Politics

Aristotle

London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1944.

Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University (CC BY-SA 4.0).

URN: null

Texto

Estrutura da edição de origem ainda não mapeada: texto em modo plano.^[pa1]

[1252a] [loeb_section_1] [loeb_subsection_1] Every state is as we see a sort of partnership,The Greek word had not acquired a specially political connotation as the English word community has. 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. [loeb_subsection_2] Those then who think that the natures of the statesman, the royal ruler, the head of an estate οἰκονόμος denoting a higher grade than δεσπότης is unusual. For their ordinary use see 2.1 fin. 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). [loeb_subsection_3] 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.

In this subject as in others the best method of investigation is to study things in the process of development from the beginning. [loeb_subsection_4] 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 thingsA probable emendation gives that can carry out labor. with his body is subject and naturally a slave; so that master and slave have the same interest).

[1252b] [loeb_subsection_5] Thus the female and the slave are by nature distinct (for nature makes nothing as the cutlers make the Delphic knife,Uncertain: possibly a dagger and a carving-knife in one. 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 Eur. IA 1400.— ’Tis meet that Greeks should rule barbarians,— implying that barbarian and slave are the same in nature. [loeb_subsection_6] From these two partnerships then is first composed the household, and Hesiod Hes. WD 405. 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, the persons whom CharondasA law-giver of Catana in Sicily, 6th century B.C. or earlier. speaks of as meal-tub-fellows and the Cretan EpimenidesA poet and prophet invited to Athens 596 B.C. to purify it of plague. as manger-fellows.The variant reading ὁμοκάπνους, smoke-sharers, seems to mean hearth-fellows.

[loeb_subsection_7] 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 fromPerhaps the Greek should be altered to give consists of colonies from. a household, formed of those whom some people speak of as fellow-sucklings, sons and sons’ sons.The words sons and sons’ sons are probably an interpolated note. 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 Hom. Od. 9.114 f. on the Cyclopes. 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.

[loeb_subsection_8] The partnership finally composed of several villages is the city-state; 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;