exists a form of authority by
which a man rules over persons of the same race as himself, and free
men (for that is how we describe political authority), and this the ruler
should learn by being ruled, just as a man should command cavalry after having
served as a trooper, command a regiment after having served in a regiment and
been in command of a company and of a platoon. Hence there is much truth in the
saying that it is impossible to become a good ruler without having been a
subject. And although the goodness of a ruler and that of a subject are different,
the good citizen must have the knowledge and the ability both to be ruled and
to rule, and the merit of the good citizen consists in having a knowledge of
the government of free men on both sides. And therefore both these virtues are
characteristic of a good man, even if temperance and justice in a ruler are of
a different kind from temperance and justice in a subject; for clearly a good
man's virtue, for example his justice, will not be one and the same when he is
under government and when he is free, but it will be of different kinds, one
fitting him to rule and one to be ruled, just as temperance and courage are
different in a man and in a woman (for a man would be thought a coward if he
were only as brave as a brave woman, and a woman a chatterer if she were only
as modest as a good man; since even the household functions of a man and of a
woman are different—his business is to get and hers to keep). And practical
wisdom alone of the virtues is a virtue peculiar to a ruler; for the other virtues
seem to be necessary alike for both subjects and rulers to possess, but wisdom
assuredly is not a subject's virtue, but only right opinion: the subject
corresponds to the man who makes flutes and the ruler to the flute-player who
uses them.
The question whether the goodness of a good man
is the same as that of a good citizen or different, and how they are the same
and how different, is clear from these considerations.
Book 4, Chapter 1 (Politics, IV.1)
[1288b10]
In all the arts and the sciences that are not
merely sectional but that in relation to some one class of subject are
complete, it is the function of a single art or science to study what is suited
to each class,2 for instance what sort of
gymnastic exercise is beneficial for what sort of bodily frame, and what is the
best sort (for the best must naturally suit the person of the finest natural
endowment and equipment), and also what
one exercise taken by all is the best for the largest number (for this is also
a question for gymnastic science), and in addition, in case someone desires a
habit of body and a knowledge of athletic exercises that are not the ones
adapted to him, it is clearly just as much the task of the trainer and
gymnastic master to produce this capacity also; and we notice this also
happening similarly in regard to medicine, and shipbuilding, and the making of
clothes, and every other crafts [arts, techne].
Hence it is clear that in the case of the
constitution as well it is the business of the same science to study which is
the best constitution and what character it must have to be the most ideal if
no external circumstance stands in the way, and what constitution is adapted to
what people (since for many it is doubtless impossible to attain the best one,
so that the good lawgiver and the true statesman must be acquainted with both
the form of constitution that is the highest absolutely and that which is best
under assumed conditions), and also thirdly the form of constitution based on a
certain supposition (for he must be also capable of considering both how some
given constitution could be brought into existence originally and also in what
way having been brought into existence it could be preserved for the longest
time: I mean for example if it has befallen some state not only not to possess
the best constitution and to be unprovided even with
the things necessary for it, but also not to have the constitution that is
practicable under the circumstances but an inferior one); and beside all these matters he must ascertain
the form of constitution most suited to all states, since most of those who
make pronouncements about the constitution, even if the rest of what they say
is good, entirely miss the points of practical utility. For it is proper to
consider not only what is the best constitution but also what is the one
possible of achievement, and likewise also what is the one that is easier and
more generally shared by all states. But as it is, some students inquire which
is the highest form of all even though requiring much material
equipment, while those who rather state some general form sweep aside the
constitutions actually existing and praise that of Sparta or some
other; [1289a] [1] but the proper course is to bring forward an organization of
such a sort that men will easily be persuaded and be able in the existing
circumstances to take part in it, since to reform a constitution is no less a
task than to frame one from the beginning, just as to re-learn a science is
just as hard as to learn it originally; in addition therefore to the things
mentioned the student of politics must also be able to render aid to the
constitutions that exist already, as was also said before. But this is
impossible if he does not know how many kinds of constitution there are; but at
present some people think that there is only one kind of democracy and one kind
of oligarchy, but this is not true. Hence he must take in view the
different varieties of the constitutions, and know how many there are and how
many are their combinations. And after this it needs this same discrimination
also to discern the laws that are the best, and those that are suited to each
of the forms of constitution. For the laws should be laid down, and all people
lay them down, to suit the constitutions—the constitutions must not be made to
suit the laws; for a constitution is the regulation of the offices of the state
in regard to the mode of their distribution and to the question what is the
sovereign power in the state and what is the object of each community, but laws
are distinct from the principles of the constitution, and regulate how the
magistrates are to govern and to guard against those who transgress them. So
that clearly it is necessary to be in possession of the different varieties of
each form of constitution, and the number of these, even for the purpose of
legislation; for it is impossible for the same laws to be expedient for all
oligarchies or democracies if there are really several kinds of them, and not
one sort of democracy or oligarchy only.