Produced by Eric Eldred
A TREATISE ON GOVERNMENT
By Aristotle
Translated From The Greek Of Aristotle By William Ellis, A.M.
London & Toronto Published By J M Dent & Sons Ltd. & In New York By E.
P. Dutton &. Co
First Issue Of This Edition 1912 Reprinted 1919, 1923, 1928
INTRODUCTION
The Politics of Aristotle is the second part of a treatise of which
the Ethics is the first part. It looks back to the Ethics as the Ethics
looks forward to the Politics. For Aristotle did not separate, as we are
inclined to do, the spheres of the statesman and the moralist. In the
Ethics he has described the character necessary for the good life, but
that life is for him essentially to be lived in society, and when in the
last chapters of the Ethics he comes to the practical application of his
inquiries, that finds expression not in moral exhortations addressed to
the individual but in a description of the legislative opportunities
of the statesman. It is the legislator's task to frame a society which
shall make the good life possible. Politics for Aristotle is not a
struggle between individuals or classes for power, nor a device for
getting done such elementary tasks as the maintenance of order and
security without too great encroachments on individual liberty. The
state is "a community of well-being in families and aggregations
of families for the sake of a perfect and self-sufficing life." The
legislator is a craftsman whose material is society and whose aim is the
good life.
In an early dialogue of Plato's, the Protagoras, Socrates asks
Protagoras why it is not as easy to find teachers of virtue as it is to
find teachers of swordsmanship, riding, or any other art. Protagoras'
answer is that there are no special teachers of virtue, because virtue
is taught by the whole community. Plato and Aristotle both accept the
view of moral education implied in this answer. In a passage of the
Republic (492 b) Plato repudiates the notion that the sophists have a
corrupting moral influence upon young men. The public themselves,
he says, are the real sophists and the most complete and thorough
educators. No private education can hold out against the irresistible
force of public opinion and the ordinary moral standards of society.
But that makes it all the more essential that public opinion and
social environment should not be left to grow up at haphazard as they
ordinarily do, but should be made by the wise legislator the expression
of the good and be informed in all their details by his knowledge. The
legislator is the only possible teacher of virtue.
Such a programme for a treatise on government might lead us to expect in
the Politics mainly a description of a Utopia or ideal state which
might inspire poets or philosophers but have little direct effect upon
political institutions. Plato's Republic is obviously impracticable, for
its author had turned away in despair from existing politics. He has no
proposals, in that dialogue at least, for making the best of things as
they are. The first lesson his philosopher has to learn is to turn away
from this world of becoming and decay, and to look upon the unchanging
eternal world of ideas. Thus his ideal city is, as he says, a pattern
laid up in heaven by which the just man may rule his life, a pattern
therefore in the meantime for the individual and not for the statesman.
It is a city, he admits in the Laws, for gods or the children of gods,
not for men as they are.
Aristotle has none of the high enthusiasm or poetic imagination of
Plato. He is even unduly impatient of Plato's idealism, as is shown
by the criticisms in the second book. But he has a power to see the
possibilities of good in things that are imperfect, and the patience of
the true politician who has learned that if he would make men what
they ought to be, he must take them as he finds them. His ideal
is constructed not of pure reason or poetry, but from careful and
sympathetic study of a wide range of facts. His criticism of Plato in
the light of history, in Book II. chap, v., though as a criticism it is
curiously inept, reveals his own attitude admirably: "Let us remember
that we should not disregard the experience of ages; in the multitude
of years, these things, if they were good, would certainly not have been
unknown; for almost everything has been found out, although sometimes
they are not put together; in other cases men do not use the knowledge
which they have." Aristotle in his Constitutions had made a study of one
hundred and fifty-eight constitutions of the states of his day, and the
fruits of that study are seen in the continual reference to concrete
political experience, which makes the Politics in some respects a
critical history of the workings of the institutions of the Greek city
state. In Books IV., V., and VI. the ideal state seems far away, and
we find a dispassionate survey of imperfect states, the best ways of
preserving them, and an analysis of the causes of their instability.
It is as though Aristotle were saying: "I have shown you the proper and
normal type of constitution, but if you will not have it and insist on
living under a perverted form, you may as well know how to make the best
of it." In this way the Politics, though it defines the state in the
light of its ideal, discusses states and institutions as they are.
Ostensibly it is merely a continuation of the Ethics, but it comes to
treat political questions from a purely political standpoint.
This combination of idealism and respect for the teachings of experience
constitutes in some ways the strength and value of the Politics, but it
also makes it harder to follow. The large nation states to which we are
accustomed make it difficult for us to think that the state could be
constructed and modelled to express the good life. We can appreciate
Aristotle's critical analysis of constitutions, but find it hard to take
seriously his advice to the legislator. Moreover, the idealism and the
empiricism of the Politics are never really reconciled by Aristotle
himself.
It may help to an understanding of the Politics if something is said on
those two points.
We are accustomed since the growth of the historical method to the
belief that states are "not made but grow," and are apt to be impatient
with the belief which Aristotle and Plato show in the powers of the
lawgiver. But however true the maxim may be of the modern nation state,
it was not true of the much smaller and more self-conscious Greek city.
When Aristotle talks of the legislator, he is not talking in the
air. Students of the Academy had been actually called on to give new
constitutions to Greek states. For the Greeks the constitution was not
merely as it is so often with us, a matter of political machinery. It
was regarded as a way of life. Further, the constitution within the
framework of which the ordinary process of administration and passing
of decrees went on, was always regarded as the work of a special man or
body of men, the lawgivers. If we study Greek history, we find that the
position of the legislator corresponds to that assigned to him by
Plato and Aristotle. All Greek states, except those perversions
which Aristotle criticises as being "above law," worked under rigid
constitutions, and the constitution was only changed when the whole
people gave a commission to a lawgiver to draw up a new one. Such was
the position of the AEsumnetes, whom Aristotle describes in Book III.
chap, xiv., in earlier times, and of the pupils of the Academy in the
fourth century. The lawgiver was not an ordinary politician. He was
a state doctor, called in to prescribe for an ailing constitution. So
Herodotus recounts that when the people of Cyrene asked the oracle of
Delphi to help them in their dissensions, the oracle told them to go to
Mantinea, and the Mantineans lent them Demonax, who acted as a "setter
straight" and drew up a new constitution for Cyrene. So again the
Milesians, Herodotus tells us, were long troubled by civil discord, till
they asked help from Paros, and the Parians sent ten commissioners
who gave Miletus a new constitution. So the Athenians, when they were
founding their model new colony at Thurii, employed Hippodamus of
Miletus, whom Aristotle mentions in Book II, as the best expert in
town-planning, to plan the streets of the city, and Protagoras as the
best expert in law-making, to give the city its laws. In the Laws Plato
represents one of the persons of the dialogue as having been asked
by the people of Gortyna to draw up laws for a colony which they were
founding. The situation described must have occurred frequently in
actual life. The Greeks thought administration should be democratic and
law-making the work of experts. We think more naturally of law-making
as the special right of the people and administration as necessarily
confined to experts.
Aristotle's Politics, then, is a handbook for the legislator, the expert
who is to be called in when a state wants help. We have called him a
state doctor. It is one of the most marked characteristics of Greek
political theory that Plato and Aristotle think of the statesman as one
who has knowledge of what ought to be done, and can help those who call
him in to prescribe for them, rather than one who has power to control
the forces of society. The desire of society for the statesman's
advice is taken for granted, Plato in the Republic says that a good
constitution is only possible when the ruler does not want to rule;
where men contend for power, where they have not learnt to distinguish
between the art of getting hold of the helm of state and the art of
steering, which alone is statesmanship, true politics is impossible.
With this position much that Aristotle has to say about government is in
agreement. He assumes the characteristic Platonic view that all men seek
the good, and go wrong through ignorance, not through evil will, and so
he naturally regards the state as a community which exists for the sake
of the good life. It is in the state that that common seeking after
the good which is the profoundest truth about men and nature becomes
explicit and knows itself. The state is for Aristotle prior to the
family and the village, although it succeeds them in time, for only when
the state with its conscious organisation is reached can man understand
the secret of his past struggles after something he knew not what. If
primitive society is understood in the light of the state, the state is
understood in the light of its most perfect form, when the good after
which all societies are seeking is realised in its perfection. Hence for
Aristotle as for Plato, the natural state or the state as such is the
ideal state, and the ideal state is the starting-point of political
inquiry.
In accordance with the same line of thought, imperfect states, although
called perversions, are regarded by Aristotle as the result rather of
misconception and ignorance than of perverse will. They all represent,
he says, some kind of justice. Oligarchs and democrats go wrong in
their conception of the good. They have come short of the perfect state
through misunderstanding of the end or through ignorance of the proper
means to the end. But if they are states at all, they embody some common
conception of the good, some common aspirations of all their members.
The Greek doctrine that the essence of the state consists in community
of purpose is the counterpart of the notion often held in modern times
that the essence of the state is force. The existence of force is for
Plato and Aristotle a sign not of the state but of the state's failure.
It comes from the struggle between conflicting misconceptions of the
good. In so far as men conceive the good rightly they are united. The
state represents their common agreement, force their failure to make
that agreement complete. The cure, therefore, of political ills is
knowledge of the good life, and the statesman is he who has such
knowledge, for that alone can give men what they are always seeking.
If the state is the organisation of men seeking a common good, power and
political position must be given to those who can forward this end. This
is the principle expressed in Aristotle's account of political justice,
the principle of "tools to those who can use them." As the aim of the
state is differently conceived, the qualifications for government
will vary. In the ideal state power will be given to the man with most
knowledge of the good; in other states to the men who are most truly
capable of achieving that end which the citizens have set themselves
to pursue. The justest distribution of political power is that in which
there is least waste of political ability.
Further, the belief that the constitution of a state is only the
outward expression of the common aspirations and beliefs of its members,
explains the paramount political importance which Aristotle assigns to
education. It is the great instrument by which the legislator can ensure
that the future citizens of his state will share those common beliefs
which make the state possible. The Greeks with their small states had
a far clearer apprehension than we can have of the dependence of a
constitution upon the people who have to work it.
Such is in brief the attitude in which Aristotle approaches political
problems, but in working out its application to men and institutions
as they are, Aristotle admits certain compromises which are not really
consistent with it.
1. Aristotle thinks of membership of a state as community in pursuit of
the good. He wishes to confine membership in it to those who are capable
of that pursuit in the highest and most explicit manner. His citizens,
therefore, must be men of leisure, capable of rational thought upon
the end of life. He does not recognise the significance of that less
conscious but deep-seated membership of the state which finds its
expression in loyalty and patriotism. His definition of citizen includes
only a small part of the population of any Greek city. He is forced to
admit that the state is not possible without the co-operation of men
whom he will not admit to membership in it, either because they are not
capable of sufficient rational appreciation of political ends, like the
barbarians whom he thought were natural slaves, or because the leisure
necessary for citizenship can only be gained by the work of the artisans
who by that very work make themselves incapable of the life which
they make possible for others. "The artisan only attains excellence
in proportion as he becomes a slave," and the slave is only a living
instrument of the good life. He exists for the state, but the state does
not exist for him.
2. Aristotle in his account of the ideal state seems to waver between
two ideals. There is the ideal of an aristocracy and the ideal of what
he calls constitutional government, a mixed constitution. The principle
of "tools to those who can use them" ought to lead him, as it does
Plato, to an aristocracy. Those who have complete knowledge of the good
must be few, and therefore Plato gave entire power in his state into
the hands of the small minority of philosopher guardians. It is in
accordance with this principle that Aristotle holds that kingship is
the proper form of government when there is in the state one man of
transcendent virtue. At the same time, Aristotle always holds that
absolute government is not properly political, that government is not
like the rule of a shepherd over his sheep, but the rule of equals
over equals. He admits that the democrats are right in insisting that
equality is a necessary element in the state, though he thinks they do
not admit the importance of other equally necessary elements. Hence he
comes to say that ruling and being ruled over by turns is an essential
feature of constitutional government, which he admits as an alternative
to aristocracy. The end of the state, which is to be the standard of the
distribution of political power, is conceived sometimes as a good for
the apprehension and attainment of which "virtue" is necessary and
sufficient (this is the principle of aristocracy), and sometimes as a
more complex good, which needs for its attainment not only "virtue" but
wealth and equality. This latter conception is the principle on which
the mixed constitution is based. This in its distribution of political
power gives some weight to "virtue," some to wealth, and some to mere
number. But the principle of "ruling and being ruled by turns" is not
really compatible with an unmodified principle of "tools to those who
can use them." Aristotle is right in seeing that political government
demands equality, not in the sense that all members of the state should
be equal in ability or should have equal power, but in the sense that
none of them can properly be regarded simply as tools with which the
legislator works, that each has a right to say what will be made of his
own life. The analogy between the legislator and the craftsman on which
Plato insists, breaks down because the legislator is dealing with men
like himself, men who can to some extent conceive their own end in life
and cannot be treated merely as means to the end of the legislator. The
sense of the value of "ruling and being ruled in turn" is derived from
the experience that the ruler may use his power to subordinate the
lives of the citizens of the state not to the common good but to his
own private purposes. In modern terms, it is a simple, rough-and-ready
attempt to solve that constant problem of politics, how efficient
government is to be combined with popular control. This problem arises
from the imperfection of human nature, apparent in rulers as well as in
ruled, and if the principle which attempts to solve it be admitted as a
principle of importance in the formation of the best constitution, then
the starting-point of politics will be man's actual imperfection, not
his ideal nature. Instead, then, of beginning with a state which would
express man's ideal nature, and adapting it as well as may be to man's
actual shortcomings from that ideal, we must recognise that the state
and all political machinery are as much the expression of man's weakness
as of his ideal possibilities. The state is possible only because
men have common aspirations, but government, and political power, the
existence of officials who are given authority to act in the name of the
whole state, are necessary because men's community is imperfect, because
man's social nature expresses itself in conflicting ways, in the clash
of interests, the rivalry of parties, and the struggle of classes,
instead of in the united seeking after a common good. Plato and
Aristotle were familiar with the legislator who was called in by the
whole people, and they tended therefore to take the general will or
common consent of the people for granted. Most political questions are
concerned with the construction and expression of the general will, and
with attempts to ensure that the political machinery made to express the
general will shall not be exploited for private or sectional ends.
Aristotle's mixed constitution springs from a recognition of sectional
interests in the state. For the proper relation between the claims of
"virtue," wealth, and numbers is to be based not upon their relative
importance in the good life, but upon the strength of the parties which
they represent. The mixed constitution is practicable in a state where
the middle class is strong, as only the middle class can mediate between
the rich and the poor. The mixed constitution will be stable if it
represents the actual balance of power between different classes in the
state. When we come to Aristotle's analysis of existing constitutions,
we find that while he regards them as imperfect approximations to the
ideal, he also thinks of them as the result of the struggle between
classes. Democracy, he explains, is the government not of the many but
of the poor; oligarchy a government not of the few but of the rich.
