Politics: A Treatise on Government
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Politics: A Treatise on Government
Chapter 1
1Produced by Eric Eldred A TREATISE ON GOVERNMENT By Aristotle Translated From The Greek Of Aristotle By William Ellis, A.M. 2London & Toronto Published By J M Dent & Sons Ltd. 3& In New York By E. 4Dutton &. 5Co 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. 6It looks back to the Ethics as the Ethics looks forward to the Politics. 7For Aristotle did not separate, as we are inclined to do, the spheres of the statesman and the moralist. 8In 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. 9It is the legislator's task to frame a society which shall make the good life possible. 10Politics 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. 11The state is "a community of well-being in families and aggregations of families for the sake of a perfect and self-sufficing life." 12The legislator is a craftsman whose material is society and whose aim is the good life. 13In 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. 14Protagoras' answer is that there are no special teachers of virtue, because virtue is taught by the whole community. 15Plato and Aristotle both accept the view of moral education implied in this answer. 16In a passage of the Republic (492 b) Plato repudiates the notion that the sophists have a corrupting moral influence upon young men. 17The public themselves, he says, are the real sophists and the most complete and thorough educators. 18No private education can hold out against the irresistible force of public opinion and the ordinary moral standards of society. 19But 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. 20The legislator is the only possible teacher of virtue. 21Such 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. 22Plato's Republic is obviously impracticable, for its author had turned away in despair from existing politics. 23He has no proposals, in that dialogue at least, for making the best of things as they are. 24The 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. 25Thus 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. 26It is a city, he admits in the Laws, for gods or the children of gods, not for men as they are. 27Aristotle has none of the high enthusiasm or poetic imagination of Plato. 28He is even unduly impatient of Plato's idealism, as is shown by the criticisms in the second book. 29But 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. 30His ideal is constructed not of pure reason or poetry, but from careful and sympathetic study of a wide range of facts. 31His 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." 32Aristotle 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. 33In 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. 34It 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." 35In this way the Politics, though it defines the state in the light of its ideal, discusses states and institutions as they are. 36Ostensibly it is merely a continuation of the Ethics, but it comes to treat political questions from a purely political standpoint. 37This 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. 38The 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. 39We can appreciate Aristotle's critical analysis of constitutions, but find it hard to take seriously his advice to the legislator. 40Moreover, the idealism and the empiricism of the Politics are never really reconciled by Aristotle himself. 41It may help to an understanding of the Politics if something is said on those two points. 42We 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. 43But 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. 44When Aristotle talks of the legislator, he is not talking in the air. 45Students of the Academy had been actually called on to give new constitutions to Greek states. 46For the Greeks the constitution was not merely as it is so often with us, a matter of political machinery. 47It was regarded as a way of life. 48Further, 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. 49If we study Greek history, we find that the position of the legislator corresponds to that assigned to him by Plato and Aristotle. 50All 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. 51Such 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. 52The lawgiver was not an ordinary politician. 53He was a state doctor, called in to prescribe for an ailing constitution. 54So 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. 55So 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. 56So 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. 57In 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. 58The situation described must have occurred frequently in actual life. 59The Greeks thought administration should be democratic and law-making the work of experts. 60We think more naturally of law-making as the special right of the people and administration as necessarily confined to experts. 61Aristotle's Politics, then, is a handbook for the legislator, the expert who is to be called in when a state wants help. 62We have called him a state doctor. 63It 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. 64The 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. 65With this position much that Aristotle has to say about government is in agreement. 66He 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. 67It 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. 68The 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. 69If 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. 70Hence 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. 71In 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. 72They all represent, he says, some kind of justice. 