Aristotle · a new plain-English translation from the original language
1| [1252a] Since we see that every city is some kind of community, and that every community is constituted for the sake of some good (for all men do everything for the sake of what seems to them good), it is clear that all communities aim at some good, and that the community which is most sovereign of all and includes all the others aims most of all at the good that is most sovereign of all. This is what is called the city, the political community. Now those who think that the statesman, the king, the household manager, and the master of slaves are the same do not speak well (for they suppose these differ not in kind but in the multitude or fewness of those under them — as if one who rules a few were a master, one who rules more a household manager, and one who rules still more a statesman or king, on the assumption that a great household and a small city do not differ; and that the statesman and the king differ in that when a man himself stands at the head he is a king, and when he rules and is ruled in turn according to the principles of such a science, he is a statesman) — but these claims are not true. This will become clear if we examine the matter according to the method we have laid down. For just as in other cases the compound must be divided down to its uncompounded elements (since these are the smallest parts of the whole), so too by examining what a city is composed of, we shall see better, both concerning these things, how they differ from one another, and whether it is possible to grasp something scientific about each of the things named.
2| If, then, one were to look at things as they grow from the beginning, in this case as in others, one would get the finest view of them. First, then, those who cannot exist without each other must necessarily pair together, as female and male for the sake of generation (and this not from choice, but because, as in the other animals and plants too, it is natural to desire to leave behind another such as oneself), and ruler and ruled by nature, for the sake of preservation. For that which is able by its intelligence to look ahead is by nature ruler and by nature master, while that which is able with its body to do this labor is ruled and is by nature a slave; hence the same thing is advantageous to master and slave.
3| [1252b] By nature, then, the female and the slave are distinguished (for nature makes nothing as the bronze-workers make the Delphic knife, in a stinting way, but one thing for one purpose; for thus each instrument would be completed most finely, if it served not many tasks but one). Among barbarians, however, the female and the slave hold the same rank. The reason is that they do not have that which is by nature a ruler, but their community comes to be one of female slave and male slave. Hence the poets say, 'It is fitting that Greeks rule barbarians,' as though barbarian and slave were by nature the same thing. From these two communities, then, the household first arises, and Hesiod spoke rightly when he wrote, 'first of all a house, and a wife, and an ox for ploughing' — for the ox serves the poor in place of a household slave. The community established by nature for everyday purposes, then, is the household, whose members Charondas calls 'those who share one's breadbin,' and Epimenides the Cretan 'those who share one's manger.' The community formed of several households for the sake of something more than daily use is the village. The village seems, according to nature, most of all to be a colony of a household, made up of those whom some call 'sharers of the same milk' — children and children's children.
4| For this reason cities were at first ruled by kings, and even now the nations still are; for they came together out of communities that were ruled by kings, since every household is ruled by its eldest member as a king, and so too are the colonies formed from it, on account of kinship. This is what Homer means when he says, 'Each man lays down the law for his children and his wives' — for they lived scattered, and this is how people dwelt in ancient times. And this is why all say that the gods too are ruled by a king — because they themselves, some still now and others in ancient times, were ruled by kings; for just as men make the gods' forms in their own likeness, so too they make the gods' ways of life. The community formed of several villages, when complete, is the city, which by now has reached, one may say, the limit of full self-sufficiency; it comes into being for the sake of life, but it exists for the sake of living well. Hence every city exists by nature, if indeed the first communities do; for the city is their end, and nature is an end. For what each thing is when its coming-into-being is complete — this we call the nature of that thing, whether of a man, a horse, or a household. Again, that for the sake of which a thing exists, its end, is best;
5| [1253a] and self-sufficiency is both an end and best. From this it is clear that the city belongs among the things that exist by nature, and that man is by nature a political animal, and that one who is without a city, not by chance but by nature, is either a mean sort of being or something greater than man — like the man reviled by Homer as 'clanless, lawless, hearthless'; for the man who is such by nature is also eager for war, since he is like an isolated piece in a game of draughts. That man is a political animal to a greater degree than any bee or any herd animal is clear. Nature, on our account, makes nothing pointlessly, and among the animals, speech belongs to man alone. Mere voice signals pain and pleasure, and is therefore found in the other animals too (for their nature extends this far — to having a sense of pain and pleasure and conveying these to one another), but speech exists to reveal advantage and harm, and consequently also right and wrong; for humans alone possess, unlike the other creatures, a perception of good and evil, of right and wrong, and the rest;
6| and community in these things is what makes a household and a city. And the city is by nature prior to the household and to each of us individually. Necessarily, the whole precedes the part in nature; since if the whole body is destroyed there will be no foot or hand, except in name only — as one might speak of a stone hand, for once destroyed it will be a hand of that sort only in name. Everything is defined by its function and its capacity, so that when things are no longer such as to perform their function, we must not say they are the same things, but that they are the same in name only. It is clear, then, that the city exists by nature and is prior to each individual; for if each individual when separated is not self-sufficient, he will be in a condition like that of the other parts in relation to the whole; and one who is unable to live in community, or who has no need to because of his self-sufficiency, is no part of a city, so that he is either a beast or a god. In all men, then, there is by nature an impulse toward this sort of community, and the one who first established it was the cause of the greatest of goods. For just as man, when perfected, is the best of animals, so too, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all; for injustice is most dangerous when armed, and man is born equipped with arms meant to serve practical wisdom and virtue, which it is possible to use for the most opposite ends. Hence, without virtue, man is the most unholy and savage of animals, and the worst in regard to sexual indulgence and gluttony.
