greek · wisdom

Politics

c. 350 BCE · Classical Greece (4th century BCE) · Athens, Greece (composed at the Lyceum)

Book I — The State and Man

1Every state is a community of some kind, and every community is established with a view to some good;

2for mankind always act in order to obtain that which they think good.

3But, if all communities aim at some good, the state or political community,

4which is the highest of all, and which embraces all the rest, aims at good in a greater degree than any other,

5and at the highest good.

6He who thus considers things in their first growth and origin, whether a state or anything else,

7will obtain the clearest view of them.

8In the first place there must be a union of those who cannot exist without each other;

9namely, of male and female, that the race may continue;

10and of natural ruler and subject, that both may be preserved.

Man as Political Animal

11The state is a creation of nature, and man is by nature a political animal.

12And he who by nature and not by mere accident is without a state, is either a bad man or above humanity;

13he is like the "tribeless, lawless, hearthless one," whom Homer denounces.

14Now, that man is more of a political animal than bees or any other gregarious animals is evident.

15Nature makes nothing in vain, and man is the only animal endowed with speech.

16The mere voice, it is true, can indicate pain and pleasure,

17and therefore is possessed by the other animals as well.

18But the power of speech is intended to set forth the expedient and inexpedient,

19and therefore likewise the just and unjust.

20The state comes into existence, originating in the bare needs of life,

21and continuing in existence for the sake of a good life.

Book III — On Citizenship

22He who has the power to take part in the deliberative or judicial administration of any state

23is said by us to be a citizen of that state.

24The state is a body of citizens sufficing for the purposes of life.

25Whether the excellence of a good man is the same as that of a good citizen, or different,

26is a question which needs consideration.

27The excellence of the citizen must be relative to the constitution of which he is a member.

28But the good man is he who is excellent by an absolute standard.

The Best Constitution

29There is a form of political community in which every citizen may attain the highest excellence in his own kind.

30The government of the best men is called an aristocracy;

31the government of a single one, seeking the good of all, is a monarchy;

32and the government of the many, whose aim is the common interest, is called by the term "polity."

33But when the many govern in their own interest, it is called democracy;

34the few, in their own interest, oligarchy;

35one, in his own interest, tyranny.

Book V — Revolutions

36The universal and chief cause of revolutionary feeling

37is the desire for equality, when men think that they are equal to others who have more than themselves;

38or, again, the desire of inequality and superiority,

39when conceiving themselves to be superior they think that they have not more but the same or less than their inferiors.

40Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal, and equals in order that they may be greater.

41Such is the state of mind which creates revolutions.

Book VII — The Best Life

42We shall best know both the nature and the elements of the best state

43if we first inquire into the way of life best suited to a man of virtue.

44The best life for man individually, as well as for states and mankind collectively,

45is the life which is accompanied by virtue, and provided with means sufficient

46for taking part in virtuous actions.

47The happy life is that which is according to virtue and lived without impediment;

48and virtue is a mean.

49Therefore the life which is in a mean, and in a mean attainable by every one, must be the best.

On Education

50Since a state must be constituted with a view to a certain end, education must be one and the same for all;

51and the superintendence of it should be a public matter, and not private.

52Public education is preferable to private, for the citizen belongs to the state

53and is a part of the state, and the care of each part is inseparably connected with the care of the whole.

54In this respect the Spartans are to be praised, for they take great pains about their children,

55and make the care of them a public duty.

notes

The Politics is Aristotle's treatise on the polis (city-state) and political organisation, forming the second half of a project whose first part was the Nicomachean Ethics. Where the Ethics asks what the good life for the individual is, the Politics asks what political arrangements make such a life possible. The most famous formulation — "man is by nature a political animal" (zoon politikon) — captures Aristotle's fundamental disagreement with any conception of the state as an artificial construct imposed on naturally solitary individuals. The polis is not a creation of convention but the natural fulfilment of human nature, the community within which alone the fully human life becomes possible. The classification of six regime types — monarchy, aristocracy, polity (their good forms) and tyranny, oligarchy, democracy (their corruptions) — has been foundational for political science ever since. So has Aristotle's analysis of the causes of revolution in Book V, which reads like early sociology: the perception of inequality (or equality where none is deserved) is the underlying dynamic. Translation: Benjamin Jowett, "The Politics of Aristotle," Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1885. Public domain.

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