Book I
Our purpose is to
consider what form of political community is best of all for those who
are most able to realize their ideal of life. Three alternatives are
conceivable: The members of a state must either have (1) all things or
(2) nothing in common, or (3) some things in common and some not. That
they should have nothing in common is clearly impossible, for the
constitution is a community, and must at any rate have a common
place---one city will be in one place, and the citizens are those who
share in that one city. But should a well ordered state have all
things, as far as may be, in common, or some only and not others? For
the citizens might conceivably have wives and children and property in
common, as Socrates proposes in the Republic of Plato. Which is better,
our present condition, or the proposed new order of society?
Should the citizens of the perfect state have their possessions in
common or not? Three cases are possible: (1) the soil may be
appropriated, but the produce may be thrown for consumption into the
common stock; this is the practice of some nations. Or (2), the soil
may be common, and may be cultivated in common, but the produce divided
among individuals for their private use; this is a form of common
property which is said to exist among certain barbarians. Or the soil
and the produce may be alike common. When the farmers are not the
owners, the case will be different and easier to deal with; but when
they till the ground for themselves the question of ownership will give
a world of trouble. If they do not share equally enjoyments and toils,
those who labor much and get little will necessarily complain of those
who labor little and receive or consume much. These are only some of
the disadvantages which attend the community of property; the present
arrangement, if improved as it might be by good customs and laws, would
be far better.
Property should be in a certain sense common, but, as a general rule,
private; for, when everyone has a distinct interest, men will not
complain of one another, and they will make more progress, because
every one will be attending to his own business. And yet by reason of
goodness, and in respect of use, 'Friends,' as the proverb says, "will
have all things common." Even now there are traces. For, although every
man has his own property, some things he will place at the disposal of
his friends, while of others he shares the use with them. Again, how
immeasurably greater is the pleasure, when a man feels a thing to be
his own; for surely the love of self is a feeling implanted by nature
and not given in vain, although selfishness is rightly censured. No
one, when men have all things in common, will any longer set an example
of liberality or do any liberal action; for liberality consists in the
use which is made of property. Such legislation may have a specious
appearance of benevolence; men readily listen to it, and are easily
induced to believe that in some wonderful manner everybody will become
everybody's friend, especially when some one is heard denouncing the
evils now existing in states, suits about contracts, convictions for
perjury, flatteries of rich men and the like, which are said to arise
out of the possession of private property. These evils, however, are
due to a very different cause---the wickedness of human nature.
Book III
He who would
inquire into the essence and attributes of various kinds of governments
must first of all determine "What is a state?" A state is composite,
like any other whole made up of many parts; these are the citizens, who
compose it. It is evident, therefore, that we must begin by asking, who
is the citizen, and what is the meaning of the term? For here again
there may be a difference of opinion. He who is a citizen in a
democracy will often not be a citizen in an oligarchy. Leaving out of
consideration those who have been made citizens, or who have obtained
the name of citizen any other accidental manner, we may say, first,
that a citizen is not a citizen because he lives in a certain place,
for resident aliens and slaves share in the place; nor is he a citizen
who has no legal right except that of suing and being sued; for this
right may be enjoyed under the provisions of a treaty. But the citizen
whom we are seeking to define is a citizen in the strictest sense,
against whom no such exception can be taken, and his special
characteristic is that he shares in the administration of justice, and
in offices. He who has the power to take part in the deliberative or
judicial administration of any state is said by us to be a citizens of
that state; and, speaking generally, a state is a body of citizens
sufficing for the purposes of life.
Like the sailor, the citizen is a member of a community. Now, sailors
have different functions, for one of them is a rower, another a pilot,
and a third a look-out man...Similarly, one citizen differs from
another, but the salvation of the community is the common business of
them all. This community is the constitution; the virtue of the citizen
must therefore be relative to the constitution of which he is a member.
A constitution is the arrangement of magistracies in a state,
especially of the highest of all. The government is everywhere
sovereign in the state, and the constitution is in fact the government.
For example, in democracies the people are supreme, but in oligarchies,
the few; and, therefore, we say that these two forms of government also
are different: and so in other cases.
First, let us consider what is the purpose of a state, and how many
forms of government there are by which human society is regulated. We
have already said, in the first part of this treatise, when discussing
household management and the rule of a master, that man is by nature a
political animal. And therefore, men, even when they do not require one
another's help, desire to live together; not but that they are also
brought together by their common interests in proportion as they
severally attain to any measure of well-being. This is certainly the
chief end, both of individuals and of states. And also for the sake of
mere life (in which there is possibly some noble element so long as the
evils of existence do not greatly overbalance the good) mankind meet
together and maintain the political community....