And each class is thought of, not as trying to express an ideal, but as
struggling to acquire power or maintain its position. If ever the class
existed in unredeemed nakedness, it was in the Greek cities of the
fourth century, and its existence is abundantly recognised by Aristotle.
His account of the causes of revolutions in Book V. shows how far were
the existing states of Greece from the ideal with which he starts.
His analysis of the facts forces him to look upon them as the scene
of struggling factions. The causes of revolutions are not described as
primarily changes in the conception of the common good, but changes in
the military or economic power of the several classes in the state. The
aim which he sets before oligarchs or democracies is not the good life,
but simple stability or permanence of the existing constitution.
With this spirit of realism which pervades Books IV., V., and VI.
the idealism of Books I., II., VII., and VIII. is never reconciled.
Aristotle is content to call existing constitutions perversions of
the true form. But we cannot read the Politics without recognising
and profiting from the insight into the nature of the state which is
revealed throughout. Aristotle's failure does not lie in this, that he
is both idealist and realist, but that he keeps these two tendencies
too far apart. He thinks too much of his ideal state, as something to
be reached once for all by knowledge, as a fixed type to which actual
states approximate or from which they are perversions. But if we are to
think of actual politics as intelligible in the light of the ideal, we
must think of that ideal as progressively revealed in history, not as
something to be discovered by turning our back on experience and having
recourse to abstract reasoning. If we stretch forward from what exists
to an ideal, it is to a better which may be in its turn transcended, not
to a single immutable best. Aristotle found in the society of his
time men who were not capable of political reflection, and who, as he
thought, did their best work under superintendence. He therefore called
them natural slaves. For, according to Aristotle, that is a man's
natural condition in which he does his best work. But Aristotle also
thinks of nature as something fixed and immutable; and therefore
sanctions the institution of slavery, which assumes that what men are
that they will always be, and sets up an artificial barrier to their
ever becoming anything else. We see in Aristotle's defence of slavery
how the conception of nature as the ideal can have a debasing influence
upon views of practical politics. His high ideal of citizenship offers
to those who can satisfy its claims the prospect of a fair life;
those who fall short are deemed to be different in nature and shut out
entirely from approach to the ideal.
A. D. LINDSAY.
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A TREATISE ON GOVERNMENT
BOOK I
CHAPTER I
As we see that every city is a society, and every society Ed. is
established for some good purpose; for an apparent [Bekker 1252a] good
is the spring of all human actions; it is evident that this is the
principle upon which they are every one founded, and this is more
especially true of that which has for its object the best possible, and
is itself the most excellent, and comprehends all the rest. Now this is
called a city, and the society thereof a political society; for those
who think that the principles of a political, a regal, a family, and
a herile government are the same are mistaken, while they suppose that
each of these differ in the numbers to whom their power extends, but
not in their constitution: so that with them a herile government is one
composed of a very few, a domestic of more, a civil and a regal of still
more, as if there was no difference between a large family and a small
city, or that a regal government and a political one are the same, only
that in the one a single person is continually at the head of public
affairs; in the other, that each member of the state has in his turn a
share in the government, and is at one time a magistrate, at another
a private person, according to the rules of political science. But now
this is not true, as will be evident to any one who will consider this
question in the most approved method. As, in an inquiry into every other
subject, it is necessary to separate the different parts of which it is
compounded, till we arrive at their first elements, which are the most
minute parts thereof; so by the same proceeding we shall acquire a
knowledge of the primary parts of a city and see wherein they differ
from each other, and whether the rules of art will give us any
assistance in examining into each of these things which are mentioned.
CHAPTER II
Now if in this particular science any one would attend to its original
seeds, and their first shoot, he would then as in others have the
subject perfectly before him; and perceive, in the first place, that it
is requisite that those should be joined together whose species cannot
exist without each other, as the male and the female, for the business
of propagation; and this not through choice, but by that natural impulse
which acts both upon plants and animals also, for the purpose of their
leaving behind them others like themselves. It is also from natural
causes that some beings command and others obey, that each may obtain
their mutual safety; for a being who is endowed with a mind capable
of reflection and forethought is by nature the superior and governor,
whereas he whose excellence is merely corporeal is formect to be a
slave; whence it follows that the different state of master [1252b] and
slave is equally advantageous to both. But there is a natural difference
between a female and a slave: for nature is not like the artists
who make the Delphic swords for the use of the poor, but for every
particular purpose she has her separate instruments, and thus her ends
are most complete, for whatsoever is employed on one subject only,
brings that one to much greater perfection than when employed on many;
and yet among the barbarians, a female and a slave are upon a level in
the community, the reason for which is, that amongst them there are none
qualified by nature to govern, therefore their society can be nothing
but between slaves of different sexes. For which reason the poets say,
it is proper for the Greeks to govern the barbarians, as if a barbarian
and a slave were by nature one. Now of these two societies the domestic
is the first, and Hesiod is right when he says, "First a house, then
a wife, then an ox for the plough," for the poor man has always an ox
before a household slave. That society then which nature has established
for daily support is the domestic, and those who compose it are called
by Charondas _homosipuoi_, and by Epimenides the Cretan _homokapnoi_;
but the society of many families, which was first instituted for their
lasting, mutual advantage, is called a village, and a village is most
naturally composed of the descendants of one family, whom some persons
call homogalaktes, the children and the children's children thereof: for
which reason cities were originally governed by kings, as the barbarian
states now are, which are composed of those who had before submitted to
kingly government; for every family is governed by the elder, as are the
branches thereof, on account of their relationship thereunto, which
is what Homer says, "Each one ruled his wife and child;" and in this
scattered manner they formerly lived. And the opinion which universally
prevails, that the gods themselves are subject to kingly government,
arises from hence, that all men formerly were, and many are so now; and
as they imagined themselves to be made in the likeness of the gods, so
they supposed their manner of life must needs be the same. And when many
villages so entirely join themselves together as in every respect to
form but one society, that society is a city, and contains in itself, if
I may so speak, the end and perfection of government: first founded that
we might live, but continued that we may live happily. For which reason
every city must be allowed to be the work of nature, if we admit that
the original society between male and female is; for to this as their
end all subordinate societies tend, and the end of everything is the
nature of it. For what every being is in its most perfect state, that
certainly is the nature of that being, whether it be a man, a horse, or
a house: besides, whatsoever produces the final cause and the end which
we [1253a] desire, must be best; but a government complete in itself is
that final cause and what is best. Hence it is evident that a city is
a natural production, and that man is naturally a political animal, and
that whosoever is naturally and not accidentally unfit for society, must
be either inferior or superior to man: thus the man in Homer, who is
reviled for being "without society, without law, without family." Such
a one must naturally be of a quarrelsome disposition, and as solitary as
the birds. The gift of speech also evidently proves that man is a more
social animal than the bees, or any of the herding cattle: for nature,
as we say, does nothing in vain, and man is the only animal who enjoys
it. Voice indeed, as being the token of pleasure and pain, is imparted
to others also, and thus much their nature is capable of, to perceive
pleasure and pain, and to impart these sensations to others; but it is
by speech that we are enabled to express what is useful for us, and what
is hurtful, and of course what is just and what is unjust: for in
this particular man differs from other animals, that he alone has
a perception of good and evil, of just and unjust, and it is a
participation of these common sentiments which forms a family and a
city. Besides, the notion of a city naturally precedes that of a family
or an individual, for the whole must necessarily be prior to the parts,
for if you take away the whole man, you cannot say a foot or a hand
remains, unless by equivocation, as supposing a hand of stone to be
made, but that would only be a dead one; but everything is understood to
be this or that by its energic qualities and powers, so that when these
no longer remain, neither can that be said to be the same, but something
of the same name. That a city then precedes an individual is plain,
for if an individual is not in himself sufficient to compose a perfect
government, he is to a city as other parts are to a whole; but he that
is incapable of society, or so complete in himself as not to want it,
makes no part of a city, as a beast or a god. There is then in all
persons a natural impetus to associate with each other in this manner,
and he who first founded civil society was the cause of the greatest
good; for as by the completion of it man is the most excellent of all
living beings, so without law and justice he would be the worst of all,
for nothing is so difficult to subdue as injustice in arms: but these
arms man is born with, namely, prudence and valour, which he may apply
to the most opposite purposes, for he who abuses them will be the most
wicked, the most cruel, the most lustful, and most gluttonous being
imaginable; for justice is a political virtue, by the rules of it the
state is regulated, and these rules are the criterion of what is right.
CHAPTER III
SINCE it is now evident of what parts a city is composed, it will be
necessary to treat first of family government, for every city is made
up of families, and every family [1253b] has again its separate parts of
which it is composed. When a family is complete, it consists of freemen
and slaves; but as in every subject we should begin with examining into
the smallest parts of which it consists, and as the first and smallest
parts of a family are the master and slave, the husband and wife, the
father and child, let us first inquire into these three, what each of
them may be, and what they ought to be; that is to say, the herile, the
nuptial, and the paternal. Let these then be considered as the three
distinct parts of a family: some think that the providing what is
necessary for the family is something different from the government of
it, others that this is the greatest part of it; it shall be considered
separately; but we will first speak of a master and a slave, that we
may both understand the nature of those things which are absolutely
necessary, and also try if we can learn anything better on this subject
than what is already known. Some persons have thought that the power of
the master over his slave originates from his superior knowledge, and
that this knowledge is the same in the master, the magistrate, and the
king, as we have already said; but others think that herile government
is contrary to nature, and that it is the law which makes one man a
slave and another free, but that in nature there is no difference; for
which reason that power cannot be founded in justice, but in force.
CHAPTER IV
Since then a subsistence is necessary in every family, the means of
procuring it certainly makes up part of the management of a family, for
without necessaries it is impossible to live, and to live well. As
in all arts which are brought to perfection it is necessary that they
should have their proper instruments if they would complete their works,
so is it in the art of managing a family: now of instruments some of
them are alive, others inanimate; thus with respect to the pilot of the
ship, the tiller is without life, the sailor is alive; for a servant
is as an instrument in many arts. Thus property is as an instrument
to living; an estate is a multitude of instruments; so a slave is an
animated instrument, but every one that can minister of himself is more
valuable than any other instrument; for if every instrument, at command,
or from a preconception of its master's will, could accomplish its work
(as the story goes of the statues of Daedalus; or what the poet tells us
of the tripods of Vulcan, "that they moved of their own accord into the
assembly of the gods "), the shuttle would then weave, and the lyre play
of itself; nor would the architect want servants, or the [1254a] master
slaves. Now what are generally called instruments are the efficients
of something else, but possessions are what we simply use: thus with a
shuttle we make something else for our use; but we only use a coat, or a
bed: since then making and using differ from each other in species, and
they both require their instruments, it is necessary that these should
be different from each other. Now life is itself what we use, and not
what we employ as the efficient of something else; for which reason the
services of a slave are for use. A possession may be considered in the
same nature as a part of anything; now a part is not only a part of
something, but also is nothing else; so is a possession; therefore a
master is only the master of the slave, but no part of him; but the
slave is not only the slave of the master, but nothing else but that.
This fully explains what is the nature of a slave, and what are his
capacities; for that being who by nature is nothing of himself, but
totally another's, and is a man, is a slave by nature; and that man who
is the property of another, is his mere chattel, though he continues a
man; but a chattel is an instrument for use, separate from the body.
CHAPTER V
But whether any person is such by nature, and whether it is advantageous
and just for any one to be a slave or no, or whether all slavery is
contrary to nature, shall be considered hereafter; not that it is
difficult to determine it upon general principles, or to understand
it from matters of fact; for that some should govern, and others be
governed, is not only necessary but useful, and from the hour of their
birth some are marked out for those purposes, and others for the other,
and there are many species of both sorts. And the better those are who
are governed the better also is the government, as for instance of man,
rather than the brute creation: for the more excellent the materials
are with which the work is finished, the more excellent certainly is the
work; and wherever there is a governor and a governed, there certainly
is some work produced; for whatsoever is composed of many parts, which
jointly become one, whether conjunct or separate, evidently show the
marks of governing and governed; and this is true of every living thing
in all nature; nay, even in some things which partake not of life, as
in music; but this probably would be a disquisition too foreign to our
present purpose. Every living thing in the first place is composed of
soul and body, of these the one is by nature the governor, the other the
governed; now if we would know what is natural, we ought to search for
it in those subjects in which nature appears most perfect, and not in
those which are corrupted; we should therefore examine into a man who
is most perfectly formed both in soul and body, in whom this is evident,
for in the depraved and vicious the body seems [1254b] to rule rather
than the soul, on account of their being corrupt and contrary to nature.
We may then, as we affirm, perceive in an animal the first principles
of herile and political government; for the soul governs the body as the
master governs his slave; the mind governs the appetite with a political
or a kingly power, which shows that it is both natural and advantageous
that the body should be governed by the soul, and the pathetic part by
the mind, and that part which is possessed of reason; but to have no
ruling power, or an improper one, is hurtful to all; and this holds
true not only of man, but of other animals also, for tame animals are
naturally better than wild ones, and it is advantageous that both should
be under subjection to man; for this is productive of their common
safety: so is it naturally with the male and the female; the one is
superior, the other inferior; the one governs, the other is governed;
and the same rule must necessarily hold good with respect to all
mankind. Those men therefore who are as much inferior to others as the
body is to the soul, are to be thus disposed of, as the proper use of
them is their bodies, in which their excellence consists; and if what I
have said be true, they are slaves by nature, and it is advantageous to
them to be always under government. He then is by nature formed a slave
who is qualified to become the chattel of another person, and on that
account is so, and who has just reason enough to know that there is such
a faculty, without being indued with the use of it; for other animals
have no perception of reason, but are entirely guided by appetite,
and indeed they vary very little in their use from each other; for the
advantage which we receive, both from slaves and tame animals, arises
from their bodily strength administering to our necessities; for it
is the intention of nature to make the bodies of slaves and freemen
different from each other, that the one should be robust for their
necessary purposes, the others erect, useless indeed for what slaves are
employed in, but fit for civil life, which is divided into the duties of
war and peace; though these rules do not always take place, for slaves
have sometimes the bodies of freemen, sometimes the souls; if then it
is evident that if some bodies are as much more excellent than others as
the statues of the gods excel the human form, every one will allow that
the inferior ought to be slaves to the superior; and if this is true
with respect to the body, it is still juster to determine in the same
manner, when we consider the soul; though it is not so easy to perceive
the beauty of [1255a] the soul as it is of the body. Since then some
men are slaves by nature, and others are freemen, it is clear that where
slavery is advantageous to any one, then it is just to make him a slave.