7| But justice is a political matter; for the administration of right is the ordering of the political community, and justice is the discernment of what is right. [1253b] Since it is clear from what parts the city is composed, we must first speak of household management; for every city is composed of households. The parts of household management correspond in turn to the parts of which a household itself is composed; and a complete household consists of slaves and free persons. Since one must first investigate each thing in its smallest elements, and the first and smallest parts of a household are master and slave, husband and wife, father and children, we should examine these three relationships to see what each is and what it ought to be. These are: the relation of mastery, the relation of marriage (for the union of woman and man has no name of its own), and third, the relation of procreation (for this too has not been named by any special term). Let these, then, be the three relationships we have mentioned. There is also a part which some consider to be household management, others its greatest part; how matters stand with it we must consider — I mean what is called the art of acquisition. Let us first speak of master and slave, so that we may see what pertains to necessary use, and also whether we can grasp anything about them, for the sake of knowledge, better than what is now supposed. For some think that mastery is a kind of science, and that household management, mastery, statesmanship, and kingship are the same, as we said when we began.
8| But for others, mastery is against nature (for by law one man is a slave and another free, but by nature there is no difference); and for that reason this is not even just, for it is done by force. Since, then, property is a part of the household and the art of acquiring property is a part of household management (for without the necessities it is impossible even to live, let alone to live well), and just as for the definite crafts it would be necessary that there be the tools proper to them, if the work is to be accomplished, so too for the household manager. Now of tools some are lifeless and some are ensouled (for example, for the ship's captain the rudder is a lifeless tool, but the lookout is an ensouled one; for the assistant, in the crafts, has the character of a tool). So too a piece of property is a tool for living, and property in general is a multitude of tools, and the slave is a piece of property that is ensouled, and every assistant is, as it were, a tool that stands before other tools. For if each of the tools could perform its own work on command or by anticipation, the way they say of the statues of Daedalus, or the tripods of Hephaestus, which the poet says entered the gathering of the gods of their own accord, so that shuttles wove by themselves and picks played the lyre by themselves, then master-craftsmen would have no need of assistants and masters no need of slaves.
9| [1254a] Now the things called tools are tools of production, while a piece of property is a tool of action; for from the use of the shuttle something else comes to be beyond the use itself, but from clothing and from a bed there comes only the use. Further, since production differs in kind from action, and both need tools, it is necessary that these tools too have the same difference. But life is action, not production; and that is why the slave is an assistant in matters concerning action. Now a piece of property is described in the same way as a part is described: a part belongs not merely to some whole but is wholly that whole's; property stands the same way. So the master merely holds mastery over the slave and is not himself owned by him, while the slave, beyond simply serving the master, is entirely his. From this, then, it is clear what the nature of the slave is and what his capacity is: for he who, by nature, belongs not to himself but to another, while being a human being, is by nature a slave; and a man belongs to another whenever, being a human being, he is a piece of property; and a piece of property is a tool for action, and separable from its owner. But whether there is anyone who is by nature of this sort or not, and whether it is better and just for someone to be a slave or not, but rather all slavery is against nature — this must be examined after these matters.
