1. Aristotelian Ethics not based on Theology; The light which the metaphysical treatises throw upon the point to which we last referred, makes them an important introduction to Aristotle’s ethical system.
We might have concluded from his Dialectics, that he utterly rejected the Platonical doctrine of Ideas as a scientific exposition. It would not follow that he should discard that belief in some ideal of excellence which had impregnated all mythologies, and had never been banished from the hearts of men. But the Aristotelian conception of God as a ground of nature simply, leads us at once to perceive that no recognition of his perfection can have the least connection in his mind with a scheme of practical life and conduct. It is not with Plato, or any philosopher who had attempted to give the rationale of men’s dreams on this matter, that he will feel a want of sympathy; he actually has not discovered in himself, and does not recognise in his brethren, the want which all ages had been contriving in so many forms to express. And then it becomes an interesting question, what groundwork in the Aristotelian ethics will replace that Theology which is so obviously the foundation of the Platonic?
2. but on the nature of the Soul. The answer to this question brings us to a very important treatise of Aristotle, which embodies more of what has, in our day, been commonly called metaphysics, especially here and in Scotland, than the works professedly bearing that title. We mean the three books on the Soul. The first of these books is occupied as usual with an examination of previous theories on the subject. He despatches very elaborately the different notions respecting the soul which Democritus, Empedocles, or the Pythagoreans had encouraged. He shows why we can never be satisfied with calling it motion, or the principle of motion, or the primary element or number. He then proceeds in the second book to develope his own doctrine. The soul belongs to the category of entities. Soul the characteristic of living creatures. It has then, of course, a matter and a form; the matter here, as elsewhere, coincides with its δύναμις; the form is ἐντελέχεια. The soul is neither of these separately, but the result of both. There go to the forming of sight the energy of vision, and the faculty of vision, and there is, in addition to both, an organ, an actual eye. What is true of this sense is true of the whole substance of which it may be said to form a part. Distinction of souls. The soul, possessing both its energy and its faculty distinct from the organ through which both are manifested, does yet require such an organ. The soul is not a body, but neither is it without a body. Generally, it is the distinction of a living creature (ζῷον), that it has a ψυχή.
3. But all living creatures have not a soul exercising the same δυνάμεις. We may define all the faculties which can exist in any living creature to be these: first, the faculty of receiving nourishment (θρεπτική); secondly, the faculty of sensation (αἰσθητική); thirdly, the faculty of motion in place (κινητική); fourthly, the faculty of impulse or desire (ὀρεκτική); fifthly, the faculty of intelligence (διανοητική). The threptic faculty is the lowest of these, and is present in all cases. The soul, therefore, as endued with this one faculty, may be attributed to vegetables. Wherever any of the higher faculties are present, there all the lower will exist also. Under each of these heads a very interesting discussion arises respecting the character and limits of the particular faculty. The question, for instance, under the first head is, whether the life in each plant or thing must be considered as the active or only the passive instrument in self-sustentation? Under the head of sensation many more complicated points arise, and Aristotle enters into the whole theory of the subject, examining the operation of each sense in detail. This, it may be remembered, is the discussion which is carried on with so much liveliness and profundity in one part of the Theætetus. The opinions there attributed to Protagoras (and so far as the doctrine of sensation goes, apart from its moral consequences, not denied by Plato) is nearly the same as that maintained by Aristotle. Sensation is neither in the organ of sense nor in the object, but is generated between both, and is the effect of the medium through which they hold communion with each other. The question as to the motive faculty involves us at once in a consideration of that which is higher than itself. Movement must depend upon impulse. This will be true in all creatures. And in spite of the effect of the appearances which are produced upon or by means of the senses, in generating impulses or desires, we must not impute a governing power to sensation; we must rather think that the nature of the faculty of impulse determines how these shall influence it, than that it is determined by them. It would seem, then, that each creature has a nature, which is expressly seen in this faculty of impulse. Wherein then does man differ from other creatures? Neither, it would seem, in the absence of this impulsive faculty, nor in its being less properly his nature than it is that of other animals, but rather in his having the dianoetic faculty to direct it and act with it. In the coincidence and conspiracy then of these two faculties will consist the true nature of man. Thus, the soul may be considered as containing three portions, logically not materially separate, one absolutely without reason, the other rational, another participant of reason.