73Oligarchs and democrats go wrong in their conception of the good. 74They have come short of the perfect state through misunderstanding of the end or through ignorance of the proper means to the end. 75But if they are states at all, they embody some common conception of the good, some common aspirations of all their members. 76The 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. 77The existence of force is for Plato and Aristotle a sign not of the state but of the state's failure. 78It comes from the struggle between conflicting misconceptions of the good. 79In so far as men conceive the good rightly they are united. 80The state represents their common agreement, force their failure to make that agreement complete. 81The 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. 82If 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. 83This is the principle expressed in Aristotle's account of political justice, the principle of "tools to those who can use them." 84As the aim of the state is differently conceived, the qualifications for government will vary. 85In 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. 86The justest distribution of political power is that in which there is least waste of political ability. 87Further, 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. 88It 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. 89The 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. 90Such 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. 91Aristotle thinks of membership of a state as community in pursuit of the good. 92He wishes to confine membership in it to those who are capable of that pursuit in the highest and most explicit manner. 93His citizens, therefore, must be men of leisure, capable of rational thought upon the end of life. 94He does not recognise the significance of that less conscious but deep-seated membership of the state which finds its expression in loyalty and patriotism. 95His definition of citizen includes only a small part of the population of any Greek city. 96He 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. 97"The artisan only attains excellence in proportion as he becomes a slave," and the slave is only a living instrument of the good life. 98He exists for the state, but the state does not exist for him. 99Aristotle in his account of the ideal state seems to waver between two ideals. 100There is the ideal of an aristocracy and the ideal of what he calls constitutional government, a mixed constitution. 101The principle of "tools to those who can use them" ought to lead him, as it does Plato, to an aristocracy. 102Those 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. 103It 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. 104At 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. 105He 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. 106Hence 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. 107The 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. 108This latter conception is the principle on which the mixed constitution is based. 109This in its distribution of political power gives some weight to "virtue," some to wealth, and some to mere number. 110But 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." 111Aristotle 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. 112The 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. 113The 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. 114In 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. 115This 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. 116Instead, 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. 117The 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. 118Plato 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. 119Most 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. 120Aristotle's mixed constitution springs from a recognition of sectional interests in the state. 121For 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. 122The 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. 123The mixed constitution will be stable if it represents the actual balance of power between different classes in the state. 124When 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. 125Democracy, he explains, is the government not of the many but of the poor; oligarchy a government not of the few but of the rich. 126And each class is thought of, not as trying to express an ideal, but as struggling to acquire power or maintain its position. 127If 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. 128His 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. 129His analysis of the facts forces him to look upon them as the scene of struggling factions. 130The 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. 131The aim which he sets before oligarchs or democracies is not the good life, but simple stability or permanence of the existing constitution. 132With this spirit of realism which pervades Books IV., V., and VI. the idealism of Books I., II., VII., and VIII. is never reconciled. 133Aristotle is content to call existing constitutions perversions of the true form. 134But we cannot read the Politics without recognising and profiting from the insight into the nature of the state which is revealed throughout. 135Aristotle's failure does not lie in this, that he is both idealist and realist, but that he keeps these two tendencies too far apart. 136He 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. 137But 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. 138If 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. 139Aristotle 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. 140He therefore called them natural slaves. 141For, according to Aristotle, that is a man's natural condition in which he does his best work. 142But 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. 143We 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. 