10| Nor is it difficult to see this both by reasoning and to learn it from the facts. For ruling and being ruled belong not only among the necessary things but also among the advantageous, and from the moment of birth some things are marked off, some toward being ruled, others toward ruling. And there are many kinds both of rulers and of ruled (and the rule of better subjects is always better, for example rule over a human being rather than over a beast; for the work accomplished by better subjects is a better work; and wherever one thing rules and another is ruled, there is a certain work belonging to these). For all things that are composed of a number of parts and come to form some one common thing, whether out of continuous parts or out of separate ones, in all of them the ruling element and the ruled element are manifest, and this belongs to ensouled things from the whole of nature; for even in things that do not partake of life there is a certain ruling principle, as in a musical harmony. But these matters perhaps belong to a more external line of inquiry. First among animals, a living creature consists of a soul together with a body, one member ruling by nature, the other being ruled. And one must look for what is according to nature in things that are in their natural condition, rather than in things that are corrupted; and that is why one must study the human being who is in the best condition both in body and in soul, in whom this is evident,
11| [1254b] since in the case of those who are depraved or badly disposed, it would often seem that the body rules the soul, on account of their being in a base and unnatural condition. It is possible, then, as we say, to observe first in the living animal both mastering rule and political rule; for the soul rules the body with a mastering rule, while the intellect rules desire with a political or kingly rule. In these cases it is evident that it is according to nature and advantageous for the body to be ruled by the soul, and for the affective part to be ruled by the intellect and the part that has reason, whereas equality between them, or the reverse, is harmful to all. Again, it is the same way between man and the other animals: for tame animals are better in nature than wild ones, and for all of these it is better to be ruled by man, for in this way they attain safety. Further, as between male and female, the one is by nature superior and the other inferior, the one ruling and the other ruled. And the same manner of relation must necessarily hold among all human beings as well. All those, then, who are as different from other men as soul is from body and man from beast — and they are in this condition, all those whose function is the use of the body, and this is the best that comes from them — these are by nature slaves, for whom it is better to be ruled by this kind of rule, if indeed it is so even for the cases mentioned.
12| For he is by nature a slave who is capable of belonging to another (and that is why he does also belong to another), and who partakes of reason to the extent of perceiving it but not of having it. For the other animals do not perceive by reason but obey by their affections. And the use made of them differs little; for assistance for the necessities of the body comes from both alike, from slaves and from tame animals. Nature wishes, then, to make even the bodies of the free and of the slaves different, the latter strong for necessary use, the former upright and useless for such tasks, but useful for a political life (and this life in turn comes to be divided into the needs of war and of peace); but the opposite often happens as well, some having the bodies of free men and others having the souls; since this at least is evident, that if men were to become as different in body alone as the images of the gods, everyone would say that those who fell short deserve to be slaves to these. And if this is true in the case of the body, it is much more just that it be marked out in the case of the soul; but it is not equally easy to see the beauty of the soul as the beauty of the body.
13| [1255a] That there are, then, by nature some who are free and others who are slaves, is evident, and for these it is both advantageous and just to be slaves. But it is not difficult to see that those who assert the contrary are also right in a certain way. For being a slave and the slave himself are spoken of in two senses. For there is also a slave and a state of slavery by law: the law being a certain agreement by which what is conquered in war is said to belong to the conquerors. Now many of those versed in the laws bring this claim of right up on a charge, as they would indict an orator for proposing an illegal measure, on the ground that it is monstrous if the one who is able to use force, and is superior in power, will have as slave and subject the one who was forced. And some hold this view, others that view, even among the wise. The cause of this dispute, and what makes the arguments overlap, is that in a certain way virtue, when furnished with resources, is also most able to use force, and the conquering side is always superior in some good, so that it seems that force is not without virtue, but that the dispute is only about what is just (for on this account some think that the just is nothing but goodwill, while others think that this very thing is just, that the stronger should rule).
14| For once these arguments are separated out from each other, neither of them has any strength or plausibility on its own — I mean the argument that the better in point of virtue ought not to rule and be master. Now some people, holding fast, as they think, to a certain justice (for law is a kind of justice), lay it down that slavery arising from war is just — and yet at the same time they deny it. For it is possible that the origin of some wars is not just, and no one would ever say that a man undeserving of slavery is a slave; otherwise the result will be that people thought to be of the noblest birth turn out to be slaves, and children of slaves, if it should happen that they are captured and sold. That is why they refuse to call these people themselves slaves, but only the barbarians. Yet when they say this, they are seeking nothing other than the thing that is by nature a slave, which is exactly what we said at the outset; for they are forced to admit that some people are slaves everywhere and others nowhere. The same holds for nobility of birth as well: they consider themselves noble not only among themselves but everywhere, but the barbarians noble only at home, on the assumption that there is a nobility and freedom that is unqualified and one that is not unqualified — just as Theodectes' Helen says: 'Sprung from divine roots on both sides, who would think it fit to call me a slave-woman?'