In this psychological system we discover the root of the Aristotelian ethics of which we were in search: they begin in Psychology and terminate in Politics.
Section VII. The Aristotelian Ethics
1. The Aristotelian Ethics. At the outset of the Nicomachean Ethics (which has always been regarded as the most complete exposition of his views on this subject), Aristotle tells us that Ethics is an introduction to Politics. The two, therefore, are not identified in his mind as they are in Plato’s; it is quite possible, nay necessary, to treat of them distinctly. According to his uniform method, he seeks for the grounds of combination and society in the nature of man. He cannot tolerate Plato’s simplicity in admitting outward necessities and accidents to be the occasions of society; for this simplicity necessarily involves another proceeding which seemed to him not simple but pregnant with all Plato’s idealism, that of supposing some higher Unity than that which is expressed in the character of any particular society to be involved in the constitution of Society itself. A principle of equality and adjustment is that which seems to him to pervade all things, to be in a manner a law of the universe, and to be especially the secret of human order and government. The like principle, taking a different form, is the mainspring of his ethical system. Virtue lies in a mean; in a sense it may be said to be a mean, so that, on the one hand, Government, which is also a mean, is naturally occupied in sustaining the virtue of particular men, and on the other, this Virtue is itself the great conservation of government. This observation ought to be made, as without it the connection between these two spheres, which is as much acknowledged by Aristotle as by his master, will not be apparent. Many difficulties also will present themselves to the reader as insurmountable, if he looks at the ethics as an entire system, and does not remember that a directing educating power is for practical purposes presumed to reside in a governing body, the functions and nature of which have not yet been defined.
2. HAPPINESS the object of human pursuit. But we are not to suppose that Virtue, or the attainment of this mean, is in Aristotle’s judgment the formal object at which either the life of each particular man, or society at large, is aiming. When once the notion of an absolute good, which “those dear” and troublesome men, the Platonists, had introduced, was taken out of the way, there remained one obvious and generally admitted end of all human desires and searchings. Happiness is emphatically the human τέλος. But if human, then the definition of this happiness must be sought in that which is peculiarly the characteristic of the human class. It cannot exist in any of those powers or faculties which are common to it with other classes; not therefore in the threptic or the æsthetic powers merely and chiefly. And anyhow, it must be in some exercises or energies that it will consist, for in these the soul or life of every creature makes itself manifest. It must be then in the energies of our best and highest nature, exercised not at intervals, but through a whole life, a life possessing so much of external prosperity as shall permit them a free scope.
3. The human virtue. But all energies must have a certain direction; the right direction of its energies constitutes the virtue of each class. What then will be specifically the human virtue? It must of course be in the man, and, according to our psychology, the ὄρεξις (the impulsive faculty) is the constitutive faculty of the human soul, though its excellence consists in its subjection to the dianoetic faculty. Virtue then will imply the presence and harmony of both these; still it will be found most positively and characteristically in the former. It must be then a habit. But of what kind? To what does it point? What is its aim, seeing that an absolute good, or an ideal, is out of the question, and that happiness cannot be the aim, because it is the very nature of happiness which we are now resolving into its elements? We are not, Aristotle says, to trouble ourselves about scientific accuracy in our definitions; our purpose is purely practical; we want to form an actual man of a certain character, not a theoretic man.
