Aristotle/Chapter 6

by Alexander Grant

CHAPTER VI.

Aristotle’s ‘Politics.’

The ‘Ethics’ of Aristotle end with the words, “Let us then commence our ‘Politics.’” He had described virtue and happiness, but neither of these, he says,^[1] is attainable by any human being apart from society. Moral development and the full enjoyment of the exercise of our powers equally demand certain external conditions; they cannot exist save by the aid of a settled community, social habits, the restraint and protection of laws, and even a wisely regulated system of public education. Man is by nature a social creature; he cannot isolate himself without becoming either more or less than man—“either a god or a beast.” The state is, therefore, a prime necessity for the “well-doing and well-being” of the individual. In fact, says Aristotle,^[2] you cannot form any conception of man in his normal condition—that is to say, in a civilised condition—except as a member of a state. On these grounds Aristotle proposed to go on to the writing of his ‘Politics’ as the complement and conclusion of his ethical treatise. But some time probably elapsed before the design was carried out;^[3] and in the interval it is not unreasonable to suppose that Aristotle, seeking, as usual, to base theory upon experience, was engaged in making that remarkable collection called the ‘Constitutions’ (see above, p. 48), which contained a history and description of no less than 158 states, and of which numerous fragments remain.

However this may be, the ‘Politics’ forms a rich repertory of facts relating to the history of Greece. And it abounds, too, in the knowledge of human nature, and in wise and penetrating observations on the conduct and motives of mankind, many of which are applicable to all times and countries. The treatise is not entire; it breaks off in the middle of one of the most interesting parts of all, namely Aristotle's theory of education. Perhaps this was one of the cases in which Aristotle, finding that his mind was not fully made up on a particular subject, dropped that subject for the time, meaning to revert to it, but never actually doing so. Besides its unfinished condition, the ‘Politics’ also shows indications of a certain amount of disarrangement in the order of its books. If rearranged according to their natural order, the books in Bekker’s edition would stand thus:—

Book I. On the Family as a constituent element in the State.

Book II. Containing a criticism of some previous theories about the State, and of some remarkable actual constitutions. Books III., VII, VIII. Giving Aristotle’s own conception of an Ideal State,—unfortunately not concluded.

Books IV., VI., V. Forming a return from the ideal point of view to practical statesmanship, and suggesting remedies for different evils apparent in the contemporary Governments of Greece.

It has been well pointed out ^[4] that in Aristotle’s treatment of the above-mentioned subjects three incongruous elements may be detected: “really scientific inquiry, aristocratic prejudice, and the dreams of a metaphysical philosophy which soars to heaven and listens for the eternal harmonies of nature.” The scientific spirit shows itself in the vast apparatus of history which Aristotle employs, his researches into the customs of barbarous tribes, and his careful recognition of the immense variety to be found in constitutions coming under the same general name (such as Democracy, Aristocracy, &c.) when studied according to the peculiar circumstances of each case. All this would constitute his work a contribution to the science of “Comparative Politics.”