15| But when they say this, they are marking off slave from free, and noble from ignoble, by nothing other than virtue and vice. [1255b] For they think it fitting that, just as a human being is born from a human being and a beast from beasts, so too a good offspring is born from good parents. But nature often wishes to do this, yet is not always able to. It is clear, then, that the dispute has some reason to it, and that it is not the case that some people are simply by nature slaves and others free; and also that in some cases such a distinction is marked out, where it is advantageous and just for the one to be a slave and the other to be a master, and where the one ought to be ruled and the other ought to exercise the rule it is by nature fitted to exercise, and so be master, while ruling badly harms them both alike (since part and whole share one advantage, just as body and soul do; the slave is in a sense a piece of the master — an animate piece of his body, yet one that stands apart. This is why master and slave can share a real benefit, even friendship, when nature has fitted each of them for the role toward the other; but where the relation does not arise this way, and rests instead on law and compulsion, the opposite is true). It is clear from these considerations too that mastery and statesmanship are not the same thing, nor are all the forms of rule the same as one another, as some people say. For the one is rule over people who are by nature free, the other over slaves; and household management is a monarchy (for every household is ruled by one), while statesmanship is rule over people who are free and equal.
16| Now the master is not so called in virtue of a branch of knowledge, but in virtue of being a certain kind of person, and likewise the slave and the free man. Yet there could be a kind of knowledge belonging to mastery and a kind belonging to slavery — the kind belonging to slavery being the sort of thing the man in Syracuse used to teach; for there, taking a fee, he used to teach boys the routine services of household duty. And instruction in such things could extend even further, to cookery and the other branches of service of that kind. For among such tasks some are more honorable than others, some more necessary, and, as the proverb says, 'slave before slave, master before master.' All such branches, then, are forms of slavish knowledge; but the knowledge belonging to mastery is the knowledge of how to make use of slaves. For being a master does not consist in acquiring slaves, but in using slaves. This branch of knowledge, however, has nothing great or dignified about it; for whatever the slave must know how to do, the master must know how to direct him to do. That is why, for those with the means not to be troubled with it themselves, an overseer takes on this honor, while they themselves engage in politics or philosophy. The art of acquiring slaves is different from both of these — the just kind, that is, which is a form of warfare or of hunting. Let this, then, be the way we have distinguished the matter concerning slave and master.
17| [1256a] Let us now consider, as a whole, property and the art of acquiring wealth, following the method we have laid down, since the slave, too, was a part of property. First, then, one might raise the question whether the art of acquiring wealth is the same as household management, or a part of it, or subordinate to it; and if subordinate, whether in the way that the art of shuttle-making is subordinate to the art of weaving, or in the way that the art of bronze-working is subordinate to statue-making (for they do not serve in the same way: the one supplies tools, the other the matter — and by matter I mean the material substrate out of which some work is completed, for example wool for the weaver, bronze for the statue-maker). That household management is not the same as the art of acquiring wealth is clear (for the one has the task of procuring, the other of using — for what other art will there be for using the things in the household besides household management?). Whether household management includes wealth-getting as one of its parts, or whether wealth-getting counts instead as a separate kind, remains an open question; for if it belongs to the art of acquiring wealth to consider from where money and property will come, and property comprises many parts, and so does wealth, then first there is the question whether farming is a part of household management or a distinct kind, and likewise, in general, the care and acquisition of provisions.
18| But there are, in fact, many kinds of provisions, and that is why there are also many ways of life, both among animals and among human beings; for it is not possible to live without provisions, so that differences in provisions have made the ways of life of animals different. For among wild animals some are herd-animals and some solitary, whichever way is advantageous to them for getting food, since some of them are flesh-eating, some fruit-eating, and some omnivorous; so that nature has marked out their ways of life with a view to their ease and their preference in these matters. And since the same thing is not by nature pleasant to each, but different things to different creatures, the ways of life even among the flesh-eaters themselves, and among the fruit-eaters themselves, differ from one another. And likewise among human beings too; for their ways of life differ greatly. The most idle are the pastoral peoples (for their food, coming from tame animals, is obtained without toil, while they are at leisure; but since it is necessary for their herds to move about because of the need for pasture, they too are forced to move along with them, cultivating what amounts to a herd of living crops). Some get their living by hunting instead, and different groups by different kinds of hunting — some, for instance, from raiding, others from fishing, all those who live near lakes, marshes, rivers, or a sea of that kind, and others from birds or wild game.