4. Excesses. Well, then, practically speaking, excess is in every case that to which you attribute mischief and derangement. There is an excess called Timidity, and an excess called Foolhardiness, an excess called Prodigality, and an excess called Narrowness or Avarice. The Mean. But the extremes suppose a mean. This is the end at which our habit aims. Virtue generally lies in this. But we are aiming at action; and actions are not general, but specific; how then shall we arrive at the notion of specific virtues? Their species will be determined by their distinct objects. Certain tendencies and habits will be conversant with external pleasures. Certain others with passions of the mind itself; in each case it will be found that the practical purpose defines the virtue. But though a general description may be given both of the excesses and the means which correspond to them, a description which will be really applicable in all cases, it must ever be remembered that the excess itself may be different for each man, actually different according to his actual circumstances, different in its effects and influence upon him according to his greater proneness to one side or the other. For instance, liberality will be practically a different quality in the rich man and the poor man, and the temptation to profusion will be that which is to be most resisted by one, to meanness by another. Virtue will be therefore in a mean, that is one to us, and not one which can be absolutely and invariably ascertained by rule.
5. Predetermination. Hence it follows that this habit supposes the exercise of a faculty of choice or predetermination. But what is predetermination? Is it the same as the act of willing? Clearly not: that has reference to ends, this to the choice of means for the attainment of ends. It implies a right end, and a right determination of the will to that end. It may be called ὄρεξις βουλευτική (the reader will observe how steadily his psychological axiom which we have spoken of is kept in view throughout the scheme). But to what cases does this will or counsel refer, and how far is it dependent upon ourselves? Clearly we do not consult about things absolute or eternal, nor about things within the sphere of accident. What remain are all such things as are done by us or with our concurrence. Now of such some may be doubtless taken from under our control by actual violence practised upon us; such cases give rise to various questions of casuistry, as to the course which a virtuous man will choose, whether he will submit to do wrong or to die, each of which cases must be determined on its own merits. With respect to ordinary cases, the doubt arises, whether inclination is not itself a force upon the will and on the reason both. Such a notion Aristotle disposes of, first, by the remark that an influence upon the impulse or will cannot by any reasonable man be confounded with a force by which its operations are hindered; and secondly, by admitting that an incapacity for particular action may doubtless be produced in any man by these influences, but that this incapacity is itself the result of a previous habit which need not have been formed. Habits then are in our own power, actions not always.
6. Specific characters. Having settled these foundations, the particular ethical virtues come next under his consideration. Here lies a field for the exercise of his always acute and often delicate habits of observation. It is alien from the temper of mind which Shakspeare has wrought into us, to contemplate any character as the mere development of a single specific quality. We do not like to hear of a man as the Magnificent, or the Magnanimous, or the Modest, or the Temperate, or the Just. But, doubtless, there was something in this which suited well with Greek habits. Aristides, Themistocles, Cimon, if they had not a distinct purpose of realising a particular form of character, yet drop more readily into certain moulds than the traditionary characters in the story either of ancient Rome or modern Europe. How a similar tendency was revived at one period in Christian society, and how its revival was connected with a scholastic reverence for Aristotle, we may have to notice hereafter.
7. Among these virtues it behoves us especially to take notice of two, because they throw some light upon the entire system, and upon ethical inquiries generally. Justice. The first is Justice (δικαιοσύνη). Is not this virtue itself an abstract of all the virtues? We have seen how Plato answers the question in his Republic. Aristotle treats it differently, yet so as to make us see how much he had felt the influence of his master’s ideas, even when he rejected them. In one sense (he says) δικαιοσύνη may indeed be said to be a complex of virtues. For as it is the habit which mainly disposes us to obey the laws, and as laws prohibit excesses of all kinds, and encourage virtues of all kinds, this will have respect to them all. But yet there is such an offence as overreaching, and there must be a specific virtue answering to this. The specific virtue will bear relation to the general. Inequality, in matters appertaining to property, will be the evil. Evenness or equality will be the virtue. This evenness or equality implies, on each side, an excess, a more and a less; a more and a less, however, in reference to given persons. The conservation of the right proportion or relation of things to persons, and the restoration of the balance when it has been violated, is then that at which this virtue especially aims. Take away the restriction to property, and this virtue would seem to be in a remarkable manner the very virtue of virtues; so emphatically is it the preserver of the mean. But that very restriction makes it more difficult to tell how far this virtue belongs to the individual, and how far to the State, so that δικαιοσύνη, though bearing a much more limited meaning, becomes, to our author as to his master, a kind of debatable ground between the two regions. At all events δικαιοσύνη must be looked upon as the ethical virtue of a statesman.