CHAPTER VI
But it is not difficult to perceive that those who maintain the contrary
opinion have some reason on their side; for a man may become a slave two
different ways; for he may be so by law also, and this law is a certain
compact, by which whatsoever is taken in battle is adjudged to be the
property of the conquerors: but many persons who are conversant in law
call in question this pretended right, and say that it would be hard
that a man should be compelled by violence to be the slave and subject
of another who had the power to compel him, and was his superior in
strength; and upon this subject, even of those who are wise, some think
one way and some another; but the cause of this doubt and variety of
opinions arises from hence, that great abilities, when accompanied with
proper means, are generally able to succeed by force: for victory is
always owing to a superiority in some advantageous circumstances; so
that it seems that force never prevails but in consequence of great
abilities. But still the dispute concerning the justice of it remains;
for some persons think, that justice consists in benevolence, others
think it just that the powerful should govern: in the midst of these
contrary opinions, there are no reasons sufficient to convince us, that
the right of being master and governor ought not to be placed with those
who have the greatest abilities. Some persons, entirely resting upon the
right which the law gives (for that which is legal is in some respects
just), insist upon it that slavery occasioned by war is just, not that
they say it is wholly so, for it may happen that the principle upon
which the wars were commenced is unjust; moreover no one will say that a
man who is unworthily in slavery is therefore a slave; for if so, men of
the noblest families might happen to be slaves, and the descendants of
slaves, if they should chance to be taken prisoners in war and sold: to
avoid this difficulty they say that such persons should not be called
slaves, but barbarians only should; but when they say this, they do
nothing more than inquire who is a slave by nature, which was what we
at first said; for we must acknowledge that there are some persons
who, wherever they are, must necessarily be slaves, but others in no
situation; thus also it is with those of noble descent: it is not only
in their own country that they are Esteemed as such, but everywhere,
but the barbarians are respected on this account at home only; as if
nobility and freedom were of two sorts, the one universal, the other not
so. Thus says the Helen of Theodectes:
"Who dares reproach me with the name of slave? When from the
immortal gods, on either side, I draw my lineage."
Those who express sentiments like these, shew only that they distinguish
the slave and the freeman, the noble and the ignoble from each other
by their virtues and their [1255b] vices; for they think it reasonable,
that as a man begets a man, and a beast a beast, so from a good man, a
good man should be descended; and this is what nature desires to do, but
frequently cannot accomplish it. It is evident then that this doubt
has some reason in it, and that these persons are not slaves, and those
freemen, by the appointment of nature; and also that in some instances
it is sufficiently clear, that it is advantageous to both parties for
this man to be a slave, and that to be a master, and that it is right
and just, that some should be governed, and others govern, in the manner
that nature intended; of which sort of government is that which a master
exercises over a slave. But to govern ill is disadvantageous to both;
for the same thing is useful to the part and to the whole, to the body
and to the soul; but the slave is as it were a part of the master, as if
he were an animated part of his body, though separate. For which reason
a mutual utility and friendship may subsist between the master and the
slave, I mean when they are placed by nature in that relation to each
other, for the contrary takes place amongst those who are reduced to
slavery by the law, or by conquest.
CHAPTER VII
It is evident from what has been said, that a herile and a political
government are not the same, or that all governments are alike to each
other, as some affirm; for one is adapted to the nature of freemen, the
other to that of slaves. Domestic government is a monarchy, for that is
what prevails in every house; but a political state is the government of
free men and equals. The master is not so called from his knowing how to
manage his slave, but because he is so; for the same reason a slave and
a freeman have their respective appellations. There is also one sort of
knowledge proper for a master, another for a slave; the slave's is of
the nature of that which was taught by a slave at Syracuse; for he for
a stipulated sum instructed the boys in all the business of a household
slave, of which there are various sorts to be learnt, as the art of
cookery, and other such-like services, of which some are allotted to
some, and others to others; some employments being more honourable,
others more necessary; according to the proverb, "One slave excels
another, one master excels another:" in such-like things the knowledge
of a slave consists. The knowledge of the master is to be able properly
to employ his slaves, for the mastership of slaves is the employment,
not the mere possession of them; not that this knowledge contains
anything great or respectable; for what a slave ought to know how to do,
that a master ought to know how to order; for which reason, those who
have it in their power to be free from these low attentions, employ a
steward for this business, and apply themselves either to public affairs
or philosophy: the knowledge of procuring what is necessary for a family
is different from that which belongs either to the master or the slave:
and to do this justly must be either by war or hunting. And thus much of
the difference between a master and a slave.
CHAPTER VIII
[1256a] As a slave is a particular species of property, let us by
all means inquire into the nature of property in general, and the
acquisition of money, according to the manner we have proposed. In the
first place then, some one may doubt whether the getting of money is
the same thing as economy, or whether it is a part of it, or something
subservient to it; and if so, whether it is as the art of making
shuttles is to the art of weaving, or the art of making brass to that
of statue founding, for they are not of the same service; for the one
supplies the tools, the other the matter: by the matter I mean the
subject out of which the work is finished, as wool for the cloth and
brass for the statue. It is evident then that the getting of money is
not the same thing as economy, for the business of the one is to furnish
the means of the other to use them; and what art is there employed in
the management of a family but economy, but whether this is a part of
it, or something of a different species, is a doubt; for if it is
the business of him who is to get money to find out how riches and
possessions may be procured, and both these arise from various
causes, we must first inquire whether the art of husbandry is part of
money-getting or something different, and in general, whether the same
is not true of every acquisition and every attention which relates to
provision. But as there are many sorts of provision, so are the methods
of living both of man and the brute creation very various; and as it is
impossible to live without food, the difference in that particular makes
the lives of animals so different from each other. Of beasts, some
live in herds, others separate, as is most convenient for procuring
themselves food; as some of them live upon flesh, others on fruit, and
others on whatsoever they light on, nature having so distinguished
their course of life, that they can very easily procure themselves
subsistence; and as the same things are not agreeable to all, but one
animal likes one thing and another another, it follows that the lives
of those beasts who live upon flesh must be different from the lives of
those who live on fruits; so is it with men, their lives differ greatly
from each other; and of all these the shepherd's is the idlest, for they
live upon the flesh of tame animals, without any trouble, while they are
obliged to change their habitations on account of their flocks, which
they are compelled to follow, cultivating, as it were, a living farm.
Others live exercising violence over living creatures, one pursuing this
thing, another that, these preying upon men; those who live near lakes
and marshes and rivers, or the sea itself, on fishing, while others are
fowlers, or hunters of wild beasts; but the greater part of mankind live
upon the produce of the earth and its cultivated fruits; and the manner
in which all those live who follow the direction of nature, and labour
for their own subsistence, is nearly the same, without ever thinking
to procure any provision by way of exchange or merchandise, such are
shepherds, husband-men, [1256b] robbers, fishermen, and hunters: some
join different employments together, and thus live very agreeably;
supplying those deficiencies which were wanting to make their
subsistence depend upon themselves only: thus, for instance, the same
person shall be a shepherd and a robber, or a husbandman and a hunter;
and so with respect to the rest, they pursue that mode of life which
necessity points out. This provision then nature herself seems to have
furnished all animals with, as well immediately upon their first origin
as also when they are arrived at a state of maturity; for at the first
of these periods some of them are provided in the womb with proper
nourishment, which continues till that which is born can get food for
itself, as is the case with worms and birds; and as to those which bring
forth their young alive, they have the means for their subsistence for a
certain time within themselves, namely milk. It is evident then that we
may conclude of those things that are, that plants are created for the
sake of animals, and animals for the sake of men; the tame for our use
and provision; the wild, at least the greater part, for our provision
also, or for some other advantageous purpose, as furnishing us with
clothes, and the like. As nature therefore makes nothing either
imperfect or in vain, it necessarily follows that she has made all these
things for men: for which reason what we gain in war is in a certain
degree a natural acquisition; for hunting is a part of it, which it is
necessary for us to employ against wild beasts; and those men who being
intended by nature for slavery are unwilling to submit to it, on which
occasion such a. war is by nature just: that species of acquisition then
only which is according to nature is part of economy; and this ought to
be at hand, or if not, immediately procured, namely, what is necessary
to be kept in store to live upon, and which are useful as well for the
state as the family. And true riches seem to consist in these; and the
acquisition of those possessions which are necessary for a happy life is
not infinite; though Solon says otherwise in this verse:
"No bounds to riches can be fixed for man;"
for they may be fixed as in other arts; for the instruments of no art
whatsoever are infinite, either in their number or their magnitude; but
riches are a number of instruments in domestic and civil economy; it is
therefore evident that the acquisition of certain things according
to nature is a part both of domestic and civil economy, and for what
reason.
CHAPTER IX
There is also another species of acquisition which they [1257a]
particularly call pecuniary, and with great propriety; and by this
indeed it seems that there are no bounds to riches and wealth. Now many
persons suppose, from their near relation to each other, that this is
one and the same with that we have just mentioned, but it is not the
same as that, though not very different; one of these is natural, the
other is not, but rather owing to some art and skill; we will enter into
a particular examination of this subject. The uses of every possession
are two, both dependent upon the thing itself, but not in the same
manner, the one supposing an inseparable connection with it, the other
not; as a shoe, for instance, which may be either worn, or exchanged
for something else, both these are the uses of the shoe; for he who
exchanges a shoe with some man who wants one, for money or provisions,
uses the shoe as a shoe, but not according to the original intention,
for shoes were not at first made to be exchanged. The same thing holds
true of all other possessions; for barter, in general, had its original
beginning in nature, some men having a surplus, others too little of
what was necessary for them: hence it is evident, that the selling
provisions for money is not according to the natural use of things; for
they were obliged to use barter for those things which they wanted; but
it is plain that barter could have no place in the first, that is to
say, in family society; but must have begun when the number of those
who composed the community was enlarged: for the first of these had all
things in common; but when they came to be separated they were obliged
to exchange with each other many different things which both parties
wanted. Which custom of barter is still preserved amongst many barbarous
nations, who procure one necessary with another, but never sell
anything; as giving and receiving wine for corn and the like. This
sort of barter is not contradictory to nature, nor is it any species of
money-getting; but is necessary in procuring that subsistence which is
so consonant thereunto. But this barter introduced the use of money, as
might be expected; for a convenient place from whence to import what you
wanted, or to export what you had a surplus of, being often at a great
distance, money necessarily made its way into commerce; for it is not
everything which is naturally most useful that is easiest of carriage;
for which reason they invented something to exchange with each other
which they should mutually give and take, that being really valuable
itself, should have the additional advantage of being of easy
conveyance, for the purposes of life, as iron and silver, or anything
else of the same nature: and this at first passed in value simply
according to its weight or size; but in process of time it had a certain
stamp, to save the trouble of weighing, which stamp expressed its value.
[1257b]
Money then being established as the necessary medium of exchange,
another species of money-getting soon took place, namely, by buying
and selling, at probably first in a simple manner, afterwards with more
skill and experience, where and how the greatest profits might be made.
For which reason the art of money-getting seems to be chiefly conversant
about trade, and the business of it to be able to tell where the
greatest profits can be made, being the means of procuring abundance
of wealth and possessions: and thus wealth is very often supposed to
consist in the quantity of money which any one possesses, as this is the
medium by which all trade is conducted and a fortune made, others again
regard it as of no value, as being of none by nature, but arbitrarily
made so by compact; so that if those who use it should alter their
sentiments, it would be worth nothing, as being of no service for
any necessary purpose. Besides, he who abounds in money often wants
necessary food; and it is impossible to say that any person is in good
circumstances when with all his possessions he may perish with hunger.
Like Midas in the fable, who from his insatiable wish had everything he
touched turned into gold. For which reason others endeavour to procure
other riches and other property, and rightly, for there are other riches
and property in nature; and these are the proper objects of economy:
while trade only procures money, not by all means, but by the exchange
of it, and for that purpose it is this which it is chiefly employed
about, for money is the first principle and the end of trade; nor are
there any bounds to be set to what is thereby acquired. Thus also there
are no limits to the art of medicine, with respect to the health which
it attempts to procure; the same also is true of all other arts; no line
can be drawn to terminate their bounds, the several professors of them
being desirous to extend them as far as possible. (But still the means
to be employed for that purpose are limited; and these are the limits
beyond which the art cannot proceed.) Thus in the art of acquiring
riches there are no limits, for the object of that is money and
possessions; but economy has a boundary, though this has not: for
acquiring riches is not the business of that, for which reason it should
seem that some boundary should be set to riches, though we see the
contrary to this is what is practised; for all those who get riches add
to their money without end; the cause of which is the near connection
of these two arts with each other, which sometimes occasions the one to
change employments with the other, as getting of money is their common
object: for economy requires the possession of wealth, but not on
its own account but with another view, to purchase things necessary
therewith; but the other procures it merely to increase it: so that some
persons are confirmed in their belief, that this is the proper object
of economy, and think that for this purpose money should be saved and
hoarded up without end; the reason for which disposition is, that they
are intent upon living, but not upon living well; and this desire being
boundless in its extent, the means which they aim at for that purpose
are boundless also; and those who propose to live well, often confine
that to the enjoyment of the pleasures of sense; so that as this also
seems to depend upon what a man has, all their care is to get money,
and hence arises the other cause for this art; for as this enjoyment is
excessive in its degree, they endeavour to procure means proportionate
to supply it; and if they cannot do this merely by the art of dealing in
money, they will endeavour to do it by other ways, and apply all their
powers to a purpose they were not by nature intended for. Thus, for
instance, courage was intended to inspire fortitude, not to get money
by; neither is this the end of the soldier's or the physician's art,
but victory and health. But such persons make everything subservient to
money-getting, as if this was the only end; and to the end everything
ought to refer.
We have now considered that art of money-getting which is not necessary,
and have seen in what manner we became in want of it; and also that
which is necessary, which is different from it; for that economy which
is natural, and whose object is to provide food, is not like this
unlimited in its extent, but has its bounds.
CHAPTER X
We have now determined what was before doubtful, whether or no the art
of getting money is his business who is at the head of a family or a
state, and though not strictly so, it is however very necessary; for
as a politician does not make men, but receiving them from the hand of
nature employs them to proper purposes; thus the earth, or the sea, or
something else ought to supply them with provisions, and this it is the
business of the master of the family to manage properly; for it is not
the weaver's business to make yarn, but to use it, and to distinguish
what is good and useful from what is bad and of no service; and indeed
some one may inquire why getting money should be a part of economy when
the art of healing is not, as it is as requisite that the family should
be in health as that they should eat, or have anything else which is
necessary; and as it is indeed in some particulars the business both of
the master of the family, and he to whom the government of the state
is entrusted, to see after the health of those under their care, but in
others not, but the physician's; so also as to money; in some respects
it is the business of the master of the family, in others not, but of
the servant; but as we have already said, it is chiefly nature's, for
it is her part to supply her offspring with food; for everything finds
nourishment left for it in what produced it; for which reason
the natural riches of all men arise from fruits and animals. Now
money-making, as we say, being twofold, it may be applied to two
purposes, the service of the house or retail trade; of which the first
is necessary and commendable, the other justly censurable; for it has
not its origin in [1258b] nature, but by it men gain from each other;
for usury is most reasonably detested, as it is increasing our fortune
by money itself, and not employing it for the purpose it was originally
intended, namely exchange.
And this is the explanation of the name (TOKOS), which means the
breeding of money. For as offspring resemble their parents, so usury
is money bred of money. Whence of all forms of money-making it is most
against nature.