19| But the largest class of human beings lives from the land and from cultivated crops. The ways of life, then, are about this many in number, at least so far as they involve labor that grows of itself and provide their food not through exchange and retail trade — [1256b] pastoral, raiding, fishing, hunting, farming. And there are those who live agreeably by mixing some of these together, filling out whichever way of life happens to fall short of being self-sufficient — some, for instance, combine the pastoral together with raiding, others farming with hunting; and likewise with the rest, they pass their lives in whatever manner necessity forces upon them jointly. Such property, then, appears to be given by nature herself to all, both at the very first coming-into-being, and again once they have reached maturity. For even at the original coming-into-being, some animals bring forth along with their offspring enough food to last until the offspring can provide for itself — as many, for instance, as produce grubs or lay eggs; and as many as bear live young have food for their offspring within themselves for a certain time, namely the substance called milk. So it is clear, in the same way, that once they have come into being we must suppose that plants exist for the sake of animals, and the other animals for the sake of human beings — the tame ones both for use and for food, and of the wild ones, if not all, then at least most, for the sake of food and other assistance, so that clothing and other tools may be produced from them.
20| If, then, nature makes nothing incomplete and nothing in vain, it is necessary that nature has made all these things for the sake of human beings. This is why the craft of war, too, will in some sense be a natural mode of acquisition — hunting counts as one branch of it — a craft to be applied both to wild beasts and to those human beings who are naturally suited for rule yet refuse it, since a war of that sort is just by nature. One kind of acquisition, then, in accordance with nature, is a part of household management, in that it is necessary either to have on hand, or to provide so as to have on hand, a store of those goods which are necessary for life and useful for the community of the city or the household — goods whose accumulation constitutes wealth. And true wealth, it seems, is made up of these. For the self-sufficiency of this kind of possession, with a view to a good life, is not unlimited, as Solon says, writing: 'no limit to wealth is set up as manifest for men' (Solon, fr. 13.71). For it is limited, just as with the other crafts too: no instrument of any craft is unlimited, either in number or in size, and wealth is a quantity of instruments for household management and for political rule. That there is, then, a kind of acquisition in accordance with nature for household managers and statesmen, and for what reason, is clear. But there is another kind of acquisition, which people call by that name especially — and it is right to call it that — the art of getting wealth, in virtue of which there seems to be no limit to wealth and possession:
21| [1257a] which many people consider to be one and the same as the kind just discussed, because of their close resemblance; but it is neither the same as the one described nor far removed from it. One of them is by nature, the other is not by nature, but comes about rather through a certain experience and skill. Let us take our starting point about it from here. Of every possession there are two uses; both belong to the thing in its own right, but not in its own right in the same way — rather, one is proper to the thing, the other is not proper to it: for example, of a sandal, there is wearing it and there is exchanging it. Both are uses of the sandal: for the person who exchanges a sandal with someone who needs a sandal, for money or for food, uses the sandal as a sandal, but not according to its proper use — for it did not come to be for the sake of exchange. The same holds for the other possessions as well. For there is a kind of exchange applicable to all of them, arising at first out of what is natural, from the fact that some people have more than enough and others less than enough of what suffices (from which it is also clear that retail trade is not by nature a part of the art of getting wealth: for as much as was sufficient for them, it was necessary to make the exchange). In the first community, then (this is the household), it is clear that exchange has no function in it, but only once the community already consists of more members.
22| For some shared everything in common, while others, being separated, shared many other things again, different ones, exchanges of which they had to make according to their needs — just as many barbarian peoples still do, by way of exchange. For they trade the useful things themselves for one another, and nothing further, giving and taking wine, say, for grain, and each of the other such things. Now this kind of exchange is neither against nature, nor is it any species of the art of getting wealth (for it existed to fill up a natural self-sufficiency); yet it was out of this that the other kind arose, in due course. For as assistance from abroad became more foreign — by importing what they lacked and exporting what they had in excess — the use of currency was of necessity devised. For not everything among the things necessary by nature is easily carried about; and so, for the purposes of exchange, people agreed among themselves to give and take something which, being itself one of the useful things, had a use that was easy to handle for the purposes of life — for example, iron and silver, or anything else of that kind — at first defined simply by size and weight, but finally also by having a stamp put on it, so as to free people from having to measure it; for the stamp was set on as a mark of the quantity.