8. Moderation. The other virtue we must speak of is σωφροσύνη. Self-restraint. As this is opposed to ἀκολασία, and involves the general notion of an even habit of mind not overcome or disturbed by sensual desires, it might seem to include within it ἐγκράτεια, or self-restraint. But as in the psychology of Aristotle the soul consists of a rational, an irrational, and a quasi-rational part, the quality which implies a control over the irrational or merely animal nature will not necessarily be the same with that which concerns the quasi-rational, that is, the passions and affections. As the name σωφροσύνη is given to the first, the name ἐγκράτεια is used for the second. Hence a curious consequence. This self-government seems something distinct not only from the peculiar virtue which has reference to sensual desires, but even from virtue itself. That has its chief seat in the nature or impulsive faculty over which this is supposed to rule. We are somewhat puzzled, therefore, after going through our catalogue of virtues, to find a book opening with the remark, that there are three moral states to be avoided, κακία, ἀκρασία, θηριότης, and three good states corresponding to these, ἀρετή, ἐγκράτεια, and a certain divine excellence as much transcending ordinary humanity as θηριότης sinks below it. This result will appear inevitable to any one who reflects upon the system; that which is conservative of virtue must in some way be distinct from virtue, but we must acknowledge also that it considerably impairs the symmetry of a design otherwise singularly complete.
9. The Dianoetic faculties. Before, however, Aristotle touched upon this conservative power, which, of course, is connected with the purely ethical part of man, it was needful for him to expound more distinctly than he had done in his psychology the nature of these dianoetic faculties to which such important functions are committed. He begins with reaffirming the position so often insisted upon, that the ὄρεξις, and the διάνοια, must co-operate in order that any good moral act may be the result, or, as he expresses it, with neatness and in more strict accordance with his own notion of the διάνοια—that what is affirmed or denied by the one should be what is pursued or avoided by the other. Now, the soul, he says, may affirm or deny truly in five ways, by τέχνη, by ἐπιστήμη, by φρόνησις, by σοφία, by νοῦς. Τέχνη is what in modern language would be called the creative power or faculty, the poetic organ in its highest and lowest sense. Ἐπιστήμη is the converse of this. It deals with that which cannot be otherwise, it does not fashion anew but perceives; what it deals with are universals, not particulars. Aristotelian science is, as we have seen already, conversant with conclusions, not premises; but there must be some faculty which deals with premises, a tact, intuition, or spiritual sense; this is νοῦς. The sphere of this faculty would seem to be very limited, for as it is bounded on one side by ἐπιστήμη, it is bounded on the other by σοφία. This faculty, we were told in the Metaphysics, was conversant with ἀρχαί or principles; it might therefore seem to cover the whole ground which is assigned to νοῦς. But that which affirms things to be so and so without a reasoning process, is undoubtedly distinct from that faculty which, through long and winding labyrinths, searches for causes. Now, when the νοῦς is said to deal with premises, the first kind of operation is indicated; when the σοφία, the second. Φρόνησις, the last of the five, is different, and yet has something of the character of the preceding. Its sphere is with the altering and the alterable, like τέχνη, yet it is not productive or creative, but perceptive and distinguishing. So far it resembles ἐπιστήμη, differing from it wholly in its subject-matter. It has a quickness of tact like the νοῦς, but this is merely the result of practice and experience. It is, therefore, like σοφία, a laborious investigating faculty. Yet its end is not speculation, but practice. The φρόνιμος, or practical experimental man, therefore, is contrasted with the σοφός, or the meditative speculative man; though it is not denied that σοφία may assist and be usefully connected with φρόνησις. From this analysis it is evident that this last quality is especially that which, in combination with a right ἦθος, or a proper condition of the impulsive faculty, produces virtue. The doctrine of Socrates, that virtue is φρόνησις (a doctrine, by the way, which is somewhat carelessly stated, for the real Socratic doctrine treats virtue as ἐπιστήμη, the knowledge of what is absolutely good, prudence being only a guardian faculty to preserve the soul when seeking that knowledge from the seductions and confusions of sense), this doctrine is said to form only one side of the truth; φρόνησις is not virtue, though virtue cannot exist without it.
