Let us first determine what are the proper limits of an oligarchy and
a democracy, and what is just in each of these states; for all men have
some natural inclination to justice; but they proceed therein only to
a certain degree; nor can they universally point out what is absolutely
just; as, for instance, what is equal appears just, and is so; but not
to all; only among those who are equals: and what is unequal appears
just, and is so; but not to all, only amongst those who are unequals;
which circumstance some people neglect, and therefore judge ill; the
reason for which is, they judge for themselves, and every one almost is
the worst judge in his own cause. Since then justice has reference to
persons, the same distinctions must be made with respect to persons
which are made with respect to things, in the manner that I have already
described in my Ethics.
As to the equality of the things, these they agree in; but their dispute
is concerning the equality of the persons, and chiefly for the reason
above assigned; because they judge ill in their own cause; and also
because each party thinks, that if they admit what is right in some
particulars, they have done justice on the whole: thus, for instance,
if some persons are unequal in riches, they suppose them unequal in the
whole; or, on the contrary, if they are equal in liberty, they suppose
them equal in the whole: but what is absolutely just they omit; for
if civil society was founded for the sake of preserving and increasing
property, every one's right in the city would be equal to his fortune;
and then the reasoning of those who insist upon an oligarchy would be
valid; for it would not be right that he who contributed one mina should
have an equal share in the hundred along with him who brought in all the
rest, either of the original money or what was afterwards acquired.
Nor was civil society founded merely to preserve the lives of its
members; but that they might live well: for otherwise a state might
be composed of slaves, or the animal creation: but this is not so; for
these have no share in the happiness of it; nor do they live after their
own choice; nor is it an alliance mutually to defend each other from
injuries, or for a commercial intercourse: for then the Tyrrhenians and
Carthaginians, and all other nations between whom treaties of commerce
subsist, would be citizens of one city; for they have articles
to regulate their exports and imports, and engagements for mutual
protection, and alliances for mutual defence; but [1280b] yet they
have not all the same magistrates established among them, but they are
different among the different people; nor does the one take any care,
that the morals of the other should be as they ought, or that none of
those who have entered into the common agreements should be unjust, or
in any degree vicious, only that they do not injure any member of the
confederacy. But whosoever endeavours to establish wholesome laws in
a state, attends to the virtues and the vices of each individual who
composes it; from whence it is evident, that the first care of him who
would found a city, truly deserving that name, and not nominally so,
must be to have his citizens virtuous; for otherwise it is merely an
alliance for self-defence; differing from those of the same cast which
are made between different people only in place: for law is an agreement
and a pledge, as the sophist Lycophron says, between the citizens of
their intending to do justice to each other, though not sufficient to
make all the citizens just and good: and that this is fact is evident,
for could any one bring different places together, as, for instance,
enclose Megara and Corinth in a wall, yet they would not be one city,
not even if the inhabitants intermarried with each other, though this
inter-community contributes much to make a place one city. Besides,
could we suppose a set of people to live separate from each other, but
within such a distance as would admit of an intercourse, and that there
were laws subsisting between each party, to prevent their injuring one
another in their mutual dealings, supposing one a carpenter, another
a husbandman, shoemaker, and the like, and that their numbers were ten
thousand, still all that they would have together in common would be a
tariff for trade, or an alliance for mutual defence, but not the same
city. And why? not because their mutual intercourse is not near enough,
for even if persons so situated should come to one place, and every one
should live in his own house as in his native city, and there should be
alliances subsisting between each party to mutually assist and prevent
any injury being done to the other, still they would not be admitted
to be a city by those who think correctly, if they preserved the same
customs when they were together as when they were separate.
It is evident, then, that a city is not a community of place; nor
established for the sake of mutual safety or traffic with each other;
but that these things are the necessary consequences of a city, although
they may all exist where there is no city: but a city is a society of
people joining together with their families and their children to live
agreeably for the sake of having their lives as happy and as independent
as possible: and for this purpose it is necessary that they should live
in one place and intermarry with each other: hence in all cities there
are family-meetings, clubs, sacrifices, and public entertainments to
promote friendship; for a love of sociability is friendship itself;
so that the end then for which a city is established is, that the
inhabitants of it may live happy, and these things are conducive to that
end: for it is a community of families and villages for the sake of a
perfect independent life; that is, as we have already said, for the sake
of living well and happily. It is not therefore founded for the purpose
of men's merely [1281a] living together, but for their living as men
ought; for which reason those who contribute most to this end deserve to
have greater power in the city than those who are their equals in family
and freedom, but their inferiors in civil virtue, or those who excel
them in wealth but are below them in worth. It is evident from what
has been said, that in all disputes upon government each party says
something that is just.