The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

separated from law and justice, he is the worst
of all; since armed injustice is the more dangerous, and he is
equipped at birth with arms, meant to be used by intelligence and
virtue, which he may use for the worst ends. Wherefore, if he have
not virtue, he is the most unholy and the most savage of animals,
and the most full of lust and gluttony. But justice is the bond of
men in states, for the administration of justice, which is the
determination of what is just, is the principle of order in
political society.
III
    Seeing then that the state is made up of households, before
speaking of the state we must speak of the management of the
household. The parts of household management correspond to the
persons who compose the household, and a complete household
consists of slaves and freemen. Now we should begin by examining
everything in its fewest possible elements; and the first and
fewest possible parts of a family are master and slave, husband and
wife, father and children. We have therefore to consider what each
of these three relations is and ought to be: I mean the relation of
master and servant, the marriage relation (the conjunction of man
and wife has no name of its own), and thirdly, the procreative
relation (this also has no proper name). And there is another
element of a household, the so-called art of getting wealth, which,
according to some, is identical with household management,
according to others, a principal part of it; the nature of this art
will also have to be considered by us.
    Let us first speak of master and slave, looking to the needs of
practical life and also seeking to attain some better theory of
their relation than exists at present. For some are of opinion that
the rule of a master is a science, and that the management of a
household, and the mastership of slaves, and the political and
royal rule, as I was saying at the outset, are all the same. Others
affirm that the rule of a master over slaves is contrary to nature,
and that the distinction between slave and freeman exists by law
only, and not by nature; and being an interference with nature is
therefore unjust.
IV
    Property is a part of the household, and the art of acquiring
property is a part of the art of managing the household; for no man
can live well, or indeed live at all, unless he be provided with
necessaries. And as in the arts which have a definite sphere the
workers must have their own proper instruments for the
accomplishment of their work, so it is in the management of a
household. Now instruments are of various sorts; some are living,
others lifeless; in the rudder, the pilot of a ship has a lifeless,
in the look-out man, a living instrument; for in the arts the
servant is a kind of instrument. Thus, too, a possession is an
instrument for maintaining life. And so, in the arrangement of the
family, a slave is a living possession, and property a number of
such instruments; and the servant is himself an instrument which
takes precedence of all other instruments. For if every instrument
could accomplish its own work, obeying or anticipating the will of
others, like the statues of Daedalus, or the tripods of Hephaestus,
which, says the poet,
of their own accord entered the assembly of the Gods;
    if, in like manner, the shuttle would weave and the plectrum
touch the lyre without a hand to guide them, chief workmen would
not want servants, nor masters slaves. Here, however, another
distinction must be drawn; the instruments commonly so called are
instruments of production, whilst a possession is an instrument of
action. The shuttle, for example, is not only of use; but something
else is made by it, whereas of a garment or of a bed there is only
the use. Further, as production and action are different in kind,
and both require instruments, the instruments which they employ
must likewise differ in kind. But life is action and not
production, and therefore the slave is the minister of action.
Again, a possession is spoken of as a part is spoken of; for the
part is not only a part of something else, but wholly belongs to
it; and this is also true of a possession. The master is only the
master of the slave; he does not belong to him, whereas the slave
is not only the slave of his master, but wholly belongs to him.
Hence we see what is the nature and office of a slave; he who is by
nature not his own but another’s man, is by nature a slave; and he
may be said to be another’s man who, being a human being, is also a
possession.