23| [1257b] Once currency, then, had already been devised out of this necessary exchange, the other kind of the art of getting wealth arose, retail trade — at first perhaps coming about in a simple way, then, through experience, becoming more skilled — from what source and how an exchange might produce the greatest profit. This is why the art of getting wealth is thought to be concerned above all with currency, and its function is thought to be the ability to see from what source an abundance will come, since it is held to be productive of wealth and money. And indeed people often set down wealth as an abundance of currency, because the art of getting wealth and retail trade are concerned with this. But at other times, currency seems again to be nonsense, and entirely a matter of convention, nothing by nature — since, if those who use it change it, it is worth nothing and useful for none of the necessities, and a man rich in currency will often be at a loss for necessary food. Yet it is strange that wealth should be of such a kind that a man in abundance of it may perish of hunger — like that Midas of the story, who, because of the insatiability of his wish, found everything set before him turned to gold. This is why people look for something else, wealth and the art of getting wealth being distinct, and they are right to look for it. For the art of getting wealth and wealth in accordance with nature are different things, and this latter belongs to household management, while the other, retail trade, is productive of wealth not in every way but through the exchange of money.
24| And it is thought to be concerned with currency, for currency is the element and limit of exchange. And this wealth, the wealth from this kind of art of getting wealth, is indeed unlimited. For just as the medical art is unlimited in its pursuit of health, and each of the crafts is unlimited in the pursuit of its end (since it is that end above all that they wish to produce), while they are not unlimited in what serves the end (for the end is a limit for all of them), so too with this art of getting wealth there is no limit of the end, and the end is wealth of this sort and the possession of money. But of the art of getting wealth that belongs to household management there is a limit: for this is not the function of household management. This is why it appears, on the one hand, that there must necessarily be a limit to all wealth; yet in what actually happens we see the contrary occurring: for all those who get wealth increase their currency without limit. The cause of this is the close relation between the two. For the use of the same thing overlaps between the two kinds of the art of getting wealth: the use belongs to the same possession, but not in the same respect — rather, for the one there is a different end, for the other, increase. This is why some people think that this is the function of household management, and they persist in supposing that they must either preserve or increase their store of currency without limit.
25| The cause of this disposition is being in earnest about living, but not about living well:
26| [1258a] since, then, that desire is without limit, they also desire without limit the things productive of it. And as many as do set their aim upon living well too seek what conduces to bodily enjoyments, so that, since this too is seen to reside in possession, their whole occupation is with the getting of wealth, and it is because of this that the other kind of the art of getting wealth has come about. For since enjoyment lies in excess, people seek what is productive of the excess of that enjoyment; and if they cannot provide it through the art of getting wealth, they attempt to do so by some other means, using each of their capacities not in accordance with nature. For it is not the function of courage to produce money, but boldness; nor is it the function of the general's or the doctor's art, but of the one, victory, of the other, health. But some people make all of these into arts of getting wealth, as though this were the end, and as though everything must answer to that end. Concerning, then, the art of getting wealth that is not necessary — what it is, and for what reason we are in need of it — this has been said; and concerning the necessary kind, that it is different from it, and that the household kind, concerned with sustenance, is by nature, not unlimited like the other but having a boundary. And it is also clear what was raised as a puzzle from the start, whether the art of getting wealth belongs to the household manager and the statesman or not, but rather this must be available to them (for just as the political art does not make human beings, but takes them from nature and makes use of them, so too nature must supply sustenance — earth, or sea, or something else) — and from these materials it is fitting for the household manager to arrange things as they need to be arranged.
27| For it is not the weaver's craft to make the wool, but to use it, and to know which sort is useful and suitable, and which is poor and unsuitable. And indeed one might raise a puzzle as to why the art of acquisition is a part of household management, while medicine is not a part of it — and yet the members of the household need to be healthy, just as they need to live or need any other of the necessities. Since it is in one way the business of the household manager and the ruler to look to health, and in another way not, but rather the business of the doctor, so too concerning property it is in one way the business of the household manager, and in another way not, but rather the business of a subordinate skill; but above all, as has been said before, this must belong by nature. For it is the work of nature to supply nourishment to what has been generated; for to everything, the nourishment is what is left over from that out of which it comes to be. Hence the art of acquiring wealth from fruits and from animals is according to nature for all. Since this art is twofold, as we said, one kind being that of the retail trader and the other that of the household manager, and the latter being necessary and praised, while the art of exchange is justly blamed
28| [1258b] (for it is not according to nature but at one another's expense), it is most reasonable that lending at interest is hated, because the gain comes from currency itself and not from the purpose for which currency was brought into being. For currency came into being for the sake of exchange, but interest makes more of it (whence it has taken its name; for offspring resemble their parents, and interest is currency born from currency): so that this kind of acquisition is of all kinds most contrary to nature. Since we have adequately distinguished matters concerning knowledge of these things, we must go through matters concerning their use. All such subjects have a free theoretical treatment but a necessary practical experience. The useful parts of the art of acquisition are: being experienced about property, which kinds are most profitable and where and how — for instance, what sort of possession of horses is best, or of cattle, or of sheep, and likewise of the other animals (for one must be experienced as to which of these are most profitable relative to one another, and which kinds thrive in which places, since different animals flourish in different regions); then concerning agriculture, both unplanted land and planted land; and beekeeping; and the other animals, whether aquatic or winged, from which it is possible to derive assistance.