10. Friendship. We have seen that δικαιοσύνη does to a certain extent occupy the same position in the Aristotelian and in the Platonic system as a link between morals and politics. But Aristotle could not help perceiving that this quality, under the conditions which he had imposed upon it, explained but very imperfectly the connection of human society with the life of the individual. This dry and hard principle of distribution, commutation, and rectification, could never be substituted for the music of Plato’s Commonwealth. Reflecting on this difference, it seems to have struck him, that in the idea of Friendship we have that which fills up the void, and that Friendship together with Justice constitute the social law. Regarded in this light, Friendship occupies the most important place in a system of ethics, which is always looking onwards to Politics. And we cannot wonder that Aristotle should have devoted two elaborate books to the consideration of it. Any one who is acquainted with the traditions and with the mythology of Greece, must be aware how much the Greek mind was occupied with this subject. Here, as elsewhere, physical and moral thoughts became intertwined, and the same language was used to explain the law of sympathy between the skies and earth, and that between man and man. Aristotle is careful to disengage himself from these ambiguous phrases, which he had not perhaps imagination enough to perceive were more than metaphors, and fixes his mind upon Friendship as one of the essential conditions of our nature to which the very existence of communion must be referred.
11. Ground of friendship. This being assumed, he has no hesitation in setting aside many popular notions of friendship as giving a wholly inadequate view of its nature. The doctrine which refers friendship either to Utility or to Pleasure as its ultimate foundation, he rejects, not with sentimental indignation, but as being at variance with facts and reason. The transitoriness of such friendships, and their dependence upon accidents, are arguments as much to the practical man as to the philosopher, that the essence of the quality is not to be discovered in them. The friendship of good men for each other must then be that from which we are to deduce the nature of friendship itself. Here, and here only, we learn the conditions, or even the possibility of friendship, for, properly speaking, it is not possible, except upon the supposition that one man can really delight in another, and love him as himself. A politician seriously reflecting on the existence of society, must feel that a principle is at work among men which can only be defined in these terms; that all the imperfect appearances which it presents in the world, so far as they are imperfect, make its meaning less intelligible; that, supposing selfishness absolute, it could not exist at all, and that the highest form in which it exhibits itself is the test of its character. These important conclusions are stated again and again, and with the greatest precision, by Aristotle. On the strength of them he affirms, that the idea of equality or proportion is as much discoverable in friendship as in justice; only that in justice the worth of each object is the first consideration, its fitness to us the second; in friendship, fitness or suitableness the first, worth the subordinate. On the same ground he maintains that friendship is to be seen in its true operation, not in clubs, nor societies, nor partnerships, where men associate for some specific object (though here also Justice is required as its assessor and its complement, every kind of society implying a law to regulate it, as well as a motive to form it, a principle of government as well as of concord), but in a polity of which all these must be considered as portions. An inquiry, therefore, into the different kinds of government becomes connected with an inquiry into the law of friendship.