CHAPTER XI
Having already sufficiently considered the general principles of this
subject, let us now go into the practical part thereof; the one is a
liberal employment for the mind, the other necessary. These things are
useful in the management of one's affairs; to be skilful in the nature
of cattle, which are most profitable, and where, and how; as for
instance, what advantage will arise from keeping horses, or oxen, or
sheep, or any other live stock; it is also necessary to be acquainted
with the comparative value of these things, and which of them in
particular places are worth most; for some do better in one place, some
in another. Agriculture also should be understood, and the management
of arable grounds and orchards; and also the care of bees, and fish, and
birds, from whence any profit may arise; these are the first and most
proper parts of domestic management.
With respect to gaining money by exchange, the principal method of doing
this is by merchandise, which is carried on in three different ways,
either by sending the commodity for sale by sea or by land, or else
selling it on the place where it grows; and these differ from each other
in this, that the one is more profitable, the other safer. The second
method is by usury. The third by receiving wages for work done, and
this either by being employed in some mean art, or else in mere bodily
labour. There is also a third species of improving a fortune, that is
something between this and the first; for it partly depends upon
nature, partly upon exchange; the subject of which is, things that are
immediately from the earth, or their produce, which, though they bear
no fruit, are yet useful, such as selling of timber and the whole art of
metallurgy, which includes many different species, for there are various
sorts of things dug out of the earth.
These we have now mentioned in general, but to enter into particulars
concerning each of them, though it might be useful to the artist, would
be tiresome to dwell on. Now of all the works of art, those are the most
excellent wherein chance has the least to do, and those are the meanest
which deprave the body, those the most servile in which bodily strength
alone is chiefly wanted, those most illiberal which require least skill;
but as there are books written on these subjects by some persons, as
by Chares the Panian, and Apollodorus the Lemnian, upon husbandry and
planting; and by others on other matters, [1259b] let those who have
occasion consult them thereon; besides, every person should collect
together whatsoever he hears occasionally mentioned, by means of which
many of those who aimed at making a fortune have succeeded in their
intentions; for all these are useful to those who make a point of
getting money, as in the contrivance of Thales the Milesian (which was
certainly a gainful one, but as it was his it was attributed to
his wisdom, though the method he used was a general one, and would
universally succeed), when they reviled him for his poverty, as if the
study of philosophy was useless: for they say that he, perceiving by his
skill in astrology that there would be great plenty of olives that year,
while it was yet winter, having got a little money, he gave earnest for
all the oil works that were in Miletus and Chios, which he hired at a
low price, there being no one to bid against him; but when the season
came for making oil, many persons wanting them, he all at once let them
upon what terms he pleased; and raising a large sum of money by that
means, convinced them that it was easy for philosophers to be rich if
they chose it, but that that was not what they aimed at; in this manner
is Thales said to have shown his wisdom. It indeed is, as we have
said, generally gainful for a person to contrive to make a monopoly of
anything; for which reason some cities also take this method when they
want money, and monopolise their commodities. There was a certain person
in Sicily who laid out a sum of money which was deposited in his hand in
buying up all the iron from the iron merchants; so that when the dealers
came from the markets to purchase, there was no one had any to sell but
himself; and though he put no great advance upon it, yet by laying out
fifty talents he made an hundred. When Dionysius heard this he permitted
him to take his money with him, but forbid him to continue any longer in
Sicily, as being one who contrived means for getting money inconsistent
with his affairs. This man's view and Thales's was exactly the same;
both of them contrived to procure a monopoly for themselves: it is
useful also for politicians to understand these things, for many states
want to raise money and by such means, as well as private families,
nay more so; for which reason some persons who are employed in the
management of public affairs confine themselves to this province only.
CHAPTER XII
There are then three parts of domestic government, the masters, of
which we have already treated, the fathers, and the husbands; now the
government of the wife and children should both be that of free persons,
but not the [I259b] same; for the wife should be treated as a citizen of
a free state, the children should be under kingly power; for the male is
by nature superior to the female, except when something happens contrary
to the usual course of nature, as is the elder and perfect to the
younger and imperfect. Now in the generality of free states, the
governors and the governed alternately change place; for an equality
without any preference is what nature chooses; however, when one
governs and another is governed, she endeavours that there should be a
distinction between them in forms, expressions, and honours; according
to what Amasis said of his laver. This then should be the established
rule between the man and the woman. The government of children should
be kingly; for the power of the father over the child is founded in
affection and seniority, which is a species of kingly government; for
which reason Homer very properly calls Jupiter "the father of gods and
men," who was king of both these; for nature requires that a king should
be of the same species with those whom he governs, though superior in
some particulars, as is the case between the elder and the younger, the
father and the son.
CHAPTER XIII
It is evident then that in the due government of a family, greater
attention should be paid to the several members of it and their virtues
than to the possessions or riches of it; and greater to the freemen
than the slaves: but here some one may doubt whether there is any other
virtue in a slave than his organic services, and of higher estimation
than these, as temperance, fortitude, justice, and such-like habits, or
whether they possess only bodily qualities: each side of the question
has its difficulties; for if they possess these virtues, wherein do
they differ from freemen? and that they do not, since they are men,
and partakers of reason, is absurd. Nearly the same inquiry may be made
concerning a woman and a child, whether these also have their proper
virtues; whether a woman ought to be temperate, brave, and just, and
whether a child is temperate or no; and indeed this inquiry ought to be
general, whether the virtues of those who, by nature, either govern or
are governed, are the same or different; for if it is necessary that
both of them should partake of the fair and good, why is it also
necessary that, without exception, the one should govern, the other
always be governed? for this cannot arise from their possessing these
qualities in different degrees; for to govern, and to be governed, are
things different in species, but more or less are not. And yet it is
wonderful that one party ought to have them, and the other not; for if
he who is to govern should not be temperate and just, how can he govern
well? or if he is to be governed, how can he be governed well? for he
who is intemperate [1260a] and a coward will never do what he ought: it
is evident then that both parties ought to be virtuous; but there is a
difference between them, as there is between those who by nature command
and who by nature obey, and this originates in the soul; for in this
nature has planted the governing and submitting principle, the virtues
of which we say are different, as are those of a rational and an
irrational being. It is plain then that the same principle may be
extended farther, and that there are in nature a variety of things which
govern and are governed; for a freeman is governed in a different manner
from a slave, a male from a female, and a man from a child: and all
these have parts of mind within them, but in a different manner. Thus
a slave can have no power of determination, a woman but a weak one, a
child an imperfect one. Thus also must it necessarily be with respect to
moral virtues; all must be supposed to possess them, but not in the
same manner, but as is best suited to every one's employment; on which
account he who is to govern ought to be perfect in moral virtue, for his
business is entirely that of an architect, and reason is the architect;
while others want only that portion of it which may be sufficient for
their station; from whence it is evident, that although moral virtue is
common to all those we have spoken of, yet the temperance of a man and
a woman are not the same, nor their courage, nor their justice, though
Socrates thought otherwise; for the courage of the man consists in
commanding, the woman's in obeying; and the same is true in other
particulars: and this will be evident to those who will examine
different virtues separately; for those who use general terms deceive
themselves when they say, that virtue consists in a good disposition of
mind, or doing what is right, or something of this sort. They do much
better who enumerate the different virtues as Georgias did, than those
who thus define them; and as Sophocles speaks of a woman, we think
of all persons, that their 'virtues should be applicable to their
characters, for says he,
"Silence is a woman's ornament,"
but it is not a man's; and as a child is incomplete, it is evident that
his virtue is not to be referred to himself in his present situation,
but to that in which he will be complete, and his preceptor. In like
manner the virtue of a slave is to be referred to his master; for we
laid it down as a maxim, that the use of a slave was to employ him in
what you wanted; so that it is clear enough that few virtues are wanted
in his station, only that he may not neglect his work through idleness
or fear: some person may question if what I have said is true, whether
virtue is not necessary for artificers in their calling, for they often
through idleness neglect their work, but the difference between them
is very great; for a slave is connected with you for life, but the
artificer not so nearly: as near therefore as the artificer approaches
to the situation of a slave, just so much ought he to have of the
virtues of one; for a mean artificer is to a certain point a slave; but
then a slave is one of those things which are by nature what they are,
but this is not true [1260b] of a shoemaker, or any other artist. It is
evident then that a slave ought to be trained to those virtues which are
proper for his situation by his master; and not by him who has the power
of a master, to teach him any particular art. Those therefore are in the
wrong who would deprive slaves of reason, and say that they have only to
follow their orders; for slaves want more instruction than children, and
thus we determine this matter. It is necessary, I am sensible, for every
one who treats upon government, to enter particularly into the relations
of husband and wife, and of parent and child, and to show what are the
virtues of each and their respective connections with each other; what
is right and what is wrong; and how the one ought to be followed, and
the other avoided. Since then every family is part of a city, and each
of those individuals is part of a family, and the virtue of the parts
ought to correspond to the virtue of the whole; it is necessary, that
both the wives and children of the community should be instructed
correspondent to the nature thereof, if it is of consequence to the
virtue of the state, that the wives and children therein should be
virtuous, and of consequence it certainly is, for the wives are one half
of the free persons; and of the children the succeeding citizens are to
be formed. As then we have determined these points, we will leave
the rest to be spoken to in another place, as if the subject was now
finished; and beginning again anew, first consider the sentiments of
those who have treated of the most perfect forms of government.
BOOK II
CHAPTER I
Since then we propose to inquire what civil society is of all others
best for those who have it in their power to live entirely as they wish,
it is necessary to examine into the polity of those states which are
allowed to be well governed; and if there should be any others which
some persons have described, and which appear properly regulated, to
note what is right and useful in them; and when we point out wherein
they have failed, let not this be imputed to an affectation of wisdom,
for it is because there are great defects in all those which are already
established, that I have been induced to undertake this work. We will
begin with that part of the subject which naturally presents itself
first to our consideration. The members of every state must of necessity
have all things in common, or some things common, and not others,
or nothing at all common. To have nothing in common is evidently
impossible, for society itself is one species of [1261a] community; and
the first thing necessary thereunto is a common place of habitation,
namely the city, which must be one, and this every citizen must have a
share in. But in a government which is to be well founded, will it be
best to admit of a community in everything which is capable thereof, or
only in some particulars, but in others not? for it is possible that the
citizens may have their wives, and children, and goods in common, as
in Plato's Commonwealth; for in that Socrates affirms that all these
particulars ought to be so. Which then shall we prefer? the custom which
is already established, or the laws which are proposed in that treatise?
CHAPTER II
Now as a community of wives is attended with many other difficulties, so
neither does the cause for which he would frame his government in this
manner seem agreeable to reason, nor is it capable of producing that end
which he has proposed, and for which he says it ought to take place; nor
has he given any particular directions for putting it in practice. Now
I also am willing to agree with Socrates in the principle which he
proceeds upon, and admit that the city ought to be one as much as
possible; and yet it is evident that if it is contracted too much, it
will be no longer a city, for that necessarily supposes a multitude; so
that if we proceed in this manner, we shall reduce a city to a family,
and a family to a single person: for we admit that a family is one in a
greater degree than a city, and a single person than a family; so that
if this end could be obtained, it should never be put in practice, as it
would annihilate the city; for a city does not only consist of a large
number of inhabitants, but there must also be different sorts; for were
they all alike, there could be no city; for a confederacy and a city are
two different things; for a confederacy is valuable from its numbers,
although all those who compose it are men of the same calling; for this
is entered into for the sake of mutual defence, as we add an additional
weight to make the scale go down. The same distinction prevails between
a city and a nation when the people are not collected into separate
villages, but live as the Arcadians. Now those things in which a city
should be one are of different sorts, and in preserving an alternate
reciprocation of power between these, the safety thereof consists (as
I have already mentioned in my treatise on Morals), for amongst freemen
and equals this is absolutely necessary; for all cannot govern at the
same time, but either by the year, or according to some other regulation
or time, by which means every one in his turn will be in office; as
if the shoemakers and carpenters should exchange occupations, and not
always be employed in the same calling. But as it is evidently better,
that these should continue to exercise their respective trades; so also
in civil society, where it is possible, it would be better that the
government should continue in the same hands; but where it [1261b] is
not (as nature has made all men equal, and therefore it is just, be the
administration good or bad, that all should partake of it), there it is
best to observe a rotation, and let those who are their equals by turns
submit to those who are at that time magistrates, as they will, in their
turns, alternately be governors and governed, as if they were different
men: by the same method different persons will execute different
offices. From hence it is evident, that a city cannot be one in the
manner that some persons propose; and that what has been said to be the
greatest good which it could enjoy, is absolutely its destruction, which
cannot be: for the good of anything is that which preserves it.
For another reason also it is clear, that it is not for the best
to endeavour to make a city too much one, because a family is more
sufficient in itself than a single person, a city than a family; and
indeed Plato supposes that a city owes its existence to that sufficiency
in themselves which the members of it enjoy. If then this sufficiency is
so desirable, the less the city is one the better.
CHAPTER III
But admitting that it is most advantageous for a city to be one as much
as possible, it does not seem to follow that this will take place by
permitting all at once to say this is mine, and this is not mine (though
this is what Socrates regards as a proof that a city is entirely one),
for the word All is used in two senses; if it means each individual,
what Socrates proposes will nearly take place; for each person will
say, this is his own son, and his own wife, and his own property, and
of everything else that may happen to belong to him, that it is his own.
But those who have their wives and children in common will not say so,
but all will say so, though not as individuals; therefore, to use the
word all is evidently a fallacious mode of speech; for this word is
sometimes used distributively, and sometimes collectively, on account
of its double meaning, and is the cause of inconclusive syllogisms in
reasoning. Therefore for all persons to say the same thing was their
own, using the word all in its distributive sense, would be well, but is
impossible: in its collective sense it would by no means contribute to
the concord of the state. Besides, there would be another inconvenience
attending this proposal, for what is common to many is taken least care
of; for all men regard more what is their own than what others share
with them in, to which they pay less attention than is incumbent on
every one: let me add also, that every one is more negligent of what
another is to see to, as well as himself, than of his own private
business; as in a family one is often worse served by many servants than
by a few. Let each citizen then in the state have a thousand children,
but let none of them be considered as the children of that individual,
but let the relation of father and child be common to them all, and they
will all be neglected. Besides, in consequence of this, [1262a] whenever
any citizen behaved well or ill, every person, be the number what it
would, might say, this is my son, or this man's or that; and in
this manner would they speak, and thus would they doubt of the whole
thousand, or of whatever number the city consisted; and it would be
uncertain to whom each child belonged, and when it was born, who was to
take care of it: and which do you think is better, for every one to say
this is mine, while they may apply it equally to two thousand or ten
thousand; or as we say, this is mine in our present forms of government,
where one man calls another his son, another calls that same person
his brother, another nephew, or some other relation, either by blood
or marriage, and first extends his care to him and his, while another
regards him as one of the same parish and the same tribe; and it is
better for any one to be a nephew in his private capacity than a son
after that manner. Besides, it will be impossible to prevent some
persons from suspecting that they are brothers and sisters, fathers and
mothers to each other; for, from the mutual likeness there is between
the sire and the offspring, they will necessarily conclude in what
relation they stand to each other, which circumstance, we are informed
by those writers who describe different parts of the world, does
sometimes happen; for in Upper Africa there are wives in common who
yet deliver their children to their respective fathers, being guided
by their likeness to them. There are also some mares and cows which
naturally bring forth their young so like the male, that we can easily
distinguish by which of them they were impregnated: such was the mare
called Just, in Pharsalia.