29| These, then, are the parts, and the primary ones, of the art of acquisition most proper to a household. Of the art of exchange, the greatest is commerce (and of this there are three parts: shipowning, the carrying of freight, and being present to sell; and these differ from one another in that some are safer, while others yield a greater return); second is lending at interest; third is wage-earning (and of this, one kind belongs to the vulgar crafts, the other to unskilled labor useful only through bodily strength). There is also a third kind of acquisition intermediate between this one and the first (for it shares partly in the kind that is according to nature and partly in the kind of exchange), namely all that comes from the earth and from what grows from the earth — unfruitful but useful things, such as logging and all mining. This last has already come to embrace many kinds, for there are many species of things mined from the earth. Of occupations, the most skilled are those in which chance plays the smallest part; the most vulgar are those in which bodies are most maimed; the most servile are those in which there is the greatest use of the body; and the most ignoble are those which require the least excellence. Concerning each of these matters something has now been said in general, but going into detail is useful for the actual practice of these occupations, though it would be tiresome to dwell on it. Since some writers have already treated these subjects — for example, Charetides of Paros
30| [1259a] and Apollodorus of Lemnos, on agriculture, both unplanted and planted, and likewise others on other subjects — let anyone who cares about these matters study them from these sources. But in addition, the scattered accounts by which certain people have chanced to succeed in making money ought to be collected. Every one of these has value for people who prize the business of acquisition, like the anecdote told about Thales of Miletus. For this is a piece of shrewdness about acquiring wealth, but it is attributed to him because of his wisdom, though it happens to be a device of general application. For when people reproached him for his poverty, on the ground that philosophy was useless, they say that he foresaw, from his knowledge of astronomy, that there would be a large olive crop, and while it was still winter, having a little money available, he paid deposits on all the olive presses in Miletus and Chios, hiring them cheaply since no one was bidding against him; and when the season arrived and many people suddenly and all at once sought them out, he hired them out on whatever terms he wished, and by collecting a great deal of money he demonstrated that it is easy for philosophers to become rich if they wish, but that this is not what they are serious about. Thales, then, is said to have given this kind of demonstration of his wisdom; but as we have said, this sort of device is of general application in the art of acquisition, whenever someone is able to secure a monopoly for himself.
31| Hence some cities too resort to this expedient when they are short of funds: they create a monopoly of goods for sale. In Sicily, someone, having a sum of money deposited with him, bought up all the iron from the iron works, and afterward, when the merchants came from the trading posts, he alone was selling, without raising the price by much; yet even so, on an outlay of fifty talents he made a profit of one hundred. When Dionysius learned of this, he ordered the man to remove his money but not to remain any longer in Syracuse, on the ground that he was discovering means of profit disadvantageous to his own affairs; yet this scheme is the very same as that of Thales, for both contrived to secure a monopoly for themselves. It is useful for statesmen too to be acquainted with these matters. For many cities need financial resources and expedients of this sort, just as a household does, indeed even more so; and this is why some statesmen busy themselves with nothing else but this. Since there were three parts of household management — one being mastery over slaves, concerning which we have spoken before, one being paternal rule, and the third marital rule (for the household manager rules both wife and children, both as free persons, but not by the same manner of rule, but rules the wife in a political manner and the children in a kingly manner
32| [1259b] for the male is by nature more suited to rule than the female, except where this is constituted contrary to nature, and the older and complete is more suited to rule than the younger and incomplete) — now in most political offices, ruler and ruled alternate (for nature wishes them to be equal and to differ in nothing), yet nevertheless, when one party rules and the other is ruled, there is a demand that there be a difference in outward bearing, in speech, and in honors, just as Amasis also said in his story about the footbath; and the male always stands to the female in this same way. But the rule over children is kingly rule; for the parent rules on the basis of both affection and seniority, which is a form of kingly rule. Hence Homer did well to address Zeus, saying "father of men and gods" (Hom. Il. 1.544), as king of all these. For a king must by nature be superior, yet be the same in kind as his subjects, which is the very relation the older bears to the younger, and the parent to the child. It is clear, then, that the concern of household management is greater with regard to human beings than with regard to the acquisition of inanimate things, and greater with regard to the excellence of these persons than with regard to the excellence of property, which we call wealth, and greater with regard to free persons than with regard to slaves.
