The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

nor whether
they are laws providing for the education of individuals or of
groups-any more than it does in the case of music or gymnastics and
other such pursuits. For as in cities laws and prevailing types of
character have force, so in households do the injunctions and the
habits of the father, and these have even more because of the tie
of blood and the benefits he confers; for the children start with a
natural affection and disposition to obey. Further, private
education has an advantage over public, as private medical
treatment has; for while in general rest and abstinence from food
are good for a man in a fever, for a particular man they may not
be; and a boxer presumably does not prescribe the same style of
fighting to all his pupils. It would seem, then, that the detail is
worked out with more precision if the control is private; for each
person is more likely to get what suits his case.
    But the details can be best looked after, one by one, by a
doctor or gymnastic instructor or any one else who has the general
knowledge of what is good for every one or for people of a certain
kind (for the sciences both are said to be, and are, concerned with
what is universal); not but what some particular detail may perhaps
be well looked after by an unscientific person, if he has studied
accurately in the light of experience what happens in each case,
just as some people seem to be their own best doctors, though they
could give no help to any one else. None the less, it will perhaps
be agreed that if a man does wish to become master of an art or
science he must go to the universal, and come to know it as well as
possible; for, as we have said, it is with this that the sciences
are concerned.
    And surely he who wants to make men, whether many or few, better
by his care must try to become capable of legislating, if it is
through laws that we can become good. For to get any one
whatever-any one who is put before us-into the right condition is
not for the first chance comer; if any one can do it, it is the man
who knows, just as in medicine and all other matters which give
scope for care and prudence.
    Must we not, then, next examine whence or how one can learn how
to legislate? Is it, as in all other cases, from statesmen?
Certainly it was thought to be a part of statesmanship. Or is a
difference apparent between statesmanship and the other sciences
and arts? In the others the same people are found offering to teach
the arts and practising them, e.g. doctors or painters; but while
the sophists profess to teach politics, it is practised not by any
of them but by the politicians, who would seem to do so by dint of
a certain skill and experience rather than of thought; for they are
not found either writing or speaking about such matters (though it
were a nobler occupation perhaps than composing speeches for the
law-courts and the assembly), nor again are they found to have made
statesmen of their own sons or any other of their friends. But it
was to be expected that they should if they could; for there is
nothing better than such a skill that they could have left to their
cities, or could prefer to have for themselves, or, therefore, for
those dearest to them. Still, experience seems to contribute not a
little; else they could not have become politicians by familiarity
with politics; and so it seems that those who aim at knowing about
the art of politics need experience as well.
    But those of the sophists who profess the art seem to be very
far from teaching it. For, to put the matter generally, they do not
even know what kind of thing it is nor what kinds of things it is
about; otherwise they would not have classed it as identical with
rhetoric or even inferior to it, nor have thought it easy to
legislate by collecting the laws that are thought well of; they say
it is possible to select the best laws, as though even the
selection did not demand intelligence and as though right judgement
were not the greatest thing, as in matters of music. For while
people experienced in any department judge rightly the works
produced in it, and understand by what means or how they are
achieved, and what harmonizes with what, the inexperienced must be
content if they do not fail to see whether the work has been well
or ill made-as in the case of painting. Now laws are as it were
the’ works’ of the political art; how then can one learn from them
to be a legislator, or judge which are best? Even medical men do
not seem to be made by a study