12. Ground of Society in relationships In this passage we discover how much Aristotle surpassed Plato in his apprehensions respecting the nature of relationships, while he fell so far short of him in everything that concerns the absolute. He discovers in the relations of father to son, of husband to wife, of brother to sister, three primary forms, as it were, of friendship; and the grounds of the three kinds of government to which all others may be reduced: Monarchy, Aristocracy, Timocracy, of which the three corruptions are, Tyranny, Oligarchy, Democracy. Under each of these true forms of government, friendship and justice will be found existing and mutually sustaining each other. Friendship, however, will take its peculiar form from the form of the society. It will be the friendship of patronage and of reverence in a monarchy. It will have the conjugal model in an aristocracy, one party being respected as the superior in worth, and retaining that respect only while he asserts dominion on that ground. The fraternal type of equality will be preserved in all friendship under a Timocracy. On the other hand, in the depraved forms, friendship will be depraved and weak; and in a tyranny, which he regards as the worst of all, because the corruption of the best, both it and justice will disappear, subjects being regarded as animals, and as such incapable of human qualities. The existence of this law of sympathy being then established as one of the two necessary conditions of human fellowship, and virtue being shown to be the necessary condition of friendship, Aristotle proceeds to solve a great many questions of deep and practical interest. Friendship and Self-love. The most important of these turn upon the relation between friendship and self-love. In what sense is friendship a part of self-love? in what sense opposed to it? As the notion of pleasure or utility had already been separated from friendship, it is obvious that the vulgar notion of self-love must be separated from it also. Still, ordinary language intimates that there must be some analogy between the two ideas, and it seems hard to arrive at any higher description than this, that the friend is loved as another self. May not the difficulty then be solved thus? may not self-love be itself distinguished from all associations of profit and loss? and may we not affirm that the wise and good man is the true self-lover, the person who alone is at one with himself, and can take pleasure in his own company? If this be so, it would not be correct to seek for the ground of friendship in self-love; it would be more correct to say that they mutually illustrate each other. Only the man who has the capacity of friendship will have himself for a friend; and only he who can enjoy and love himself, is capable of enjoying and loving another. These two books on Friendship are certainly not the least profound in Aristotle’s writings, and to the general reader they will be far the most delightful.
13. Pleasure. From this subject we proceed, in the tenth book, to the question of Pleasure; what it is; how far, according to the doctrine of some philosophers, it is to be denounced as an evil, how far it is a good, or connected with the good. Aristotle argues against many prevalent definitions of pleasure. He shows why it is neither a κίνησις, a mere movement, a γένεσις, the passage into a state, or an ἀναπλήρωσις, the filling up of a want. He considers the universal longing of mankind a sufficient witness that pleasure is something real and worthy in itself, and not merely a means to some other end. An examination of the facts leads to the same conclusion. But it leads also to a refutation of the opinion, that pleasure can be made a distinct formal purpose of life. It is the flower or consummation of something else. The exercise of sight, the exercise of hearing, each brings its own appropriate pleasure after it. But the pleasure is connected with the energy or exercise, and cannot be severed from it. If then you would understand what pleasure is, and what are the highest pleasures, you must understand what energies are, and what are the highest energies. You cannot refer the last to the first, you must refer the first to the last. That energy, then, which is most appropriate to each creature, brings the pleasure which is appropriate to that creature; “the energy of the soul, according to virtue,” brings the highest pleasure to man. The pleasure which an act gives to him who performs it is the test of that act having become habitual to him, of his having acquired the character corresponding to that act. The man who delights in musical energies has become a musician. The man who delights in just acts is a just man.
