[1276a] whether, if a man is not rightly a citizen, he is a citizen at all, as wrongly means the same as not truly. But we sometimes see officials governing wrongly, as to whom we shall not deny that they do govern, but shall say that they do not do it rightly, and a citizen is defined by a certain function of government (a citizen, as we said, is one who shares in such and such an office); therefore it is clear that even persons wrongly admitted to citizenship are to be pronounced to be citizens, although the question whether they are so rightly or not rightly is connected with the question that was propounded before.The question, What is a state? 1274b 34. For some persons raise the question, When is an occurrence the act of the state and when is it not? for example, when the government has been altered from oligarchy or tyranny to democracy. In such circumstances some people claim that the new government should not discharge public debts, on the ground that the money was borrowed by the tyrant and not by the state, and should repudiate many other similar claims also, because some forms of government rest upon force and are not aimed at the welfare of the community. [loeb_subsection_11] If therefore some democracies also are governed in that manner, the acts of the authorities in their case can only be said to be the acts of the state in the same sense as the public acts emanating from an oligarchy or a tyranny are said to be. Akin to this controversy seems to be the subject, What exactly is the principle on which we ought to pronounce a city to be the same city as it was before, or not the same but a different city? The most obvious mode of inquiring into this difficultydeals with place and people: the place and the people may have been divided, and some may have settled in one place, and some in another. In this form the question must be considered as easier of solution; for, as city has several meanings, the inquiry so put is in a way not difficult.i.e. πόλις means both (1) city (and also citadel) and (2) state, a collection of citizens; and if the citizens divide and settle in two different cities with different governments, they are clearly not the same state as before. [loeb_subsection_12] But it may similarly be asked, Suppose a set of men inhabit the same place, in what circumstances are we to consider their city to be a single city? Its unity clearly does not depend on the walls, for it would be possible to throw a single wall round the Peloponnesus; and a case in point perhaps is Babylon, and any other city that has the circuit of a nation rather than of a city; for it is said that when Babylon was captured a considerable part of the city was not aware of it three days later. But the consideration of this difficulty will be serviceable for another occasion, as the student of politics must not ignore the question, What is the most advantageous size for a city, and should its population be of one race or of several? [loeb_subsection_13] But are we to pronounce a city, where the same population inhabit the same place, to be the same city so long as the population are of the same race, in spite of the fact that all the time some are dying and others being born, just as it is our custom to say that a river or a spring is the same river or spring although one stream of water is always being added to it and another being withdrawn from it, or are we to say that though the people are the same people for the similar reason of continuity, yet the city is a different city?
[1276b] For inasmuch as a state is a kind of partnership, and is in fact a partnership of citizens in a government, when the form of the government has been altered and is different it would appear to follow that the state is no longer the same state, just as we say that a chorus which on one occasion acts a comedy and on another a tragedy is a different chorus although it is often composed of the same persons, [loeb_subsection_14] and similarly with any other common whole or composite structure we say it is different if the form of its structure is different—for instance a musical tune consisting of the same notes we call a different tune if at one time it is played in the Dorian mode and at another in the Phrygian. Therefore if this is the case, it is clear that we must speak of a state as being the same state chiefly with regard to its constitution; and it is possible for it to be called by the same or by a different designation both when its inhabitants are the same and when they are entirely different persons. But whether a state is or is not bound in justice to discharge its engagements when it has changed to a different constitution, is another subject.
[loeb_section_2] [loeb_subsection_1] 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. [loeb_subsection_2] 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.[loeb_subsection_3] 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 impossiblePerhaps the Greek should be altered to give possible. If we emend the text with Bernays to εἰ γὰρ δύνατον ἐξ ἁπάντων σπουδαίων ὄντων εἶναι πόλιν, the sense is: assuming the possibility of a perfect state, with all its factors the best of their kind, this means that all the population will be good citizens, not that they will all be perfect specimens of the human race, because the state needs citizens of the working classes, etc., and these cannot in the nature of things be perfect human beings 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,