[1333a] Hence their education also is bound to be in one way the same and in another different. For he who is to be a good ruler must have first been ruled, as the saying isThe sentence here breaks off into a long parenthesis, after which it is not resumed. (and government, as has been said in the first discourses,Book 3.6.6-12, 1278b 30 ff. is of two sorts, one carried on for the sake of the ruler and the other for the sake of the subject; of these the former is what we call the rule of a master,the latter is the government of free men . . .One sentence or more has been lost here. [loeb_subsection_5] But some of the commands given differ not in nature of the services commanded but in their object. Hence a number of what are thought to be menial services can be honorably performed even by freemen in youth; since in regard to honor and dishonor actions do not differ so much in themselves as in their end and object). But since we say that the goodness of a citizenPerhaps the Greek should be altered to give of the best citizen. and ruler are the same as that of the best man, and that the same person ought to become a subject first and a ruler afterwards, it will be important for the legislator to study how and by what courses of training good men are to be produced, and what is the end of the best life.
[loeb_subsection_6] The soul is divided into two parts, of which one is in itself possessed of reason, while the other is not rational in itselfbut capable of obeying reason. To these parts in our view belong those virtues in accordance with which a man is pronounced to be good in some way. But in which of thesetwo parts the end of man rather resides, those who define the parts of the soul in accordance with our view will have no doubt as to how they should decide. The worse always exists as a means to the better, and this is manifest alike in the products of art and in those of nature; but the rational part of the soul is better than the irrational. [loeb_subsection_7] And the rational part is subdivided into two, according to our usual scheme of division; for reason is of two kinds, practical and theoretic, so that obviously the rational part of the soul must also be subdivided accordingly. A corresponding classification we shall also pronounce to hold among its activities: the activities of the part of the soul that is by nature superior must be preferable for those persons who are capable of attaining either all the soul’s activities or twoi.e. the two lower ones, the three being the activities of the theoretic reason, of the practical reason, and of the passions that although irrational are amenable to reason. out of the three; since that thing is always most desirable for each person which is the highest to which it is possible for him to attain. [loeb_subsection_8] Also life as a whole is divided into business and leisure, and war and peace, and our actions are aimed some of them at things necessary and useful, others at things noble. In these matters the same principle of preference that applies to the parts of the soul must apply also to the activities of those parts: war must be for the sake of peace, business for the sake of leisure, things necessary and useful for the purpose of things noble. [loeb_subsection_9] The statesman therefore must legislate with all these considerations in view, both in respect of the parts of the soul and of their activities, and aiming more particularly at the greater goods and the ends. And the same principle applies in regard to modes of life and choices of conduct: a man should be capable of engaging in business and war,
[1333b] but still more capable of living in peace and leisure; and he should do what is necessary and useful, but still more should he do what is noble. These then are the aims that ought to be kept in view in the education of the citizens both while still children and at the later ages that require education. [loeb_subsection_10] But the Greek peoples reputed at the present day to have the best constitutions, and the lawgivers that established them, manifestly did not frame their constitutional systems with reference to the best end, nor construct their laws and their scheme of education with a view to all the virtues, but they swerved aside in a vulgar manner towards those excellences that are supposed to be useful and more conducive to gain. And following the same lines as they, some later writers also have pronounced the same opinion: in praising the Spartan constitution they express admiration for the aim of its founder on the ground that he framed the whole of his legislation with a view to conquest and to war. [loeb_subsection_11] These views are easy to refute on theoretical grounds and also have now been refuted by the facts of history. For just as most of mankind covet being master of many servantsOr possibly, covet a wide empire. because this produces a manifold supply of fortune’s goods, so ThibronUnknown. and all the other writers about the Spartan constitutionshow admiration for the lawgiver of the Spartans because owing to their having been trained to meet dangers they governed a wide empire. [loeb_subsection_12] Yet it clearly follows that since as a matter of fact at the present day the Spartans no longer possess an empire, they are not happy, and their lawgiver was not a good one. And it is ridiculous that although they have kept to his laws, and although nothing hinders their observing the laws, they have lost the noble life. Also writers have a wrong conception of the power for which the lawgiver should display esteem; to govern freemen is nobler and more conjoined with virtue than to rule despotically. [loeb_subsection_13] And again it is not a proper ground for deeming a state happy and for praising its lawgiver, that it has practised conquest with a view to rulingA probable emendation gives that he has trained it with a view to ruling. over its neighbors. This principle is most disastrous; it follows from it that an individual citizen who has the capacity ought to endeavor to attain the power to hold sway over his own city; but this is just what the Spartans charge as a reproach against their king Pausanias, although he attained such high honor. No principle therefore and no law of this nature is either statesmanlike or profitable, nor is it true; the same ideals are the best both for individuals and for communities, and the lawgiver should endeavor to implant them in the souls of mankind. [loeb_subsection_14] The proper object of practising military training is not in order that men may enslave those who do not deserve slavery, but in order that first they may themselves avoid becoming enslaved to others; then so that they may seek suzerainty for the benefit of the subject people,