350 BC

POLITICS

by Aristotle

translated by Benjamin Jowett

BOOK ONE

ANALYSIS OF BOOK ONE

CHAPTERS I-II. Definition and structure of the State. -

I. The state is the highest form of community and aims at the highest good. How it differs from other communities will appear if we examine the parts of which it is composed. -

II. It consists of villages which consist of households. The household is founded upon the two relations of male and female, of master and slave; it exists to satisfies man's daily needs. The village, a wider community, satisfies a wider range of needs. The state aims at satisfying all the needs of men. Men form states to secure a bare subsistence; but the ultimate object of the state is the good life. The naturalness of the state is proved by the faculty of speech in man. In the order of nature the state precedes the household and the individual. It is founded on a natural impulse, that towards political association.

Chapters III-XIII. Household economy. The Slave. Property. Children and Wives. -

III. Let us discuss the household, since the state is composed of households. -

IV. First as to slavery. The slave is a piece of property which is animate, and useful for action rather than for production. -

V. Slavery is natural; in every department of the natural universe we find the relation of ruler and subject. There are human beings who, without possessing reason, understand it. These are natural slaves. -

VI. But we find persons in slavery who are not natural slaves. Hence slavery itself is condemned by some; but they are wrong. The natural slave benefits by subjection to a master. -

VII. The art of ruling slaves differs from that of ruling free men but calls for detailed description; any one who is a natural master can acquire it for himself. -

VIII. As to property and the modes of acquiring it. This subject concerns us in so far as property is an indispensable substratum to the household. -

IX. But we do not need that form of finance which accumulates wealth for its own sake. This is unnatural finance. It has been made possible by the invention of coined money. It accumulates money by means of exchange. Natural and unnatural finance are often treated as though they were the same, but differ in their aims; -

X. Also in their subject-matter; for natural finance is only concerned with the fruits of the earth and animals. -

XI. Natural finance is necessary to the householder; he must therefore know about live stock, agriculture, possibly about the exchange of the products of the earth, such as wood and minerals, for money. Special treatises on finance exist, and the subject should be specially studied by statesmen. -

XII. Lastly, we must discuss and distinguish the relations of husband to wife, of father to child. -

XIII. In household management persons call for more attention than things; free persons for more than slaves. Slaves are only capable of an inferior kind of virtue. Socrates was wrong in denying that there are several kinds of virtue. Still the slave must be trained in virtue. The education of the free man will be subsequently discussed.

I -

EVERY STATE is a community of some kind, and every community is established with a view to some good; for mankind always act in order to obtain that which they think good. But, if all communities aim at some good, the state or political community, which is the highest of all, and which embraces all the rest, aims at good in a greater degree than any other, and at the highest good.

Some people think that the qualifications of a statesman, king, householder, and master are the same, and that they differ, not in kind, but only in the number of their subjects. For example, the ruler over a few is called a master; over more, the manager of a household; over a still larger number, a statesman or king, as if there were no difference between a great household and a small state. The distinction which is made between the king and the statesman is as follows: When the government is personal, the ruler is a king; when, according to the rules of the political science, the citizens rule and are ruled in turn, then he is called a statesman.

But all this is a mistake; for governments differ in kind, as will be evident to any one who considers the matter according to the method which has hitherto guided us. As in other departments of science, so in politics, the compound should always be resolved into the simple elements or least parts of the whole. We must therefore look at the elements of which the state is composed, in order that we may see in what the different kinds of rule differ from one another, and whether any scientific result can be attained about each one of them.

II -