33| First, then, one might raise a puzzle about slaves: whether there is some excellence belonging to a slave beyond the instrumental and ministerial ones, some more valuable than these — such as temperance, courage, justice, and the other states of that kind — or whether there is none beyond bodily services (for there is a difficulty either way: if there is such an excellence, how will slaves differ from free persons? but if there is not, this is strange, since they are human beings and share in reason). Much the same question arises concerning wife and child: whether these too have excellences, and whether a woman must be temperate, courageous, and just, and whether a child can be undisciplined or temperate, or not. This must be examined in general with regard to what is naturally ruled and what naturally rules: whether the excellence is the same or different. For if both must share in nobility of character, why should one of them simply have to rule and the other simply be ruled? Nor can they differ by degree of more and less; for being ruled and ruling differ in kind, whereas more and less do not differ in kind at all. But if one must possess it and the other must not, that is strange. For if the ruler is not to be temperate and just, how will he rule well?
34| And again, if the ruled party has no share of virtue, how will he be ruled well? [1260a] For being licentious and cowardly, he will do none of the things that are fitting. It is clear, then, that both must share in virtue, but that there are differences in this virtue (just as there are among the things ruled by nature). And this is at once suggested by what concerns the soul: for in the soul there is by nature a ruling element and a ruled element, of which we say the virtue is different — that of the element having reason, and that of the element without reason. It is clear, then, that the same holds in the other cases too, so that by nature there are more numerous kinds of ruling and ruled things. For the free person rules the slave in one way, the male the female in another way, and the man the child in another; and in all of them the parts of the soul are present, but they are present differently. For the slave has no deliberative element at all, the female has it but without authority, and the child has it but incompletely. Hence the ruler must have complete intellectual virtue (for the function belongs, without qualification, to the master craftsman, and reason is the master craftsman), while each of the others needs only as much as falls to them. So we must suppose the same necessity holds concerning the ethical virtues as well: all must share in them, but not in the same way, but only so much as is proportionate to each one's own function.
35| Hence it is clear that there is an ethical virtue belonging to all those mentioned, and that the temperance of a woman and of a man are not the same, nor their courage and justice, as Socrates thought, but rather the one is the courage of ruling and the other the courage of serving, and it holds likewise for the other virtues. This is clearer still if one examines the matter part by part: for whoever speaks only in universal terms fools himself in claiming that virtue amounts to nothing more than the soul's being in good condition, or acting correctly, or something along those lines; those who instead enumerate the virtues one at a time, as Gorgias does, express the matter far better than those who frame it through such sweeping definitions. Hence, just as the poet has said of woman, we must think it holds of all: "silence brings a woman adornment" (Sophocles, Ajax 293) — but this no longer holds of a man. Since the child is incomplete, it is clear that his virtue too is not relative to himself, but relative to his end and to the one who guides him; and likewise the slave's virtue is relative to his master. Now we laid it down that the slave is useful for the necessities of life, so it is clear that he needs only a small amount of virtue, and just so much as will keep him from falling short in his tasks through licentiousness or cowardice. One might raise the difficulty whether, if what has just been said is true, craftsmen too will need to have virtue:
36| for they too often fall short in their tasks through licentiousness. Or does this case differ very greatly? For the slave shares in his master's life, whereas the craftsman is more remote from him, and has a claim to virtue only to the extent that he has a claim to slavery:
37| [1260b] for the vulgar craftsman has a kind of slavery that is limited to a fixed task, and the slave belongs among those who are slaves by nature, but no shoemaker does, nor any other craftsman. It is clear, then, that the master must be the cause of this sort of virtue in the slave, not by possessing the craft that teaches slavish tasks, but by possessing mastery over them. Hence those who deprive slaves of reason and say that only commands should be used with them speak wrongly: slaves need admonishment even more than children do. But let this settle these matters in this way. As for husband and wife, and children and father, and the virtue proper to each of them, and their association with one another — what is done well in it and what is not done well, and how what is good should be pursued and what is bad avoided — these things must be taken up in the discussion of constitutions. For since every household is part of a city, and these persons are parts of a household, and since the virtue of the part must be judged in light of the virtue belonging to the whole, both the children and the women must therefore be educated with the constitution kept in view, if indeed it matters at all to the city's being good that its children and its women be good. And it must make a difference: for the women are half of the free population, and it is from the children that the sharers in the constitution come to be. So, since these matters have been settled, and the remaining ones must be discussed elsewhere, let us set aside the present discussion as complete, and make a new beginning, and first examine those who have declared their views about the best constitution.