14. The highest happiness. From this analysis of the nature of pleasure, the step is easy to a reconsideration of the meaning and nature of happiness, and so to a brief review of the whole treatise. Happiness he has found to be the end of man, and to consist in (not, like pleasure, merely to be the effect of) the use of his highest energies. What then, on the whole, is the highest happiness? Contemplation. It is that of the contemplative man. If we can imagine what the life of the gods is, seeing it is absurd to attribute to them Justice, because that has respect to contracts and conventions; Temperance, because that implies temptations to which they cannot be exposed; and so of most of the other acts which preserve the mean for man,—we must believe it to consist in Contemplation. But then for the attainment of this celestial life in those who can attain it, there is need of early discipline and education. There is need that they should be trained to the avoidance of those extremes in which evil lies, and to the exercise of those virtues which are the only conditions of, and preparations for, the contemplative happiness, though it transcends them. And for the rest there must be a discipline to cultivate what capacities there are in them; or in case of resistance to such cultivation, to coerce and punish them. Here then is the field for the science of Politics. That science, Aristotle says, the Sophists had resolved into a mere teaching how to talk and argue, but the foundations of it lie in ethical knowledge and ethical practice; it must be worthless and rotten when these foundations are not discovered. This is the introduction to the book on Politics.
Section VIII. Politics of Aristotle
1. How Ontology is applied to Politics. We can but give our readers a few hints to assist them in the study of this treatise, which, valuable and interesting as it is, can never bear the same relation to the other Aristotelian writings which the Platonic Republic bears to his dialogues. Not, it will be evident enough from our former remarks, that the Politics of Aristotle are not most closely connected with his Ethics and his Ontology, but that they are connected with them rather as results and deductions than as being a principal and fundamental part of the design. The doctrine which has been set forth with so much diligence in the Metaphysics, that every substance presupposes a lordly energising power, and a submissive receptive faculty or matter, reappears again here in connection with the most obvious and outward facts. The relation of Male and Female is assumed as the first hint of the existence of society, and as containing the principle of it. The idea of fellowship implied in this relation involves another, that of rule and subjection, which has its complete expression in the relation of Master and Slave. Compare these two relations with that relation in each man which has been explained in the Psychology and illustrated in the Ethics, between the reasoning power, the faculty participant of reason, and the mere animal nature, and you feel at once that the two explain each other, and set forth the condition under which society is meant to exist. Where the reason is developed and its magisterial authority acknowledged, the other faculty being in fellowship with and subordination to it, and the animal nature controlled and subjected, there you have as well the true condition of the individual man as the true condition of society; there the relations of husband and wife, and master and servant, will be preserved; they will not be arbitrary, but legal and orderly.
2. The household and the city. In such a state of things only a polity is possible; and, as this is the only true condition of each man, it is evident that a political state is his only proper and natural condition, every other must be anomalous. You find then the constituents of a polity in a household; but a house is not therefore a miniature city; a city is not merely a collection of households; each has its own distinct nature and laws, though each alike has this characteristic—that by human relations it consists—that in them you discover the end of its existence—and that all means and instruments are to be contemplated with reference to these. Economy is not primarily, but secondarily and accidentally, the management of the goods or property of the household; it is mainly the right ordering of the household itself. The slave is the connecting link between one branch of economy and the other; he must be considered as an instrument, and yet he must be treated as a man. A polity can be considered only as composed of freemen, quite as much because a freeman only understands how to obey as because he only understands how to govern.
3. The Platonic Unity rejected. It follows almost necessarily from this view of the case—first, that the Platonic idea of unity should be as little heeded by Aristotle in his Polity as in his Metaphysics; that he should utterly abhor the attempt to embody that idea by abolishing distinct relationships, these being in his opinion the very foundation of society; that he should recognise all forms of government as good which have their ground in any actual relation, and all as evil which have become in any sense arbitrary; that he should therefore acknowledge, much as Plato did, three true forms, and three departures from these; and that he should look on the democratical departure,—the attempt to establish a society in which all should govern, with at least as little complacency as the rest; that, at the same time, he should conceive the form from which this is a deviation,—the form which makes all freemen eligible to government, though not necessarily participant of it, as his ideal. These seem to us the main principles of the book, which being understood, the occasional difficulties and contradictions it presents will be less puzzling; its position in reference to the other parts of the philosophy will be felt; its value as a key to the political science of modern as well as ancient times will be appreciated.