But another spirit, alien from that of free and inductive inquiry, occasionally manifests itself, especially when Aristotle appeals to “nature” either in defending or attacking any institution. “Nature” is, of course, a rather slippery word: it may mean either of two things,—either “primitive condition,” in which sense a savage is in a state of nature; or “normal condition,” in which sense the most perfectly civilised man has attained his natural state. The latter sense is the one which Aristotle generally has in his mind; he generally means by “nature” the normal and perfect state of things, or a power in the world working towards that normal state. But the question arises, How do we know what is the perfect and normal state of things? Philosophers are too apt to dignify by the name of “nature” any arrangement for which they may have a predilection. And Aristotle cannot be entirely exonerated from having done so. He sometimes attributes a sort of divine right to things as they are, calling them “natural.” Thus he treats of the family as “naturally” constituted of man, wife, child, and slave. Certain reformers of the 4th century B.C. had already lifted up their voices against the institution of slavery. They had argued that the slave was of the same flesh and blood as his master, and might be as good as he; and that, in short, slavery was merely an unjust and oppressive custom which mankind could and should alter. But to the mind of Aristotle slavery was a necessary institution in order to provide citizens with that amount of leisure which would enable them to live ideal lives in the pursuit of the true and the beautiful (see above, p. 101). Therefore with unconscious bias he proceeded to argue that slavery was “natural,” on the ground that some races of men were by “nature” born to serve, being deficient in that “large discourse” of reason which other men possessed, and which gave them a “natural” right to command. He seeks for external indications of this great difference between man and man, and says that slaves are “barbarians” (i. e., ignorant of the Greek language and Greek manners), and again, that they have not the up-right bearing of freemen trained in the gymnasia. But he admits that “nature” has failed in outwardly marking with sufficient distinctness the inward difference between the slave and his master. Yet still he is not shaken in his doctrine, but even asserts that it is lawful to make war on races which were intended by “nature” to be slaves, and to reduce them to slavery. These views may seem shocking; but yet they admit of some palliation. Christian theologians and divines, till within a very recent time, have defended slavery, appealing in its behalf to the sanction of the Bible; and even the virtuous Bishop Berkeley, while sojourning at Rhode Island, became the owner of slaves. The lot of a slave in Attica seems, generally speaking, not to have been a bad one. And Aristotle, in wishing the “naturally” deficient races of mankind to be brought into bondage, seems to have had some idea of the benefit they would derive from being, as it were, sent to school.

In another matter Aristotle appealed to “nature” not in defending, but in attacking, one of the institutions of society—namely, the putting out money at interest. Aristotle had many of the prejudices of a “gentleman;” we have seen before (p. 109) how he admired a brilliant liberality, and thought little of the virtue of saving. He acknowledged that means must be forthcoming for the maintenance of the family, but; if possible, he would have these means come from the produce of the soil,^[5] crops, animals, or minerals, for these sources of support are “natural.” With trade and traffic he had no sympathy, but he admitted that practically they must go on; and he said that people who valued success in such things might try and imitate the philosopher Thales, who foresaw, by his astrology, on one occasion, that there would be a great olive harvest, and while it was still winter hired all the olive presses in the country, and when the demand for these set in, was able to get his own terms and realise a large sum, “thus showing that it is easy for philosophers to be rich, if they only cared about it.” These contemptuous expressions in regard to commerce clearly indicate that Aristotle did not take a calm intellectual view of the subject; he did not see that it was a subject worthy of being reduced to a science, else he would not have left the doing of this to Adam Smith. Yet still in a book full of the shrewdest remarks on social arrangements we cannot fail to be struck by the antiquated look of the announcement that “lending money on interest is justly abominated, and is the most unnatural of all forms of gain, for it diverts money from its proper purpose (which was to be a mere instrument of exchange) and forces it unnaturally to breed.”^[6] This saying of Aristotle’s doubtless did something to foster the prejudice against “usury” and Jews, in the latter part of the Middle Ages. The notion is apparently based upon the first-mentioned conception of “nature”—as the primitive state of things. “Interest is not a primitive institution, and therefore it is unnatural.” The very opposite of this conclusion would be thought true nowadays. We feel now that money unspent “naturally” acquires interest and compound interest, and that in a civilised community nothing is more unnatural than the “talent laid up in a napkin.”

An enthusiastic and almost mystical spirit exhibits itself in Aristotle when he discourses on the Ideal State. Having laid it down that Happiness for the state and for the individual is one and the same (‘Pol.’ VII. ii. 1), he seems for a moment to waver and hesitate as to whether he should not retract the doctrine expressed in the ‘Ethics’ (see above, p. 102), that the happiness to be found in a life of thought is incomparably superior to that to be found in a life of action. Could this be said of a state—that is, of a whole community? If a whole community is engaged in the fruition of philosophical thought, must they not be isolated from international relations and cut off from the world? But Aristotle does not flinch ultimately from the results of his doctrine. He says (‘Pol.’ VII. ii. 16) that “it is quite possible that a state may be situated in some isolated position,” enjoying good laws and knowing nothing of war or foreign relations, and that in such a state (VII. iii. 8) the community may be engaged in contemplations and thoughts which have their own end in themselves, and do not aim at any external results. As is the life of God or of the conscious universe (each brooding over their own perfections), such will be the life of the Ideal State!