CHAPTER IV
Besides, those who contrive this plan of community cannot easily avoid
the following evils; namely, blows, murders involuntary or voluntary,
quarrels, and reproaches, all which it would be impious indeed to be
guilty of towards our fathers and mothers, or those who are nearly
related to us; though not to those who are not connected to us by any
tie of affinity: and certainly these mischiefs must necessarily happen
oftener amongst those who do not know how they are connected to each
other than those who do; and when they do happen, if it is among the
first of these, they admit of a legal expiation, but amongst the latter
that cannot be done. It is also absurd for those who promote a
community of children to forbid those who love each other from indulging
themselves in the last excesses of that passion, while they do not
restrain them from the passion itself, or those intercourses which are
of all things most improper, between a Father and a son, a brother and
a brother, and indeed the thing itself is most absurd. It is also
ridiculous to prevent this intercourse between the nearest relations,
for no other reason than the violence of the pleasure, while they think
that the relation of father and daughter, the brother and sister, is of
no consequence at all. It seems also more advantageous for the state,
that the husbandmen should have their wives and children in common than
the military, for there will be less affection [1262b] among them
in that case than when otherwise; for such persons ought to be under
subjection, that they may obey the laws, and not seek after innovations.
Upon the whole, the consequences of such a law as this would be directly
contrary to those things which good laws ought to establish, and which
Socrates endeavoured to establish by his regulations concerning women
and children: for we think that friendship is the greatest good which
can happen to any city, as nothing so much prevents seditions: and amity
in a city is what Socrates commends above all things, which appears
to be, as indeed he says, the effect of friendship; as we learn from
Aristophanes in the Erotics, who says, that those who love one another
from the excess of that passion, desire to breathe the same soul, and
from being two to be blended into one: from whence it would necessarily
follow, that both or one of them must be destroyed. But now in a city
which admits of this community, the tie of friendship must, from that
very cause, be extremely weak, when no father can say, this is my son;
or son, this is my father; for as a very little of what is sweet, being
mixed with a great deal of water is imperceptible after the mixture, so
must all family connections, and the names they go by, be necessarily
disregarded in such a community, it being then by no means necessary
that the father should have any regard for him he called a son, or
the brothers for those they call brothers. There are two things which
principally inspire mankind with care and love of their offspring,
knowing it is their own, and what ought to be the object of their
affection, neither of which can take place in this sort of community. As
for exchanging the children of the artificers and husbandmen with those
of the military, and theirs reciprocally with these, it will occasion
great confusion in whatever manner it shall be done; for of necessity,
those who carry the children must know from whom they took and to whom
they gave them; and by this means those evils which I have already
mentioned will necessarily be the more likely to happen, as blows,
incestuous love, murders, and the like; for those who are given from
their own parents to other citizens, the military, for instance, will
not call them brothers, sons, fathers, or mothers. The same thing
would happen to those of the military who were placed among the other
citizens; so that by this means every one would be in fear how to act
in consequence of consanguinity. And thus let us determine concerning a
community of wives and children.
CHAPTER V
We proceed next to consider in what manner property should be regulated
in a state which is formed after the most perfect mode of government,
whether it should be common or not; for this may be considered as a
separate question from what had been determined concerning [1263a] wives
and children; I mean, whether it is better that these should be held
separate, as they now everywhere are, or that not only possessions but
also the usufruct of them should be in common; or that the soil should
have a particular owner, but that the produce should be brought together
and used as one common stock, as some nations at present do; or on the
contrary, should the soil be common, and should it also be cultivated in
common, while the produce is divided amongst the individuals for their
particular use, which is said to be practised by some barbarians; or
shall both the soil and the fruit be common? When the business of
the husbandman devolves not on the citizen, the matter is much easier
settled; but when those labour together who have a common right of
possession, this may occasion several difficulties; for there may not
be an equal proportion between their labour and what they consume; and
those who labour hard and have but a small proportion of the produce,
will certainly complain of those who take a large share of it and do but
little for that. Upon the whole, as a community between man and man so
entire as to include everything possible, and thus to have all things
that man can possess in common, is very difficult, so is it particularly
so with respect to property; and this is evident from that community
which takes place between those who go out to settle a colony; for they
frequently have disputes with each other upon the most common occasions,
and come to blows upon trifles: we find, too, that we oftenest correct
those slaves who are generally employed in the common offices of the
family: a community of property then has these and other inconveniences
attending it.
But the manner of life which is now established, more particularly when
embellished with good morals and a system of equal laws, is far superior
to it, for it will have the advantage of both; by both I mean properties
being common, and divided also; for in some respects it ought to be in
a manner common, but upon the whole private: for every man's attention
being employed on his own particular concerns, will prevent mutual
complaints against each other; nay, by this means industry will be
increased, as each person will labour to improve his own private
property; and it will then be, that from a principle of virtue they will
mutually perform good offices to each other, according to the proverb,
"All things are common amongst friends;" and in some cities there are
traces of this custom to be seen, so that it is not impracticable, and
particularly in those which are best governed; some things are by this
means in a manner common, and others might be so; for there, every
person enjoying his own private property, some things he assists his
friend with, others are considered as in common; as in Lacedaemon, where
they use each other's slaves, as if they were, so to speak, their own,
as they do their horses and dogs, or even any provision they may want in
a journey.
It is evident then that it is best to have property private, but to make
the use of it common; but how the citizens are to be brought to it is
the particular [1263b] business of the legislator. And also with respect
to pleasure, it is unspeakable how advantageous it is, that a man should
think he has something which he may call his own; for it is by no means
to no purpose, that each person should have an affection for himself,
for that is natural, and yet to be a self-lover is justly censured; for
we mean by that, not one that simply loves himself, but one that loves
himself more than he ought; in like manner we blame a money-lover,
and yet both money and self is what all men love. Besides, it is very
pleasing to us to oblige and assist our friends and companions, as well
as those whom we are connected with by the rights of hospitality; and
this cannot be done without the establishment of private property, which
cannot take place with those who make a city too much one; besides, they
prevent every opportunity of exercising two principal virtues, modesty
and liberality. Modesty with respect to the female sex, for this virtue
requires you to abstain from her who is another's; liberality, which
depends upon private property, for without that no one can appear
liberal, or do any generous action; for liberality consists in imparting
to others what is our own.
This system of polity does indeed recommend itself by its good
appearance and specious pretences to humanity; and when first proposed
to any one, must give him great pleasure, as he will conclude it to be
a wonderful bond of friendship, connecting all to all; particularly
when any one censures the evils which are now to be found in society,
as arising from properties not being common, I mean the disputes which
happen between man and man, upon their different contracts with each
other; those judgments which are passed in court in consequence of
fraud, and perjury, and flattering the rich, none of which arise from
properties being private, but from the vices of mankind. Besides,
those who live in one general community, and have all things in common,
oftener dispute with each other than those who have their property
separate; from the very small number indeed of those who have their
property in common, compared with those where it is appropriated,
the instances of their quarrels are but few. It is also but right to
mention, not only the inconveniences they are preserved from who live in
a communion of goods, but also the advantages they are deprived of; for
when the whole comes to be considered, this manner of life will be found
impracticable.
We must suppose, then, that Socrates's mistake arose from the principle
he set out with being false; we admit, indeed, that both a family and a
city ought to be one in some particulars, but not entirely; for there
is a point beyond which if a city proceeds in reducing itself to one, it
will be no longer a city.
There is also another point at which it will still continue to be a
city, but it will approach so near to not being one, that it will be
worse than none; as if any one should reduce the voices of those who
sing in concert to one, or a verse to a foot. But the people ought to
be made one, and a community, as I have already said, by education;
as property at Lacedaemon, and their public tables at Crete, were made
common by their legislators. But yet, whosoever shall introduce any
education, and think thereby to make his city excellent and respectable,
will be absurd, while he expects to form it by such regulations, and not
by manners, philosophy, and laws. And whoever [1264a] would establish
a government upon a community of goods, ought to know that he should
consult the experience of many years, which would plainly enough inform
him whether such a scheme is useful; for almost all things have already
been found out, but some have been neglected, and others which have been
known have not been put in practice. But this would be most evident, if
any one could see such a government really established: for it would be
impossible to frame such a city without dividing and separating it into
its distinct parts, as public tables, wards, and tribes; so that here
the laws will do nothing more than forbid the military to engage
in agriculture, which is what the Lacedaemonians are at present
endeavouring to do.
Nor has Socrates told us (nor is it easy to say) what plan of government
should be pursued with respect to the individuals in the state where
there is a community of goods established; for though the majority
of his citizens will in general consist of a multitude of persons of
different occupations, of those he has determined nothing; whether the
property of the husbandman ought to be in common, or whether each person
should have his share to himself; and also, whether their wives and
children ought to be in common: for if all things are to be alike common
to all, where will be the difference between them and the military, or
what would they get by submitting to their government? and upon what
principles would they do it, unless they should establish the wise
practice of the Cretans? for they, allowing everything else to their
slaves, forbid them only gymnastic exercises and the use of arms. And if
they are not, but these should be in the same situation with respect to
their property which they are in other cities, what sort of a community
will there be? in one city there must of necessity be two, and those
contrary to each other; for he makes the military the guardians of the
state, and the husbandman, artisans, and others, citizens; and all those
quarrels, accusations, and things of the like sort, which he says are
the bane of other cities, will be found in his also: notwithstanding
Socrates says they will not want many laws in consequence of their
education, but such only as may be necessary for regulating the streets,
the markets, and the like, while at the same time it is the education of
the military only that he has taken any care of. Besides, he makes the
husbandmen masters of property upon paying a tribute; but this would
be likely to make them far more troublesome and high-spirited than the
Helots, the Penestise, or the slaves which others employ; nor has he
ever determined whether it is necessary to give any attention to them
in these particulars, nor thought of what is connected therewith,
their polity, their education, their laws; besides, it is of no little
consequence, nor is it easy to determine, how these should be framed so
as to preserve the community of the military.
Besides, if he makes the wives common, while the property [1264b]
continues separate, who shall manage the domestic concerns with the same
care which the man bestows upon his fields? nor will the inconvenience
be remedied by making property as well as wives common; and it is absurd
to draw a comparison from the brute creation, and say, that the same
principle should regulate the connection of a man and a woman which
regulates theirs amongst whom there is no family association.
It is also very hazardous to settle the magistracy as Socrates has
done; for he would have persons of the same rank always in office, which
becomes the cause of sedition even amongst those who are of no account,
but more particularly amongst those who are of a courageous and warlike
disposition; it is indeed evidently necessary that he should frame his
community in this manner; for that golden particle which God has mixed
up in the soul of man flies not from one to the other, but always
continues with the same; for he says, that some of our species have
gold, and others silver, blended in their composition from the moment of
their birth: but those who are to be husbandmen and artists, brass and
iron; besides, though he deprives the military of happiness, he says,
that the legislator ought to make all the citizens happy; but it
is impossible that the whole city can be happy, without all, or the
greater, or some part of it be happy. For happiness is not like
that numerical equality which arises from certain numbers when added
together, although neither of them may separately contain it; for
happiness cannot be thus added together, but must exist in every
individual, as some properties belong to every integral; and if the
military are not happy, who else are so? for the artisans are not, nor
the multitude of those who are employed in inferior offices. The state
which Socrates has described has all these defects, and others which are
not of less consequence.
CHAPTER VI
It is also nearly the same in the treatise upon Laws which was writ
afterwards, for which reason it will be proper in this place to consider
briefly what he has there said upon government, for Socrates has
thoroughly settled but very few parts of it; as for instance, in what
manner the community of wives and children ought to be regulated, how
property should be established, and government conducted.
Now he divides the inhabitants into two parts, husbandmen and soldiers,
and from these he select a third part who are to be senators and govern
the city; but he has not said whether or no the husbandman and artificer
shall have any or what share in the government, or whether they shall
have arms, and join with the others in war, or not. He thinks also
that the women ought to go to war, and have the same education as the
soldiers; as to other particulars, he has filled his treatise with
matter foreign to the purpose; and with respect to education, he has
only said what that of the guards ought to be.
[1265a] As to his book of Laws, laws are the principal thing which that
contains, for he has there said but little concerning government; and
this government, which he was so desirous of framing in such a manner as
to impart to its members a more entire community of goods than is to be
found in other cities, he almost brings round again to be the same
as that other government which he had first proposed; for except the
community of wives and goods, he has framed both his governments alike,
for the education of the citizens is to be the same in both; they are in
both to live without any servile employ, and their common tables are to
be the same, excepting that in that he says the women should have common
tables, and that there should be a thousand men-at-arms, in this, that
there should be five thousand.
All the discourses of Socrates are masterly, noble, new, and
inquisitive; but that they are all true it may probably be too much
to say. For now with respect to the number just spoken of, it must be
acknowledged that he would want the country of Babylonia for them, or
some one like it, of an immeasurable extent, to support five thousand
idle persons, besides a much greater number of women and servants. Every
one, it is true, may frame an hypothesis as he pleases, but yet it ought
to be possible. It has been said, that a legislator should have two
things in view when he frames his laws, the country and the people. He
will also do well, if he has some regard to the neighbouring states, if
he intends that his community should maintain any political intercourse
with them, for it is not only necessary that they should understand that
practice of war which is adapted to their own country, but to others
also; for admitting that any one chooses not this life either in
public or private, yet there is not the less occasion for their being
formidable to their enemies, not only when they invade their country,
but also when they retire out of it.
It may also be considered whether the quantity of each person's property
may not be settled in a different manner from what he has done it in,
by making it more determinate; for he says, that every one ought to have
enough whereon to live moderately, as if any one had said to live well,
which is the most comprehensive expression. Besides, a man may live
moderately and miserably at the same time; he had therefore better
have proposed, that they should live both moderately and liberally;
for unless these two conspire, luxury will come in on the one hand, or
wretchedness on the other, since these two modes of living are the only
ones applicable to the employment of our substance; for we cannot say
with respect to a man's fortune, that he is mild or courageous, but we
may say that he is prudent and liberal, which are the only qualities
connected therewith.
