The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

of text-books. Yet people try, at
any rate, to state not only the treatments, but also how particular
classes of people can be cured and should be treated-distinguishing
the various habits of body; but while this seems useful to
experienced people, to the inexperienced it is valueless. Surely,
then, while collections of laws, and of constitutions also, may be
serviceable to those who can study them and judge what is good or
bad and what enactments suit what circumstances, those who go
through such collections without a practised faculty will not have
right judgement (unless it be as a spontaneous gift of nature),
though they may perhaps become more intelligent in such
matters.
    Now our predecessors have left the subject of legislation to us
unexamined; it is perhaps best, therefore, that we should ourselves
study it, and in general study the question of the constitution, in
order to complete to the best of our ability our philosophy of
human nature. First, then, if anything has been said well in detail
by earlier thinkers, let us try to review it; then in the light of
the constitutions we have collected let us study what sorts of
influence preserve and destroy states, and what sorts preserve or
destroy the particular kinds of constitution, and to what causes it
is due that some are well and others ill administered. When these
have been studied we shall perhaps be more likely to see with a
comprehensive view, which constitution is best, and how each must
be ordered, and what laws and customs it must use, if it is to be
at its best. Let us make a beginning of our discussion.

Politics, Book I
    Translated by Benjamin Jowett
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I
    Every state is a community of some kind, and every community is
established with a view to some good; for mankind always act in
order to obtain that which they think good. But, if all communities
aim at some good, the state or political community, which is the
highest of all, and which embraces all the rest, aims at good in a
greater degree than any other, and at the highest good.
    Some people think that the qualifications of a statesman, king,
householder, and master are the same, and that they differ, not in
kind, but only in the number of their subjects. For example, the
ruler over a few is called a master; over more, the manager of a
household; over a still larger number, a statesman or king, as if
there were no difference between a great household and a small
state. The distinction which is made between the king and the
statesman is as follows: When the government is personal, the ruler
is a king; when, according to the rules of the political science,
the citizens rule and are ruled in turn, then he is called a
statesman.
    But all this is a mistake; for governments differ in kind, as
will be evident to any one who considers the matter according to
the method which has hitherto guided us. As in other departments of
science, so in politics, the compound should always be resolved
into the simple elements or least parts of the whole. We must
therefore look at the elements of which the state is composed, in
order that we may see in what the different kinds of rule differ
from one another, and whether any scientific result can be attained
about each one of them.
II
    He who thus considers things in their first growth and origin,
whether a state or anything else, will obtain the clearest view of
them. In the first place there must be a union of those who cannot
exist without each other; namely, of male and female, that the race
may continue (and this is a union which is formed, not of
deliberate purpose, but because, in common with other animals and
with plants, mankind have a natural desire to leave behind them an
image of themselves), and of natural ruler and subject, that both
may be preserved. For that which can foresee by the exercise of
mind is by nature intended to be lord and master, and that which
can with its body give effect to such foresight is a subject, and
by nature a slave; hence master and slave have the same interest.
Now nature has distinguished between the female and the slave. For
she is not niggardly, like the smith who fashions the Delphian
knife for many uses; she makes each thing for a single use, and
every instrument is best made when intended for one and not for
many uses. But among barbarians no distinction is made between
women and slaves, because there is no natural ruler among them:
they are a community of slaves, male and female.