144His 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. 145LINDSAY. 146BIBLIOGRAPHY First edition of works (with omission of Rhetorica, Poetica, and second book of OEconomica), 5 vols. by Aldus Manutius, Venice, 1495-8; re-impression supervised by Erasmus and with certain corrections by Grynaeus (including Rhetorica and Poetica), 1531, 1539, revised 1550; later editions were followed by that of Immanuel Bekker and Brandis (Greek and Latin), 5 vols. 147The 5th vol. contains the Index by Bonitz, 1831-70; Didot edition (Greek and Latin), 5 vols. 1481848-74. 149ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS: Edited by T. 150Taylor, with Porphyry's Introduction, 9 vols., 1812; under editorship of J. 151Smith and W. 152Ross, 1908. 153Later editions of separate works: De Anima: Torstrik, 1862; Trendelenburg, 2nd edition, 1877, with English translation, E. 154Wallace, 1882; Biehl, 1884, 1896; with English, R. 155Hicks, 1907. 156Ethica: J. 157Brewer (Nicomachean), 1836; W. 158Jelf, 1856; J. 159Rogers, 1865; A. 160Grant, 1857-8, 1866, 1874, 1885; E. 161Moore, 1871, 1878, 4th edition, 1890; Ramsauer (Nicomachean), 1878, Susemihl, 1878, 1880, revised by O. 162Apelt, 1903; A. 163Grant, 1885; I. 164Bywater (Nicomachean), 1890; J. 165Burnet, 1900. 166Historia Animalium: Schneider, 1812; Aubert and Wimmer, 1860, Dittmeyer, 1907. 167Metaphysica: Schwegler, 1848; W. 168Christ, 1899. 169Organon: Waitz, 1844-6. 170Poetica: Vahlen, 1867, 1874, with Notes by E. 171Moore, 1875; with English translation by E. 172Wharton, 1883, 1885; Uberweg, 1870, 1875; with German translation, Susemihl, 1874; Schmidt, 1875; Christ, 1878; I. 173Bywater, 1898; T. 174Tucker, 1899. 175De Republics, Atheniensium: Text and facsimile of Papyrus, F. 176Kenyon, 1891, 3rd edition, 1892; Kaibel and Wilamowitz--Moel-lendorf, 1891, 3rd edition, 1898; Van Herwerden and Leeuwen (from Kenyon's text), 1891; Blass, 1892, 1895, 1898, 1903; J. 177Sandys, 1893. 178Politica: Susemihl, 1872; with German, 1878, 3rd edition, 1882; Susemihl and Hicks, 1894, etc.; O. 179Immisch, 1909. 180Physica: C. 181Prantl, 1879. 182Rhetorica: Stahr, 1862; Sprengel (with Latin text), 1867; Cope and Sandys, 1877; Roemer, 1885, 1898. 183ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF ONE OR MORE WORKS: De Anima (with Parva Naturalia), by W. 184Hammond, 1902. 185Ethica: Of Morals to Nicomachus, by E. 186Pargiter, 1745; with Politica, by J. 187Gillies, 1797, 1804, 1813; with Rhetorica and Poetica, by T. 188Taylor, 1818, and later editions. 189Nicomachean Ethics, 1819; mainly from text of Bekker, by D. 190Chase, 1847; revised 1861, and later editions with an introductory essay by G. 191Lewes (Camelot Classics), 1890; re-edited by J. 192Mitchell (New Universal Library), 1906, 1910; with an introductory essay by Prof. 193J.H. 194Smith (Everyman's Library), 1911; by R.W.Browne (Bohn's Classical Library), 1848, etc.; by R. 195Williams, 1869, 1876; by W. 196Hatch and others (with translation of paraphrase attributed to Andronicus of Rhodes), edited by E. 197Hatch, 1879; by F, H. 198Peters, 1881; J. 199Welldon, 1892; J. 200Gillies (Lubbock's Hundred Books), 1893. 201Historia Animalium, by R. 202Creswell (Bohn's Classical Library), 1848; with Treatise on Physiognomy, by T. 203Taylor, 1809. 204Metaphysica, by T. 205Taylor, 1801; by J. 206M'Mahon (Bohn's Classical Library), 1848. 207Organon, with Porphyry's Introduction, by O. 208Owen (Bohn's Classical Library), 1848. 209Posterior Analytics, E. 210Poste, 1850; E. 211Bourchier, 1901; On Fallacies, E. 212Poste, 1866. 213Parva Naturalia (Greek and English), by G. 214Ross, 1906; with De Anima, by W. 215Hammond, 1902. 216Youth and Old Age, Life and Death and Respiration, W. 217Ogle, 1897. 218Poetica, with Notes from the French of D'Acier, 1705; by H. 219Pye, 1788, 1792; T. 220Twining, 1789,1812, with Preface and Notes by H. 221Hamilton, 1851; Treatise on Rhetorica and Poetica, by T. 222Hobbes (Bohn's Classical Library), 1850; by Wharton, 1883 (see Greek version), S. 223Butcher, 1895, 1898, 3rd edition, 1902; E. 224Bourchier, 1907; by Ingram Bywater, 1909. 225De Partibus Animalium, W. 226Ogle, 1882. 227De Republica Athenientium, by E. 228Poste, 1891; F. 229Kenyon, 1891; T. 230Dymes, 1891. 231De Virtutibus et Vitiis, by W. 232Bridgman, 1804. 233Politica, from the French of Regius, 1598; by W. 234Ellis, 1776, 1778, 1888 (Morley's Universal Library), 1893 (Lubbock's Hundred Books); by E. 235Walford (with AEconomics, and Life by Dr. 236Gillies) (Bohn's Classical Library), 1848; J. 237Welldon, 1883; B. 238Jowett, 1885; with Introduction and Index by H. 239Davis, 1905; Books i. iii. iv. (vii.) from Bekker's text by W. 240Bolland, with Introduction by A. 241Lang, 1877. 242Problemata (with writings of other philosophers), 1597, 1607, 1680, 1684, etc. 243Rhetorica: A summary by T. 244Hobbes, 1655 (?), new edition, 1759; by the translators of the Art of Thinking, 1686, 1816; by D. 245Crimmin, 1812; J. 246Gillies, 1823; Anon. 2471847; J. 248Welldon, 1886; R. 249Jebb, with Introduction and Supplementary Notes by J. 250Sandys, 1909 (see under Poetica and Ethica). 251Secreta Secretorum (supposititious work), Anon. 1702; from the Hebrew version by M. 252Gaster, 1907, 1908. 253Version by Lydgate and Burgh, edited by R. 254Steele (E.E.T.S.), 1894, 1898. 255LIFE, ETC.: J. 256Blakesley, 1839; A Crichton (Jardine's Naturalist's Library), 1843; J. 257Blackie, Four Phases of Morals, Socrates, Aristotle, etc., 1871; G. 258Grote, Aristotle, edited by A. 259Bain and G. 260Robertson, 1872, 1880; E. 261Wallace, Outlines of the Philosophy of Aristotle, 1875, 1880; A. 262Grant (Ancient Classics for English readers), 1877; T. 263Davidson, Aristotle and Ancient Educational Ideals (Great Educators), 1892. 264A TREATISE ON GOVERNMENT
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