It is also absurd to render property equal, and not to provide for
the increasing number of the citizens; but to leave that circumstance
uncertain, as if it would regulate itself according to the number of
women who [1265b] should happen to be childless, let that be what it
would because this seems to take place in other cities; but the case
would not be the same in such a state which he proposes and those which
now actually unite; for in these no one actually wants, as the property
is divided amongst the whole community, be their numbers what they will;
but as it could not then be divided, the supernumeraries, whether they
were many or few, would have nothing at all. But it is more necessary
than even to regulate property, to take care that the increase of the
people should not exceed a certain number; and in determining that,
to take into consideration those children who will die, and also those
women who will be barren; and to neglect this, as is done in several
cities, is to bring certain poverty on the citizens; and poverty is the
cause of sedition and evil. Now Phidon the Corinthian, one of the oldest
legislators, thought the families and the number of the citizens should
continue the same; although it should happen that all should have
allotments at the first, disproportionate to their numbers.
In Plato's Laws it is however different; we shall mention hereafter what
we think would be best in these particulars. He has also neglected in
that treatise to point out how the governors are to be distinguished
from the governed; for he says, that as of one sort of wool the warp
ought to be made, and of another the woof, so ought some to govern, and
others to be governed. But since he admits, that all their property may
be increased fivefold, why should he not allow the same increase to the
country? he ought also to consider whether his allotment of the houses
will be useful to the community, for he appoints two houses to each
person, separate from each other; but it is inconvenient for a person
to inhabit two houses. Now he is desirous to have his whole plan of
government neither a democracy nor an oligarchy, but something between
both, which he calls a polity, for it is to be composed of men-at-arms.
If Plato intended to frame a state in which more than in any other
everything should be common, he has certainly given it a right name;
but if he intended it to be the next in perfection to that which he had
already framed, it is not so; for perhaps some persons will give the
preference to the Lacedaemonian form of government, or some other which
may more completely have attained to the aristocratic form.
Some persons say, that the most perfect government should be composed
of all others blended together, for which reason they commend that
of Lacedaemon; for they say, that this is composed of an oligarchy,
a monarchy, and a democracy, their kings representing the monarchical
part, the senate the oligarchical; and, that in the ephori may be found
the democratical, as these are taken from the people. But some say, that
in the ephori is absolute power, and that it is their common meal and
daily course of life, in which the democratical form is represented.
It is also said in this treatise of [1266a] Laws, that the best form of
government must, be one composed of a democracy and a tyranny; though
such a mixture no one else would ever allow to be any government at all,
or if it is, the worst possible; those propose what is much better who
blend many governments together; for the most perfect is that which is
formed of many parts. But now in this government of Plato's there are
no traces of a monarchy, only of an oligarchy and democracy; though he
seems to choose that it should rather incline to an oligarchy, as is
evident from the appointment of the magistrates; for to choose them by
lot is common to both; but that a man of fortune must necessarily be a
member of the assembly, or to elect the magistrates, or take part in the
management of public affairs, while others are passed over, makes the
state incline to an oligarchy; as does the endeavouring that the
greater part of the rich may be in office, and that the rank of their
appointments may correspond with their fortunes.
The same principle prevails also in the choice of their senate; the
manner of electing which is favourable also to an oligarchy; for all
are obliged to vote for those who are senators of the first class,
afterwards they vote for the same number out of the second, and then out
of the third; but this compulsion to vote at the election of senators
does not extend to the third and fourth classes and the first and second
class only are obliged to vote for the fourth. By this means he says
he shall necessarily have an equal number of each rank, but he is
mistaken--for the majority will always consist of those of the first
rank, and the most considerable people; and for this reason, that
many of the commonalty not being obliged to it, will not attend the
elections. From hence it is evident, that such a state will not consist
of a democracy and a monarchy, and this will be further proved by
what we shall say when we come particularly to consider this form of
government.
There will also great danger arise from the manner of electing the
senate, when those who are elected themselves are afterwards to elect
others; for by this means, if a certain number choose to combine
together, though not very considerable, the election will always fall
according to their pleasure. Such are the things which Plato proposes
concerning government in his book of Laws.
CHAPTER VII
There are also some other forms of government, which have been proposed
either by private persons, or philosophers, or politicians, all of which
come much nearer to those which have been really established, or now
exist, than these two of Plato's; for neither have they introduced the
innovation of a community of wives and children, and public tables for
the women, but have been contented to set out with establishing such
rules as are absolutely necessary.
There are some persons who think, that the first object of government
should be to regulate well everything relating to private property;
for they say, that a neglect herein is the source of all seditions
whatsoever. For this reason, Phaleas the Chalcedonian first proposed,
that the fortunes of the citizens should be equal, which he thought was
not difficult to accomplish when a community was first settled, but
that it was a work of greater difficulty in one that had been long
established; but yet that it might be effected, and an equality of
circumstances introduced by these means, that the rich should give
marriage portions, but never receive any, while the poor should always
receive, but never give.
But Plato, in his treatise of Laws, thinks that a difference in
circumstances should be permitted to a certain degree; but that no
citizen should be allowed to possess more than five times as much as the
lowest census, as we have already mentioned. But legislators who
would establish this principle are apt to overlook what they ought to
consider; that while they regulate the quantity of provisions which each
individual shall possess, they ought also to regulate the number of his
children; for if these exceed the allotted quantity of provision, the
law must necessarily be repealed; and yet, in spite of the repeal, it
will have the bad effect of reducing many from wealth to poverty, so
difficult is it for innovators not to fall into such mistakes. That an
equality of goods was in some degree serviceable to strengthen the bands
of society, seems to have been known to some of the ancients; for Solon
made a law, as did some others also, to restrain persons from possessing
as much land as they pleased. And upon the same principle there are laws
which forbid men to sell their property, as among the Locrians, unless
they can prove that some notorious misfortune has befallen them. They
were also to preserve their ancient patrimony, which custom being broken
through by the Leucadians, made their government too democratic; for
by that means it was no longer necessary to be possessed of a certain
fortune to be qualified to be a magistrate. But if an equality of goods
is established, this may be either too much, when it enables the people
to live luxuriously, or too little, when it obliges them to live
hard. Hence it is evident, that it is not proper for the legislator
to establish an equality of circumstances, but to fix a proper medium.
Besides, if any one should regulate the division of property in such a
manner that there should be a moderate sufficiency for all, it would
be of no use; for it is of more consequence that the citizen should
entertain a similarity of sentiments than an equality of circumstances;
but this can never be attained unless they are properly educated under
the direction of the law. But probably Phaleas may say, that this in
what he himself mentions; for he both proposes a equality of property
and one plan of education in his city. But he should have said
particularly what education he intended, nor is it of any service to
have this to much one; for this education may be one, and yet such as
will make the citizens over-greedy, to grasp after honours, or riches,
or both. Besides, not only an inequality of possessions, but also
of honours, will occasion [1267a] seditions, but this upon contrary
grounds; for the vulgar will be seditious if there be an inequality of
goods, by those of more elevated sentiments, if there is an equality of
honours.
"When good and bad do equal honours share."
For men are not guilty of crimes for necessaries only (for which he
thinks an equality of goods would be a sufficient remedy, as they would
then have no occasion to steal cold or hunger), but that they may enjoy
what they desire, and not wish for it in vain; for if their desire extend
beyond the common necessaries of life, they were be wicked to gratify
them; and not only so, but if their wishes point that way, they will do
the same to enjoy those pleasures which are free from the alloy of pain.
What remedy then shall we find for these three disorders? And first,
to prevent stealing from necessity, let every one be supplied with a
moderate subsistence, which may make the addition of his own industry
necessary; second to prevent stealing to procure the luxuries of life,
temperance be enjoined; and thirdly, let those who wish for pleasure in
itself seek for it only in philosophy, all others want the assistance of
men.
Since then men are guilty of the greatest crimes from ambition, and not
from necessity, no one, for instance aims at being a tyrant to keep him
from the cold, hence great honour is due to him who kills not a thief,
but tyrant; so that polity which Phaleas establishes would only be
salutary to prevent little crimes. He has also been very desirous to
establish such rules as will conduce to perfect the internal policy of
his state, and he ought also to have done the same with respect to
its neighbours and all foreign nations; for the considerations of the
military establishment should take place in planning every government,
that it may not be unprovided in case of a war, of which he has said
nothing; so also with respect to property, it ought not only to be
adapted to the exigencies of the state, but also to such dangers as may
arise from without.
Thus it should not be so much as to tempt those who are near, and more
powerful to invade it, while those who possess it are not able to drive
out the invaders, nor so little as that the state should not be able to
go to war with those who are quite equal to itself, and of this he has
determined nothing; it must indeed be allowed that it is advantageous to
a community to be rather rich than poor; probably the proper boundary is
this, not to possess enough to make it worth while for a more powerful
neighbour to attack you, any more than he would those who had not so
much as yourself; thus when Autophradatus proposed to besiege Atarneus,
Eubulus advised him to consider what time it would require to take the
city, and then would have him determine whether it would answer, for
that he should choose, if it would even take less than he proposed,
to quit the place; his saying this made Autophradatus reflect upon the
business and give over the siege. There is, indeed, some advantage in an
equality of goods amongst the citizens to prevent seditions; and yet,
to say truth, no very great one; for men of great abilities will stomach
their being put upon a level with the rest of the community. For
which reason they will very often appear ready for every commotion and
sedition; for the wickedness of mankind is insatiable. For though
at first two oboli might be sufficient, yet when once it is become
customary, they continually want something more, until they set no
limits to their expectations; for it is the nature of our desires to be
boundless, and many live only to gratify them. But for this purpose the
first object is, not so much to establish an equality of fortune, as
to prevent those who are of a good disposition from desiring more than
their own, and those who are of a bad one from being able to acquire it;
and this may be done if they are kept in an inferior station, and not
exposed to injustice. Nor has he treated well the equality of goods, for
he has extended his regulation only to land; whereas a man's substance
consists not only in this, but also in slaves, cattle, money, and all
that variety of things which fall under the name of chattels; now there
must be either an equality established in all these, or some certain
rule, or they must be left entirely at large. It appears too by his
laws, that he intends to establish only a small state, as all the
artificers are to belong to the public, and add nothing to the
complement of citizens; but if all those who are to be employed in
public works are to be the slaves of the public, it should be done
in the same manner as it is at Epidamnum, and as Diophantus formerly
regulated it at Athens. From these particulars any one may nearly judge
whether Phaleas's community is well or ill established.
CHAPTER VIII
Hippodamus, the son of Euruphon a Milesian, contrived the art of laying
out towns, and separated the Pireus. This man was in other respects
too eager after notice, and seemed to many to live in a very affected
manner, with his flowing locks and his expensive ornaments, and a coarse
warm vest which he wore, not only in the winter, but also in the
hot weather. As he was very desirous of the character of a universal
scholar, he was the first who, not being actually engaged in the
management of public affairs, sat himself to inquire what sort of
government was best; and he planned a state, consisting of ten thousand
persons, divided into three parts, one consisting of artisans, another
of husbandmen, and the third of soldiers; he also divided the lands into
three parts, and allotted one to sacred purposes, another to the public,
and the third to individuals. The first of these was to supply what was
necessary for the established worship of the gods; the second was to
be allotted to the support of the soldiery; and the third was to be
the property of the husbandman. He thought also that there need only be
three sorts of laws, corresponding to the three sorts of actions which
can be brought, namely, for assault, trespasses, or death. He ordered
also that there should be a particular court of appeal, into which
all causes might be removed which were supposed to have been unjustly
determined elsewhere; which court should be composed of old men chosen
for that purpose. He thought also [1268a] that they should not pass
sentence by votes; but that every one should bring with him a tablet, on
which he should write, that he found the party guilty, if it was so, but
if not, he should bring a plain tablet; but if he acquitted him of one
part of the indictment but not of the other, he should express that
also on the tablet; for he disapproved of that general custom already
established, as it obliges the judges to be guilty of perjury if they
determined positively either on the one side or the other. He also made
a law, that those should be rewarded who found out anything for the good
of the city, and that the children of those who fell in battle should be
educated at the public expense; which law had never been proposed by any
other legislator, though it is at present in use at Athens as well as in
other cities, he would have the magistrates chosen out of the people
in general, by whom he meant the three parts before spoken of; and that
those who were so elected should be the particular guardians of what
belonged to the public, to strangers, and to orphans.
These are the principal parts and most worthy of notice in Hippodamus's
plan. But some persons might doubt the propriety of his division of the
citizens into three parts; for the artisans, the husbandmen, and the
soldiers are to compose one community, where the husbandmen are to have
no arms, and the artisans neither arms nor land, which would in a manner
render them slaves to the soldiery. It is also impossible that the whole
community should partake of all the honourable employments in it--for
the generals and the guardians of the state must necessarily be
appointed out of the soldiery, and indeed the most honourable
magistrates; but as the two other parts will not have their share in the
government, how can they be expected to have any affection for it? But
it is necessary that the soldiery should be superior to the other two
parts, and this superiority will not be easily gained without they are
very numerous; and if they are so, why should the community consist
of any other members? why should any others have a right to elect the
magistrates? Besides, of what use are the husbandmen to this community?
Artisans, 'tis true, are necessary, for these every city wants, and they
can live upon their business. If the husbandmen indeed furnished the
soldiers with provisions, they would be properly part of the community;
but these are supposed to have their private property, and to cultivate
it for their own use. Moreover, if the soldiers themselves are to
cultivate that common land which is appropriated for their support,
there will be no distinction between the soldier and the husbandman,
which the legislator intended there should be; and if there should be
any others who are to cultivate the private property of the husbandman
and the common lands of the military, there will be a fourth order in
the state which will have no share in it, and always entertain hostile
sentiments towards it. If any one should propose that the same persons
should cultivate their own lands and the public ones also, then there
would be a deficiency [1268b] of provisions to supply two families,
as the lands would not immediately yield enough for themselves and the
soldiers also; and all these things would occasion great confusion.
Nor do I approve of his method of determining causes, when he would
have the judge split the case which comes simply before him; and thus,
instead of being a judge, become an arbitrator. Now when any matter
is brought to arbitration, it is customary for many persons to confer
together upon the business that is before them; but when a cause is
brought before judges it is not so; and many legislators take care
that the judges shall not have it in their power to communicate their
sentiments to each other. Besides, what can prevent confusion on the
bench when one judge thinks a fine should be different from what another
has set it at; one proposing twenty minae, another ten, or be it more
or less, another four, and another five; and it is evident, that in this
manner they will differ from each other, while some will give the whole
damages sued for, and others nothing; in this situation, how shall their
determinations be settled? Besides, a judge cannot be obliged to perjure
himself who simply acquits or condemns, if the action is fairly and
justly brought; for he who acquits the party does not say that he ought
not to pay any fine at all, but that he ought not to pay a fine of
twenty minae. But he that condemns him is guilty of perjury if he
sentences him to pay twenty minae while he believes the damages ought
not to be so much.