The words constitution and government have the same meaning, and the
government, which is the supreme authority in states, must be in the
hands of one, or of a few, or of the many. The true forms of
government, therefore, are those in which the one, or the few, or the
many, govern with a view to the common interest; but governments which
rule with a view to the private interest, whether of the one or of the
few, or of the many, are perversions. Of forms of government in which
one rules, we call that which regards the common interests, monarchy;
that in which more than one, but not many, rule, aristocracy (and it is
so called, either because the rulers are the best men, or because they
have at heart the best interests of the state and of the citizens). But
when the citizens at large administer the state for the common
interest, the government is called a polity. And there is a reason for
this use of language.
Of the above-mentioned forms, the perversions are as follows: of
monarchy, tyranny; of aristocracy, oligarchy; of polity, democracy. For
tyranny is a kind of monarchy which has in view the interest of the
monarch only; oligarchy has in view the interest of the wealthy;
democracy, of the needy: none of them the common good of all. Tyranny,
as I was saying, is monarchy exercising the rule of a master over the
political society; oligarchy is when men of property have the
government in their hands; democracy, the opposite, when the indigent,
and not the men of property, are the rulers....Then ought the good to
rule and have supreme power? But in that case everybody else, being
excluded from power, will be dishonored. For the offices of a state are
posts of honor; and if one set of men always holds them, the rest must
be deprived of them. Then will it be well that the one best man should
rule? Nay, that is still more oligarchical, for the number of those who
are dishonored is thereby increased....The discussion of the first
question shows nothing so clearly as that laws, when good, should be
supreme; and that the magistrate or magistrates should regulate those
matters only on which the laws are unable to speak with precision owing
to the difficulty of any general principle embracing all particulars.
Book VII
Now it is evident
that the form of government is best in which every man, whoever he is,
can act best and live happily....If we are right in our view, and
happiness is assumed to be virtuous activity, the active life will be
the best, both for every city collectively, and for individuals. In
what remains the first point to be considered is what should be the
conditions of the ideal or perfect state; for the perfect state cannot
exist without a due supply of the means of life...In size and extent it
should be such as may enable the inhabitants to live at once
temperately and liberally in the enjoyment of leisure. And so states
require property, but property, even though living beings are included
in it, is no part of a state; for a state is not a community of living
beings only, but a community of equals, aiming at the best life
possible.
Let us then enumerate the functions of a state, and we shall easily
elicit what we want: First, there must be food; secondly, arts, for
life requires many instruments; thirdly, there must be arms, for the
members of a community have need of them, and in their own hands, too,
in order to maintain authority both against disobedient subjects and
against external assailants; fourthly, there must be a certain amount
of revenue, both for internal needs, and for the purposes of war;
fifthly, or rather first, there must be a care of religion which is
commonly called worship; sixthly, and most necessary of all there must
be a power of deciding what is for the public interest, and what is
just in men's dealings with one another. These are the services which
every state may be said to need. For a state is not a mere aggregate of
persons, but a union of them sufficing for the purposes of life; and if
any of these things be wanting, it is as we maintain impossible that
the community can be absolutely self-sufficing. A state then should be
framed with a view to the fulfillment of these functions. There must be
farmers to procure food, and artisans, and a warlike and a wealthy
class, and priests, and judges to decide what is necessary and
expedient.
Now, since we are here speaking of the best form of government, i.e.,
that under which the state will be most happy (and happiness, as has
been already said, cannot exist without virtue), it clearly follows
that in the state which is best governed and possesses men who are just
absolutely, and not merely relatively to the principle of the
constitution, the citizens must not lead the life of mechanics or
tradesmen, for such a life is ignoble, and inimical to virtue. Neither
must they be farmers, since leisure is necessary both for the
development of virtue and the performance of political duties. Again,
there is in a state a class of warriors, and another of councillors,
who advise about the expedient and determine matters of law, and these
seem in an especial manner parts of a state. Now, should these two
classes be distinguished, or are both functions to be assigned to the
same persons? It remains therefore that both functions should be
entrusted by the ideal constitution to the same persons, not, however,
at the same time, but in the order prescribed by nature, who has given
to young men strength and to older men wisdom. Besides, the ruling
class should be the owners of property, for they are citizens, and the
citizens of a state should be in good circumstances; whereas mechanics
or any other class which is not a producer of virtue have no share in
the state.
