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.....