Now with respect to these honours which he proposes to bestow on those
who can give any information useful to the community, this, though very
pleasing in speculation, is what the legislator should not settle, for
it would encourage informers, and probably occasion commotions in the
state. And this proposal of his gives rise also to further conjectures
and inquiries; for some persons have doubted whether it is useful or
hurtful to alter the established law of any country, if even for the
better; for which reason one cannot immediately determine upon what he
here says, whether it is advantageous to alter the law or not. We know,
indeed, that it is possible to propose to new model both the laws and
government as a common good; and since we have mentioned this subject,
it may be very proper to enter into a few particulars concerning it, for
it contains some difficulties, as I have already said, and it may appear
better to alter them, since it has been found useful in other sciences.
Thus the science of physic is extended beyond its ancient bounds; so is
the gymnastic, and indeed all other arts and powers; so that one may lay
it down for certain that the same thing will necessarily hold good in
the art of government. And it may also be affirmed, that experience
itself gives a proof of this; for the ancient laws are too simple and
barbarous; which allowed the Greeks to wear swords in the city, and to
buy their wives of each [1269a]. other. And indeed all the remains of
old laws which we have are very simple; for instance, a law in Cuma
relative to murder. If any person who prosecutes another for murder can
produce a certain number of witnesses to it of his own relations, the
accused person shall be held guilty. Upon the whole, all persons ought
to endeavour to follow what is right, and not what is established; and
it is probable that the first men, whether they sprung out of the earth,
or were saved from some general calamity, had very little understanding
or knowledge, as is affirmed of these aborigines; so that it would be
absurd to continue in the practice of their rules. Nor is it, moreover,
right to permit written laws always to remain without alteration; for
as in all other sciences, so in politics, it is impossible to express
everything in writing with perfect exactness; for when we commit
anything to writing we must use general terms, but in every action there
is something particular to itself, which these may not comprehend; from
whence it is evident, that certain laws will at certain times admit of
alterations. But if we consider this matter in another point of view, it
will appear to require great caution; for when the advantage proposed is
trifling, as the accustoming the people easily to abolish their laws
is of bad consequence, it is evidently better to pass over some faults
which either the legislator or the magistrates may have committed; for
the alterations will not be of so much service as a habit of disobeying
the magistrates will be of disservice. Besides, the instance brought
from the arts is fallacious; for it is not the same thing to alter the
one as the other. For a law derives all its strength from custom, and
this requires long time to establish; so that, to make it an easy matter
to pass from the established laws to other new ones, is to weaken the
power of laws. Besides, here is another question; if the laws are to be
altered, are they all to be altered, and in every government or not, and
whether at the pleasure of one person or many? all which particulars
will make a great difference; for which reason we will at present drop
the inquiry, to pursue it at some other time.
CHAPTER IX
There are two considerations which offer themselves with respect to the
government established at Lacedaemon and Crete, and indeed in almost all
other states whatsoever; one is whether their laws do or do not promote
the best establishment possible? the other is whether there is anything,
if we consider either the principles upon which it is founded or the
executive part of it, which prevents the form of government that they
had proposed to follow from being observed; now it is allowed that in
every well-regulated state the members of it should be free from servile
labour; but in what manner this shall be effected is not so easy to
determine; for the Penestse have very often attacked the Thessalians,
and the Helots the Lacedaemonians, for they in a manner continually
watch an opportunity for some misfortune befalling them. But no such
thing has ever happened to the Cretans; the [1269b] reason for which
probably is, that although they are engaged in frequent wars with the
neighbouring cities, yet none of these would enter into an alliance with
the revolters, as it would be disadvantageous for them, who themselves
also have their villains. But now there is perpetual enmity between the
Lacedaemonians and all their neighbours, the Argives, the Messenians,
and the Arcadians. Their slaves also first revolted from the Thessalians
while they were engaged in wars with their neighbours the Acheans, the
Perrabeans, and the Magnesians. It seems to me indeed, if nothing else,
yet something very troublesome to keep upon proper terms with them;
for if you are remiss in your discipline they grow insolent, and think
themselves upon an equality with their masters; and if they are hardly
used they are continually plotting against you and hate you. It is
evident, then, that those who employ slaves have not as yet hit upon the
right way of managing them.
As to the indulging of women in any particular liberties, it is hurtful
to the end of government and the prosperity of the city; for as a man
and his wife are the two parts of a family, if we suppose a city to be
divided into two parts, we must allow that the number of men and women
will be equal.
In whatever city then the women are not under good regulations, we must
look upon one half of it as not under the restraint of law, as it
there happened; for the legislator, desiring to make his whole city
a collection of warriors with respect to the men, he most evidently
accomplished his design; but in the meantime the women were quite
neglected, for they live without restraint in every improper indulgence
and luxury. So that in such a state riches will necessarily be in
general esteem, particularly if the men are governed by their wives,
which has been the case with many a brave and warlike people except
the Celts, and those other nations, if there are any such, who openly
practise pederasty. And the first mythologists seem not improperly to
have joined Mars and Venus together; for all nations of this character
are greatly addicted either to the love of women or of boys, for which
reason it was thus at Lacedaemon; and many things in their state were
done by the authority of the women. For what is the difference, if the
power is in the hands of the women, or in the hands of those whom they
themselves govern? it must turn to the same account. As this boldness of
the women can be of no use in any common occurrences, if it was ever so,
it must be in war; but even here we find that the Lacedaemonian women
were of the greatest disservice, as was proved at the time of the Theban
invasion, when they were of no use at all, as they are in other cities,
but made more disturbance than even the enemy.
The origin of this indulgence which the Lacedaemonian women enjoy is
easily accounted for, from the long time the men were absent from home
upon foreign expeditions [1270a] against the Argives, and afterwards the
Arcadians and Messenians, so that, when these wars were at an end, their
military life, in which there is no little virtue, prepared them to obey
the precepts of their law-giver; but we are told, that when Lycurgus
endeavoured also to reduce the women to an obedience to his laws, upon
their refusal he declined it. It may indeed be said that the women were
the causes of these things, and of course all the fault was theirs. But
we are not now considering where the fault lies, or where it does not
lie, but what is right and what is wrong; and when the manners of the
women are not well regulated, as I have already said, it must not only
occasion faults which are disgraceful to the state, but also increase
the love of money. In the next place, fault may be found with his
unequal division of property, for some will have far too much, others
too little; by which means the land will come into few hands, which
business is badly regulated by his laws. For he made it infamous for any
one either to buy or sell their possessions, in which he did right; but
he permitted any one that chose it to give them away, or bequeath them,
although nearly the same consequences will arise from one practice as
from the other. It is supposed that near two parts in five of the whole
country is the property of women, owing to their being so often sole
heirs, and having such large fortunes in marriage; though it would
be better to allow them none, or a little, or a certain regulated
proportion. Now every one is permitted to make a woman his heir if he
pleases; and if he dies intestate, he who succeeds as heir at law gives
it to whom he pleases. From whence it happens that although the country
is able to support fifteen hundred horse and thirty thousand foot, the
number does not amount to one thousand.
And from these facts it is evident, that this particular is badly
regulated; for the city could not support one shock, but was ruined for
want of men. They say, that during the reigns of their ancient kings
they used to present foreigners with the freedom of their city, to
prevent there being a want of men while they carried on long wars; it is
also affirmed that the number of Spartans was formerly ten thousand; but
be that as it will, an equality of property conduces much to increase
the number of the people. The law, too, which he made to encourage
population was by no means calculated to correct this inequality;
for being willing that the Spartans should be as numerous as [1270b]
possible, to make them desirous of having large families he ordered that
he who had three children should be excused the night-watch, and that he
who had four should pay no taxes: though it is very evident, that while
the land was divided in this manner, that if the people increased there
must many of them be very poor.
Nor was he less blamable for the manner in which he constituted the
ephori; for these magistrates take cognisance of things of the last
importance, and yet they are chosen out of the people in general; so
that it often happens that a very poor person is elected to that office,
who, from that circumstance, is easily bought. There have been many
instances of this formerly, as well as in the late affair at Andros. And
these men, being corrupted with money, went as far as they could to ruin
the city: and, because their power was too great and nearly tyrannical,
their kings were obliged to natter them, which contributed greatly to
hurt the state; so that it altered from an aristocracy to a democracy.
This magistracy is indeed the great support of the state; for the people
are easy, knowing that they are eligible to the first office in it;
so that, whether it took place by the intention of the legislator,
or whether it happened by chance, this is of great service to their
affairs; for it is necessary that every member of the state should
endeavour that each part of the government should be preserved, and
continue the same. And upon this principle their kings have always
acted, out of regard to their honour; the wise and good from their
attachment to the senate, a seat wherein they consider as the reward of
virtue; and the common people, that they may support the ephori, of whom
they consist. And it is proper that these magistrates should be chosen
out of the whole community, not as the custom is at present, which is
very ridiculous. The ephori are the supreme judges in causes of the last
consequence; but as it is quite accidental what sort of persons they may
be, it is not right that they should determine according to their own
opinion, but by a written law or established custom. Their way of life
also is not consistent with the manners of the city, for it is too
indulgent; whereas that of others is too severe; so that they cannot
support it, but are obliged privately to act contrary to law, that they
may enjoy some of the pleasures of sense. There are also great defects
in the institution of their senators. If indeed they were fitly trained
to the practice of every human virtue, every one would readily admit
that they would be useful to the government; but still it might be
debated whether they should be continued judges for life, to determine
points of the greatest moment, since the mind has its old age as well
as the body; but as they are so brought up, [1271a] that even the
legislator could not depend upon them as good men, their power must
be inconsistent with the safety of the state: for it is known that the
members of that body have been guilty both of bribery and partiality in
many public affairs; for which reason it had been much better if they
had been made answerable for their conduct, which they are not. But it
may be said the ephori seem to have a check upon all the magistrates.
They have indeed in this particular very great power; but I affirm that
they should not be entrusted with this control in the manner they are.
Moreover, the mode of choice which they make use of at the election of
their senators is very childish. Nor is it right for any one to solicit
for a place he is desirous of; for every person, whether he chooses it
or not, ought to execute any office he is fit for. But his intention was
evidently the same in this as in the other parts of his government.
For making his citizens ambitious after honours, with men of that
disposition he has filled his senate, since no others will solicit for
that office; and yet the principal part of those crimes which men are
deliberately guilty of arise from ambition and avarice.
We will inquire at another time whether the office of a king is useful
to the state: thus much is certain, that they should be chosen from a
consideration of their conduct and not as they are now. But that the
legislator himself did not expect to make all his citizens honourable
and completely virtuous is evident from this, that he distrusts them as
not being good men; for he sent those upon the same embassy that were at
variance with each other; and thought, that in the dispute of the kings
the safety of the state consisted. Neither were their common meals at
first well established: for these should rather have been provided at
the public expense, as at Crete, where, as at Lacedaemon, every one was
obliged to buy his portion, although he might be very poor, and could by
no means bear the expense, by which means the contrary happened to what
the legislator desired: for he intended that those public meals should
strengthen the democratic part of his government: but this regulation
had quite the contrary effect, for those who were very poor could not
take part in them; and it was an observation of their forefathers, that
the not allowing those who could not contribute their proportion to the
common tables to partake of them, would be the ruin of the state. Other
persons have censured his laws concerning naval affairs, and not without
reason, as it gave rise to disputes. For the commander of the fleet is
in a manner set up in opposition to the kings, who are generals of the
army for life.
[1271b] There is also another defect in his laws worthy of censure,
which Plato has given in his book of Laws; that the whole constitution
was calculated only for the business of war: it is indeed excellent to
make them conquerors; for which reason the preservation of the state
depended thereon. The destruction of it commenced with their victories:
for they knew not how to be idle, or engage in any other employment
than war. In this particular also they were mistaken, that though they
rightly thought, that those things which are the objects of contention
amongst mankind are better procured by virtue than vice, yet they
wrongfully preferred the things themselves to virtue. Nor was the public
revenue well managed at Sparta, for the state was worth nothing while
they were obliged to carry on the most extensive wars, and the subsidies
were very badly raised; for as the Spartans possessed a large extent of
country, they were not exact upon each other as to what they paid in.
And thus an event contrary to the legislator's intention took place;
for the state was poor, the individuals avaricious. Enough of the
Lacedaemonian government; for these seem the chief defects in it.
CHAPTER X
The government of Crete bears a near resemblance to this, in some few
particulars it is not worse, but in general it is far inferior in its
contrivance. For it appears and is allowed in many particulars the
constitution of Lacedaemon was formed in imitation of that of Crete;
and in general most new things are an improvement upon the old. For they
say, that when Lycurgus ceased to be guardian to King Charilles he
went abroad and spent a long time with his relations in Crete, for the
Lycians are a colony of the Lacedaemonians; and those who first settled
there adopted that body of laws which they found already established by
the inhabitants; in like manner also those who now live near them have
the very laws which Minos first drew up.
This island seems formed by nature to be the mistress of Greece, for it
is entirely surrounded by a navigable ocean which washes almost all the
maritime parts of that country, and is not far distant on the one side
from Peloponnesus, on the other, which looks towards Asia, from Triopium
and Rhodes. By means of this situation Minos acquired the empire of
the sea and the islands; some of which he subdued, in others planted
colonies: at last he died at Camicus while he was attacking Sicily.
There is this analogy between the customs of the Lacedaemonians and
the Cretans, the Helots cultivate the grounds [1272a] for the one, the
domestic slaves for the other. Both states have their common meals, and
the Lacedaemonians called these formerly not _psiditia_ but _andpia_,
as the Cretans do; which proves from whence the custom arose. In this
particular their governments are also alike: the ephori have the same
power with those of Crete, who are called _kosmoi_; with this difference
only, that the number of the one is five, of the other ten. The senators
are the same as those whom the Cretans call the council. There was
formerly also a kingly power in Crete; but it was afterwards dissolved,
and the command of their armies was given to the _kosmoi_. Every one
also has a vote in their public assembly; but this has only the power of
confirming what has already passed the council and the _kosmoi_.
The Cretans conducted their public meals better than the Lacedaemonians,
for at Lacedaemon each individual was obliged to furnish what was
assessed upon him; which if he could not do, there was a law which
deprived him of the rights of a citizen, as has been already mentioned:
but in Crete they were furnished by the community; for all the corn and
cattle, taxes and contributions, which the domestic slaves were obliged
to furnish, were divided into parts and allotted to the gods, the
exigencies of the state, and these public meals; so that all the men,
women, and children were maintained from a common stock. The legislator
gave great attention to encourage a habit of eating sparingly, as very
useful to the citizens. He also endeavoured, that his community might
not be too populous, to lessen the connection with women, by introducing
the love of boys: whether in this he did well or ill we shall have some
other opportunity of considering. But that the public meals were better
ordered at Crete than at Lacedaemon is very evident.
