[1323a] and in addition to these the superintendence of athletic and Dionysiac contests and of any similar displays that happen to be held. Some of these offices are obviously not of a popular character, for instance that of Superintendent of Women and of Children; for the poor having no slaves are forced to employ their women and children as servants. There are three offices which in some states supervise the election of the chief magistrates—Guardians of the Laws, Preliminary Councillors and Council; of these the Guardians of the Laws are an aristocratic institution, the Preliminary Councillors oligarchic, and a Council democratic.
We have now therefore spoken in outline about almost all the offices of state.
[1323a] [loeb_section_1] [loeb_subsection_1] Book 4 in some editions.The student who is going to make a suitable investigation of the best form of constitution must necessarily decide first of all what is the most desirable mode of life. For while this is uncertain it is also bound to be uncertain what is the best constitution, since it is to be expected that the people that have the best form of government available under their given conditions will fare the best, exceptional circumstances apart. Hence we must firstagree what life is most desirable for almost all men, and after that whether the same life is most desirable both for the community and for the individual, or a different one. [loeb_subsection_2] Believing therefore in the adequacy of much of what is said even in extraneous discoursesCf. 3.6. It is debated whether the phrase refers to Aristotle’s own popular writings, or to those of other philosophers, or to discussions of the subject in ordinary intercourse. on the subject of the best life, let us make use of these pronouncements now. For as regards at all events one classification of things good, putting them in three groups, external goods, goods of the soul and goods of the body, assuredly nobody would deny that the ideally happy are bound to possess all three. For nobody would call a man ideally happy that has not got a particle of courage nor of temperance nor of justice nor of wisdom, but is afraid of the flies that flutter by him, cannot refrain from any of the most outrageous actions in order to gratify a desire to eat or to drink, ruins his dearest friends for the sake of a farthing, and similarly in matters of the intellect also is as senseless and mistaken as any child or lunatic. [loeb_subsection_3] But although these are propositions which when uttered everybody would agree to, yet men differ about amount and degrees of value. They think it is enough to possess however small a quantity of virtue, but of wealth, riches, power, glory and everything of that kind they seek a larger and larger amount without limit. We on the other hand shall tell them that it is easy to arrive at conviction on these matters in the light of the actual facts, when one sees that men do not acquire and preserve the virtues by means of these external goods, but external goods by means of the virtues,
[1323b] and that whether the life of happiness consists for man in enjoyment or in virtue or in both, it is found in larger measure with those who are of surpassingly high cultivation in character and intellect but only moderate as regards the external acquisition of goods, than with those who own more than they can use of the latter but are deficient in the former. [loeb_subsection_4] Not but what the truth is also easily seen if we consider the matter in the light of reason. For external goods have a limit, as has any instrument (and everything useful is useful for something), so an excessive amount of them must necessarily do harm, or do no good, to its possessor; whereas with any of the goods of the soul, the more abundant it is, the more useful it must be—if even to goods of the soul not only the term noble but also the term useful can be properly applied. And broadly, it is clear that we shall declare that the best condition of each particular thing, comparing things with one another, corresponds in point of superiority to the distance that subsists between the things of which we declare these conditions themselves to be conditions.e.g. the finest man excels the finest monkey to the degree in which the species man excels the species monkey. Hence inasmuch as our soul is a more valuable thing both absolutely and relatively to ourselves than either our property or our body, the best conditions of these things must necessarily stand in the same relation to one another as the things themselves do. Moreover it is for the sake of the soul that these goods are in their nature desirable, and that all wise men mustchoose them, not the soul for the sake of those other things. [loeb_subsection_5] Let us then take it as agreed between us that to each man there falls just so large a measure of happiness as he achieves of virtue and wisdom and of virtuous and wise action: in evidence of this we have the case of God, who is happy and blessed, but is so on account of no external goods, but on account of himself, and by being of a certain quality in his nature; since it is also for this reason that prosperity is necessarily different from happiness—for the cause of goods external to the soul is the spontaneous and fortune,Aristotle taught that some events are the result of the undesigned interaction of two lines of causation in nature’s design; he denoted this (1) in general, by the automatic or self-acting (represented in Latin by sponte, spontaneous), (2) as concerning man, by fortune. but nobody is just or temperate as a result of or owing to the action of fortune. And connected is a truth requiring the same arguments to prove it, that it is also the best state, and the one that does well,The common play on the ambiguity of do well, meaning either prosper or act rightly. that is happy. But to do well is impossible save for those who do good actions, and there is no good action either of a man or of a state without virtue and wisdom; and courage, justice and wisdom belonging to a state have the same meaning and form as have those virtues whose possession bestows the titles of just and wise and temperate on an individual human being.
[loeb_subsection_6] These remarks however must suffice by way of preface to our discourse: for neither is it possible to abstain from touching on these subjects altogether, nor is it feasible to follow out all the arguments that are germane to them, for that is the business of another course of study. For the present let us take it as established that the best life, whether separately for an individual or collectively for states,