This announcement of the highest end to be aimed at by Politics is as if some modern writer, in treating of the State, should seek to identify it with the Invisible Church of God. Or, again, it may remind us of the saying that the supreme and ultimate product of civilisation is “two or three gentlemen talking together in a room.” This paradox is true and quite Aristotelian: mental activities are the highest things of all; enactments, and police, and wars, and treaties exist for the sake of order, of which the best fruit is the mutual play of intelligence and the glow of friendship. But one peculiarity of Aristotle’s ideal politics is the comparative smallness of their scale. Like a true Greek, he does not think of nations and empires, but of city-states. It has been said that the city-state was something like the University of modern times. Aristotle regarded it as an organism of limited size, in which every citizen should have his function, and in which every one should be personally known to the rulers. He said (‘Eth.’ IX. x. iii.) that 100,000 citizens would be far too many to constitute a state. Some of the peculiarities of his Ideal State may be specified as follows:— Every full citizen was to be a landowner, with slaves to cultivate his soil, but no great accumulation of property in any one man’s hands was to be allowed. The citizens were to constitute a warrior caste, and were each to be admitted in turn, when of mature age, to a share in the government. No artisan or tradesman was to be a citizen; the city was to have a harbour, but not too near, so as not to be flooded with strangers; the navy was to be manned by slaves; the city itself was, for salubrity, to slope towards the east and to catch the winds of morning. Lastly, the State itself was to be a perfect Sparta in point of discipline, though aiming at something higher than mere gymnastic and military drill. There was to be a common primary instruction for all the citizens from the age of seven to fourteen, and a common secondary instruction from fourteen to twenty-one. The “branches” were to be gymnastic, letters, drawing, and music. Everything was to be taught with a view to culture, rather than to utility. Thus the object of learning drawing was “to make one observant of beauty.” In regard to gymnastic, Aristotle wisely warns against a premature strain of the powers, and says that it is very rare for the same person to have won a prize, as a boy, and as a man, at the Olympic games. He lays great stress on the moral and educational influence of music, and its efficacy in “purging” the emotions (see above, p. 95). He disparages pipe-playing, which, he says, was adopted by the Athenians in the glorious period of licence succeeding their victories over the Persians; and adds that “pipe-playing not only disfigures the face, but has nothing intellectual in it.” It is difficult for us to enter into many of the feelings of the ancients about music. Aristotle lauds the “Dorian mood;” and here his treatise breaks off, without his having given us his theory as to instruction in literature, or as to the secondary instruction in general of his ideal citizens.

In constructing a Utopia, Aristotle was, of course, following the example of the celebrated ‘Republic’ of Plato; but his object was to improve upon the conceptions of his master, whom he criticised with courtesy, but in a prosaic spirit. Plato’s “city” avowedly existed in dreamland, but Aristotle applied to it the tests of historical experience and everyday possibility. While accepting the idea of a city of contemplation, Aristotle determined that its institutions should be such as to approve themselves to practical commonsense. The contrast between the two philosophers in this matter is very striking—the one daring, creative, and full of the play of fancy; the other laborious, matter-of-fact, and scientific. It is not certain that Plato’s wild suggestions for a community of wives and property were meant to be taken seriously but Aristotle takes them so, and gives us the first arguments on record against Communism. He defends the institution of property as “natural,” and says that “it makes an unspeakable difference in the enjoyment of a thing to feel that it is your own.” All his remarks on this point are sagacious; but there is a singular spirit of conservatism shown in his saying (‘Pol.’ II. v. 16) that “if Plato’s notions had been good they would have been adopted long ago.” Instead of looking forward to a future of discovery and progress, Aristotle rather looked back, thinking that all perfection had been attained in the past.