The institution of the _kosmoi_, was still worse than that of the
ephori: for it contained all the faults incident to that magistracy and
some peculiar to itself; for in both cases it is uncertain who will be
elected: but the Lacedaemonians have this advantage which the others
have not, that as all are eligible, the whole community have a share
in the highest honours, and therefore all desire to preserve the state:
whereas among the Cretans the _kosmoi_ are not chosen out of the people
in general, but out of some certain families, and the senate out of the
_kosmoi_. And the same observations which may be made on the senate at
Lacedaemon may be applied to these; for their being under no control,
and their continuing for life, is an honour greater than they merit; and
to have their proceedings not regulated by a written law, but left to
their own discretion, is dangerous. (As to there being no insurrections,
although the people share not in the management of public affairs, this
is no proof of a well-constituted government, as the _kosmoi_ have no
opportunity of being bribed like the ephori, as they live in an [1272b]
island far from those who would corrupt them.) But the method they take
to correct that fault is absurd, impolitic, and tyrannical: for very
often either their fellow-magistrates or some private persons conspire
together and turn out the _kosmoi_. They are also permitted to resign
their office before their time is elapsed, and if all this was done by
law it would be well, and not at the pleasure of the individuals, which
is a bad rule to follow. But what is worst of all is, that general
confusion which those who are in power introduce to impede the ordinary
course of justice; which sufficiently shows what is the nature of the
government, or rather lawless force: for it is usual with the principal
persons amongst them to collect together some of the common people and
their friends, and then revolt and set up for themselves, and come
to blows with each other. And what is the difference, if a state is
dissolved at once by such violent means, or if it gradually so alters in
process of time as to be no longer the same constitution? A state like
this would ever be exposed to the invasions of those who were powerful
and inclined to attack it; but, as has been already mentioned, its
situation preserves it, as it is free from the inroads of foreigners;
and for this reason the family slaves still remain quiet at Crete, while
the Helots are perpetually revolting: for the Cretans take no part in
foreign affairs, and it is but lately that any foreign troops have
made an attack upon the island; and their ravages soon proved the
ineffectualness of their laws. And thus much for the government of
Crete.
CHAPTER XI
The government of Carthage seems well established, and in many respects
superior to others; in some particulars it bears a near resemblance
to the Lacedaemonians; and indeed these three states, the Cretans, the
Lacedaemonians and the Carthaginians are in some things very like
each other, in others they differ greatly. Amongst many excellent
constitutions this may show how well their government is framed, that
although the people are admitted to a share in the administration, the
form of it remains unaltered, without any popular insurrections, worth
notice, on the one hand, or degenerating into a tyranny on the
other. Now the Carthaginians have these things in common with the
Lacedaemonians: public tables for those who are connected together by
the tie of mutual friendship, after the manner of their Phiditia; they
have also a magistracy, consisting of an hundred and four persons,
similar to the ephori, or rather selected with more judgment; for
amongst the Lacedaemonians, all the citizens are eligible, but amongst
the Carthaginians, they are chosen out of those of the better sort:
there is also some analogy between the king and the senate in both these
governments, though the Carthaginian method of appointing their kings
is best, for they do not confine themselves to one family; nor do
they permit the election to be at large, nor have they any regard to
seniority; for if amongst the candidates there are any of greater merit
than the rest, these they prefer to those who may be older; for as their
power is very extensive, if they are [1273a] persons of no account,
they may be very hurtful to the state, as they have always been to
the Lacedaemonians; also the greater part of those things which become
reprehensible by their excess are common to all those governments which
we have described.
Now of those principles on which the Carthaginians have established
their mixed form of government, composed of an aristocracy and
democracy, some incline to produce a democracy, others an oligarchy: for
instance, if the kings and the senate are unanimous upon any point in
debate, they can choose whether they will bring it before the people or
no; but if they disagree, it is to these they must appeal, who are not
only to hear what has been approved of by the senate, but are finally
to determine upon it; and whosoever chooses it, has a right to speak
against any matter whatsoever that may be proposed, which is not
permitted in other cases. The five, who elect each other, have very
great and extensive powers; and these choose the hundred, who are
magistrates of the highest rank: their power also continues longer than
any other magistrates, for it commences before they come into office,
and is prolonged after they are out of it; and in this particular the
state inclines to an oligarchy: but as they are not elected by lot, but
by suffrage, and are not permitted to take money, they are the greatest
supporters imaginable of an aristocracy.
The determining all causes by the same magistrates, and not orae in one
court and another in another, as at Lacedaemon, has the same influence.
The constitution of Carthage is now shifting from an aristocracy to an
oligarchy, in consequence of an opinion which is favourably entertained
by many, who think that the magistrates in the community ought not to
be persons of family only, but of fortune also; as it is impossible
for those who are in bad circumstances to support the dignity of their
office, or to be at leisure to apply to public business. As choosing men
of fortune to be magistrates make a state incline to an oligarchy,
and men of abilities to an aristocracy, so is there a third method of
proceeding which took place in the polity of Carthage; for they have
an eye to these two particulars when they elect their officers,
particularly those of the highest rank, their kings and their generals.
It must be admitted, that it was a great fault in their legislator not
to guard against the constitution's degenerating from an aristocracy;
for this is a most necessary thing to provide for at first, that those
citizens who have the best abilities should never be obliged to do
anything unworthy their character, but be always at leisure to serve the
public, not only when in office, but also when private persons; for if
once you are obliged to look among the wealthy, that you may have men at
leisure to serve you, your greatest offices, of king and general,
will soon become venal; in consequence of which, riches will be more
honourable than virtue and a love of money be the ruling principle in
the city-for what those who have the chief power regard as honourable
will necessarily be the object which the [1273b] citizens in general
will aim at; and where the first honours are not paid to virtue,
there the aristocratic form of government cannot flourish: for it
is reasonable to conclude, that those who bought their places should
generally make an advantage of what they laid out their money for; as
it is absurd to suppose, that if a man of probity who is poor should be
desirous of gaining something, a bad man should not endeavour to do the
same, especially to reimburse himself; for which reason the magistracy
should be formed of those who are most able to support an aristocracy.
It would have been better for the legislature to have passed over the
poverty of men of merit, and only to have taken care to have ensured
them sufficient leisure, when in office, to attend to public affairs.
It seems also improper, that one person should execute several offices,
which was approved of at Carthage; for one business is best done by one
person; and it is the duty of the legislator to look to this, and not
make the same person a musician and a shoemaker: so that where the state
is not small it is more politic and more popular to admit many persons
to have a share in the government; for, as I just now said, it is not
only more usual, but everything is better and sooner done, when one
thing only is allotted to one person: and this is evident both in the
army and navy, where almost every one, in his turn, both commands and
is under command. But as their government inclines to an oligarchy, they
avoid the ill effects of it by always appointing some of the popular
party to the government of cities to make their fortunes. Thus they
consult this fault in their constitution and render it stable; but
this is depending on chance; whereas the legislator ought to frame his
government, that there the no room for insurrections. But now, if there
should be any general calamity, and the people should revolt from their
rulers, there is no remedy for reducing them to obedience by the laws.
And these are the particulars of the Lacedaemonian, the Cretan, and the
Carthaginian governments which seem worthy of commendation.
CHAPTER XII
Some of those persons who have written upon government had never any
share in public affairs, but always led a private life. Everything
worthy of notice in their works we have already spoke to. Others
were legislators, some in their own cities, others were employed in
regulating the governments of foreign states. Some of them only composed
a body of laws; others formed the constitution also, as Lycurgus; and
Solon, who did both. The Lacedaemonians have been already mentioned.
Some persons think that Solon was an excellent legislator, who could
dissolve a pure oligarchy, and save the people from that slavery which
hung over them, and establish the ancient democratic form of government
in his country; wherein every part of it was so framed as to be well
adapted to the whole. In the senate of Areopagus an oligarchy was
preserved; by the manner of electing their [1274a] magistrates, an
aristocracy; and in their courts of justice, a democracy.
Solon seems not to have altered the established form of government,
either with respect to the senate or the mode of electing their
magistrates; but to have raised the people to great consideration in the
state by allotting the supreme judicial department to them; and for this
some persons blame him, as having done what would soon overturn that
balance of power he intended to establish; for by trying all causes
whatsoever before the people, who were chosen by lot to determine them,
it was necessary to flatter a tyrannical populace who had got this
power; which contributed to bring the government to that pure democracy
it now is.
Both Ephialtes and Pericles abridged the power of the Areopagites, the
latter of whom introduced the method of paying those who attended
the courts of justice: and thus every one who aimed at being popular
proceeded increasing the power of the people to what we now see it. But
it is evident that this was not Solon's intention, but that it arose
from accident; for the people being the cause of the naval victory
over the Medes, assumed greatly upon it, and enlisted themselves
under factious demagogues, although opposed by the better part of the
citizens. He thought it indeed most necessary to entrust the people
with the choice of their magistrates and the power of calling them to
account; for without that they must have been slaves and enemies to the
other citizens: but he ordered them to elect those only who were persons
of good account and property, either out of those who were worth five
hundred medimns, or those who were called xeugitai, or those of the
third census, who were called horsemen.
As for those of the fourth, which consisted of mechanics, they were
incapable of any office. Zaleucus was the legislator of the Western
Locrians, as was Charondas, the Catanean, of his own cities, and those
also in Italy and Sicily which belonged to the Calcidians. Some persons
endeavour to prove that Onomacritus, the Locrian, was the first person
of note who drew up laws; and that he employed himself in that business
while he was at Crete, where he continued some time to learn the
prophetic art: and they say, that Thales was his companion; and that
Lycurgus and Zaleucus were the scholars of Thales, and Charondas of
Zaleucus; but those who advance this, advance what is repugnant to
chronology. Philolaus also, of the family of the Bacchiades, was a
Theban legislator. This man was very fond of Diocles, a victor in
the Olympic games, and when he left his country from a disgust at an
improper passion which his mother Alithoe had entertained for him, and
settled at Thebes, Philolaus followed him, where they both died, and
where they still show their tombs placed in view of each other, but so
disposed, that one of them looks towards Corinth, the other does not;
the reason they give for this is, that Diodes, from his detestation of
his mother's passion, would have his tomb so placed that no one could
see Corinth from it; but Philolaus chose that it might be seen from his:
and this was the cause of their living at Thebes. [1274b]
As Philolaus gave them laws concerning many other things, so did he upon
adoption, which they call adoptive laws; and this he in particular did
to preserve the number of families. Charondas did nothing new, except
in actions for perjury, which he was the first person who took into
particular consideration. He also drew up his laws with greater elegance
and accuracy than even any of our present legislators. Philolaus
introduced the law for the equal distribution of goods; Plato that for
the community of women, children, and goods, and also for public tables
for the women; and one concerning drunkenness, that they might observe
sobriety in their symposiums. He also made a law concerning their
warlike exercises; that they should acquire a habit of using both hands
alike, as it was necessary that one hand should be as useful as the
other.
As for Draco's laws, they were published when the government was already
established, and they have nothing particular in them worth mentioning,
except their severity on account of the enormity of their punishments.
Pittacus was the author of some laws, but never drew up any form of
government; one of which was this, that if a drunken man beat any person
he should be punished more than if he did it when sober; for as
people are more apt to be abusive when drunk than sober, he paid no
consideration to the excuse which drunkenness might claim, but regarded
only the common benefit. Andromadas Regmus was also a lawgiver to the
Thracian talcidians. There are some laws of his concerning murders and
heiresses extant, but these contain nothing that any one can say is new
and his own. And thus much for different sorts of governments, as well
those which really exist as those which different persons have proposed.
BOOK III
CHAPTER I
Every one who inquires into the nature of government, and what are its
different forms, should make this almost his first question, What is a
city? For upon this there is a dispute: for some persons say the city
did this or that, while others say, not the city, but the oligarchy,
or the tyranny. We see that the city is the only object which both the
politician and legislator have in view in all they do: but government
is a certain ordering of those who inhabit a city. As a city is a
collective body, and, like other wholes, composed of many parts, it is
evident our first inquiry must be, what a citizen is: for a city is a
certain number of citizens. So that we must consider whom we ought to
call citizen, and who is one; for this is often doubtful: for every one
will not allow that this character is applicable to the same person; for
that man who would be a citizen in a republic would very often not be
one in an oligarchy. We do not include in this inquiry many of those who
acquire this appellation out of the ordinary way, as honorary persons,
for instance, but those only who have a natural right to it.
Now it is not residence which constitutes a man a citizen; for in this
sojourners and slaves are upon an equality with him; nor will it be
sufficient for this purpose, that you have the privilege of the laws,
and may plead or be impleaded, for this all those of different nations,
between whom there is a mutual agreement for that purpose, are allowed;
although it very often happens, that sojourners have not a perfect right
therein without the protection of a patron, to whom they are obliged to
apply, which shows that their share in the community is incomplete. In
like manner, with respect to boys who are not yet enrolled, or old men
who are past war, we admit that they are in some respects citizens,
but not completely so, but with some exceptions, for these are not yet
arrived to years of maturity, and those are past service; nor is
there any difference between them. But what we mean is sufficiently
intelligible and clear, we want a complete citizen, one in whom there
is no deficiency to be corrected to make him so. As to those who are
banished, or infamous, there may be the same objections made and the
same answer given. There is nothing that more characterises a complete
citizen than having a share in the judicial and executive part of the
government.
With respect to offices, some are fixed to a particular time, so that
no person is, on any account, permitted to fill them twice; or else
not till some certain period has intervened; others are not fixed, as a
juryman's, and a member of the general assembly: but probably some one
may say these are not offices, nor have the citizens in these capacities
any share in the government; though surely it is ridiculous to say that
those who have the principal power in the state bear no office in it.
But this objection is of no weight, for it is only a dispute about
words; as there is no general term which can be applied both to the
office of a juryman and a member of the assembly. For the sake of
distinction, suppose we call it an indeterminate office: but I lay it
down as a maxim, that those are citizens who could exercise it. Such
then is the description of a citizen who comes nearest to what all those
who are called citizens are. Every one also should know, that of the
component parts of those things which differ from each other in species,
after the first or second remove, those which follow have either nothing
at all or very little common to each.
Now we see that governments differ from each other in their form,
and that some of them are defective, others [1275b] as excellent as
possible: for it is evident, that those which have many deficiencies
and degeneracies in them must be far inferior to those which are without
such faults. What I mean by degeneracies will be hereafter explained.
Hence it is clear that the office of a citizen must differ as
governments do from each other: for which reason he who is called
a citizen has, in a democracy, every privilege which that station
supposes. In other forms of government he may enjoy them; but not
necessarily: for in some states the people have no power; nor have they
any general assembly, but a few select men.
The trial also of different causes is allotted to different persons; as
at Lacedaemon all disputes concerning contracts are brought before some
of the ephori: the senate are the judges in cases of murder, and so on;
some being to be heard by one magistrate, others by another: and thus
at Carthage certain magistrates determine all causes. But our former
description of a citizen will admit of correction; for in some
governments the office of a juryman and a member of the general assembly
is not an indeterminate one; but there are particular persons appointed
for these purposes, some or all of the citizens being appointed jurymen
or members of the general assembly, and this either for all causes and
all public business whatsoever, or else for some particular one: and
this may be sufficient to show what a citizen is; for he who has a right
to a share in the judicial and executive part of government in any
city, him we call a citizen of that place; and a city, in one word, is
a collective body of such persons sufficient in themselves to all the
purposes of life.