Since every political society is composed of rulers and subjects let us
consider whether the relations of one to the other should interchange
or be permanent. For the education of the citizens will necessarily
vary with the answer given to this question. Now, if some men excelled
others in the same degree in which gods and heroes are supposed to
excel mankind in general, so that the superiority of the governors was
undisputed and patent to their subjects, it would clearly be better
that the one class should rule and the other serve. But since this is
unattainable, and kings have no marked superiority over their subjects,
such as Scylax affirms to be found among the Indians, it is obviously
necessary on many grounds that all the citizens alike should take their
turn of governing and being governed. Equality consists in the same
treatment of similar persons, and no government can stand which is not
founded upon justice....
We conclude that from one point of view governors and governed are
identical, and from another different. And therefore their education
must be the same and also different. For he who would learn to command
well must, as men say, first of all learn to obey....Since the end of
individuals and of states is the same, the end of the best man and of
the best constitution must also be the same; it is therefore evident
that there ought to exist in both of them the virtues of leisure; for
peace, as has been often repeated, is the end of war, and leisure of
toil. But leisure and cultivation may be promoted, not only by those
virtues which are practiced in leisure, but also by some of those which
are useful to business. For many necessaries of life have to be
supplied before we can have leisure. Therefore a city must be temperate
and brave, and able to endure: for truly, as the proverb says, "There
is no leisure for slaves," and those who cannot face danger like men
are the slaves of any invader.
Since the legislator should begin by considering how the frames of the
children whom he is rearing may be as good as possible, his first care
will be about marriage---at what age should his citizens marry, and who
are fit to marry? The union of male and female when too young is bad
for the procreation of children; it also conduces to temperance not to
marry too soon; for women who marry early are apt to be wanton; and in
men too the bodily frame is stunted if they marry while the seed is
growing (for there is a time when the growth of the seed, also, ceases,
or continues to but a slight extent). Women should marry when they are
about eighteen years of age, and men at seven and thirty; then they are
in the prime of life, and the decline in the powers of both will
coincide. The constitution of an athlete is not suited to the life of a
citizen, or to health, or to the procreation of children, any more than
the valetudinarian or exhausted constitution, but one which is in a
mean between them. A man's constitution should be inured to labor, but
not to labor which is excessive or of one sort only, such as is
practiced by athletes; he should be capable of all the actions of a
freeman. These remarks apply equally to both parents. Women who are
with child should be careful of themselves; they should take exercise
and have a nourishing diet. Their minds, however, unlike their bodies,
they ought to keep quiet, for the offspring derive their natures from
their mothers as plants do from the earth. As to adultery, let it be
held disgraceful, in general, for any man or woman to be found in any
way unfaithful when they are married, and called husband and wife.
As to the exposure and rearing of children, let there be a law that no
deformed child shall live, but that on the ground of an excess in the
number of children, if the established customs of the state forbid this
(for in our state population has a limit), no child is to be exposed,
but when couples have children in excess, let abortion be procured
before sense and life have begun. The Directors of Education, as they
are termed, should be careful what tales or stories the children hear,
for all such things are designed to prepare the way for the business of
later life, and should be for the most part imitations of the
occupations which they will hereafter pursue in earnest. Indeed, there
is nothing which the legislator should be more careful to drive away
than indecency of speech; for the light utterance of shameful words
leads soon to shameful actions. The young especially should never be
allowed to repeat or hear anything of the sort. And since we do not
allow improper language, clearly we should also banish pictures or
speeches from the stage which are indecent. Let the rulers take care
that there be no image or picture representing unseemly actions, except
in the temples of those Gods at whose festivals the law permits even
ribaldry, and whom the law also permits to be worshiped by persons of
mature age on behalf of themselves, their children, and their wives.
And therefore youth should be kept strangers to all that is bad, and
especially to things which suggest vice or hate.
Book VIII
The citizen
should be molded to suit the form of government under which he lives.
And since the whole city has one end, it is manifest that education
should be one and the same for all, and that it should be public, and
not private. Neither must we suppose that any one of the citizens
belongs to himself, for they all belong to the state, and are each of
them a part of the state, and the care of each part is inseparable from
the care of the whole. The customary branches of education are in
number four; they are---(1) reading and writing, (2) gymnastic
exercises, (3) music, to which is sometimes added (4) drawing. Of
these, reading and writing and drawing are regarded as useful for the
purposes of life in a variety of ways, and gymnastic exercises are
thought to infuse courage. Concerning music a doubt may be raised.---in
our own day most men cultivate it for the sake of pleasure, but
originally it was included in education, because nature herself, as has
been often said, requires that we should be able, not only to work
well, but to use leisure well; for, what ought we to do when at
leisure? Clearly we ought not to be amusing ourselves, for then
amusement would be the end of life. But if this is inconceivable, we
should introduce amusements only at suitable times, and they should be
our medicines, for the emotion which they create in the soul is a
relaxation, and from the pleasure we obtain rest.....
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