In Books IV., VI, V. of his ‘Politics’ (see above, p. 119), Aristotle turns from the ideal to the actual, and lays down a theory of the different forms of government which are possible, the causes which give rise to these different forms, their respective merits and disadvantages, and the practical means for obviating the evils to which they are respectively exposed. Greek society was very unstable; Athens and many other cities were, like Paris during the last half-century, in chronic expectation of a revolution. Therefore a theory of seditions and revolutions became an essential part of Greek political science, and Aristotle furnishes one accordingly, containing the wise remark that “small things are never the cause, though they are often the occasion, of popular revolt.” He shows that there are three normal forms of government,—the Monarchy, or government by one wise ruler; the Aristocracy, or government by a select number of the wisest and best; and the “Constitution,” or mixed government, in which democratic, monarchic, and aristocratical elements are balanced against each other. Each of these normal and perfect forms, wherever they have existed, has followed a tendency to diverge into a corruption of itself;—the monarchy degenerates into Tyranny, the aristocracy into Oligarchy, and the “Constitution” into Democracy. These lower forms are the kinds of government which Aristotle practically finds in the world. He shows how each of them is constantly menaced by revolution, and from what special causes, namely, the peculiar jealousies which each is apt to engender. He says that it is not the desire of gain, so much as tenacity of rights or fancied rights, that causes revolution. He gives various pieces of advice to those who administer the different forms of government;—one of which is that each government should avoid emphatically asserting its own special character. The democracy should be as little democratic, the tyrant as little tyrannous, the oligarchy as little exclusive and overhearing as possible,—so that in each case some approach might be made to the golden “mean,” which is the true cause of political stability.

In his high appreciation of the “Constitution,” or well-mixed government, Aristotle may be thought to have had an unconscious anticipation of the guarded liberties, and of the combination of order with progress, which are the blessing and the pride of England. But in one respect he totally fails to come up to the grandeur of the modern conception; for, as said before, he thinks of arrangements for a city and not for a nation, and he has no idea of those representative institutions by which political freedom of action on a large scale may be provided. As his views for each state were limited, so also he did not take sufficient thought of international relations. For one moment he seemed to have caught a glimpse of possibilities which he might have followed out into important conclusions; for he says (‘Pol.’ VII. vii. 3) that “owing to the happy moderation of the climate of Greece, the Hellenic race possess a combination of the best qualities which fall to the lot of the human species, being both high-spirited and intellectual; and if they could all together form one political state, the Greeks might govern the world.” He drops out this isolated thought, but does not pursue it. At the moment when he was writing, the Hellenic race was in the utmost danger; it was, in fact, doomed to fall from its high position into political extinction, and all for the want of "solidarity," all from these jealousies which kept each Greek city apart from the rest. Aristotle's peculiar relations to the court of Macedon may have hindered him from freely entering upon this subject, or may have biassed his views; but the real fact seems rather to have been that, while he was a great philosopher, he was no statesman, and that, absorbed in the researches of science and in the dreams of an ideal state, he did not see the actual dangers of his country so clearly as his patriotic contemporary Demosthenes saw them. His contribution to politics was abstract and scientific, and as such remains valid for all time; his analysis of the pathology (so to speak) of oligarchies and democracies was found to be often strikingly verified in the history of the Italian republics. And however much the views of Aristotle fall short of the requirements of modern times, the 'Politics' will always form a valuable study for one who is likely to take part in the public affairs of his country.

1. ‘Eth.’ X. x. 8-23.
2. ‘Pol.’ I. ii. 13, 14.
3. Spengel, one of the most judicious of German critics, says, that “the ‘Politics’ was written long after the ‘Ethics.’”
4. Mr A. Lang’s Essays on Aristotle’s ‘Politics,’ p. 15 (Longmans, 1877).
5. ‘Pol.’ I. x. 3.
6. Compare Shakespeare, ‘Merchant of Venice,’ Act i. scene 3:—
   Antonio. Or is your gold and silver ewes and rams?
   Shylock. I cannot tell; I make it breed as fast.