The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

the good man cannot coincide. All must have the
virtue of the good citizen—thus, and thus only, can the state be
perfect; but they will not have the virtue of a good man, unless we
assume that in the good state all the citizens must be good.
    Again, the state, as composed of unlikes, may be compared to the
living being: as the first elements into which a living being is
resolved are soul and body, as soul is made up of rational
principle and appetite, the family of husband and wife, property of
master and slave, so of all these, as well as other dissimilar
elements, the state is composed; and, therefore, the virtue of all
the citizens cannot possibly be the same, any more than the
excellence of the leader of a chorus is the same as that of the
performer who stands by his side. I have said enough to show why
the two kinds of virtue cannot be absolutely and always the
same.
    But will there then be no case in which the virtue of the good
citizen and the virtue of the good man coincide? To this we answer
that the good ruler is a good and wise man, and that he who would
be a statesman must be a wise man. And some persons say that even
the education of the ruler should be of a special kind; for are not
the children of kings instructed in riding and military exercises?
As Euripides says:
No subtle arts for me, but what the state requires.
    As though there were a special education needed by a ruler. If
then the virtue of a good ruler is the same as that of a good man,
and we assume further that the subject is a citizen as well as the
ruler, the virtue of the good citizen and the virtue of the good
man cannot be absolutely the same, although in some cases they may;
for the virtue of a ruler differs from that of a citizen. It was
the sense of this difference which made Jason say that ‘he felt
hungry when he was not a tyrant,’ meaning that he could not endure
to live in a private station. But, on the other hand, it may be
argued that men are praised for knowing both how to rule and how to
obey, and he is said to be a citizen of approved virtue who is able
to do both. Now if we suppose the virtue of a good man to be that
which rules, and the virtue of the citizen to include ruling and
obeying, it cannot be said that they are equally worthy of praise.
Since, then, it is sometimes thought that the ruler and the ruled
must learn different things and not the same, but that the citizen
must know and share in them both, the inference is obvious. There
is, indeed, the rule of a master, which is concerned with menial
offices—the master need not know how to perform these, but may
employ others in the execution of them: the other would be
degrading; and by the other I mean the power actually to do menial
duties, which vary much in character and are executed by various
classes of slaves, such, for example, as handicraftsmen, who, as
their name signifies, live by the labor of their hands: under these
the mechanic is included. Hence in ancient times, and among some
nations, the working classes had no share in the government—a
privilege which they only acquired under the extreme democracy.
Certainly the good man and the statesman and the good citizen ought
not to learn the crafts of inferiors except for their own
occasional use; if they habitually practice them, there will cease
to be a distinction between master and slave.
    This is not the rule of which we are speaking; but there is a
rule of another kind, which is exercised over freemen and equals by
birth -a constitutional rule, which the ruler must learn by
obeying, as he would learn the duties of a general of cavalry by
being under the orders of a general of cavalry, or the duties of a
general of infantry by being under the orders of a general of
infantry, and by having had the command of a regiment and of a
company. It has been well said that ‘he who has never learned to
obey cannot be a good commander.’ The two are not the same, but the
good citizen ought to be capable of both; he should know how to
govern like a freeman, and how to obey like a freeman—these are the
virtues of a citizen. And, although the temperance and justice of a
ruler are distinct from those of a subject, the virtue of a good
man will include both; for the virtue of the good man who is free
and also a subject, e.g., his justice, will not be one but will
comprise distinct kinds, the one qualifying him to rule, the other
to obey, and differing as the temperance and courage of men and
women differ. For