The Politics of Aristotle, Volume 1

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Clarendon Press, 1885 - 320 pages
The translator's death prevented the publication of a third volume which was to contain essays on subjects of a more general character.

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Page lxxiii - For as we have many members In one body, and all members have not the same office: So we, being many, are one body in Christ and every one members one of another.
Page 4 - The proof that the state is a creation of nature and prior to the individual is that the individual, when isolated, is not self-sufficing; and therefore he is like a part in relation to the whole. But he who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god : he is no part of a state.
Page 2 - In the first place ( 1 ) there must be a union of those who cannot exist without each other; for example, of male and female, that the race may continue; and this is a union which is formed, not of deliberate purpose, but because, in common with other animals and with plants, mankind have a natural desire to leave behind them an image of themselves.
Page 9 - It is clear, then, that some men are by nature free, and others slaves, and that for these latter slavery is both expedient and right.
Page 7 - ... intended by nature to be a slave, and for whom such a condition is expedient and right, or rather is not all slavery a violation of nature? There is no difficulty in answering this question, on grounds both of reason and of fact. For that some should rule and others be ruled is a thing, not only necessary, but expedient; from the hour of their birth, some are marked out for subjection, others for rule.
Page 244 - ... looks after his own children separately, and gives them separate instruction of the sort which he thinks best; the training in things which are of common interest should be the same for all.
Page 9 - ... for both with their bodies minister to the needs of life. Nature would like to distinguish between the bodies of freemen and slaves, making the one strong for servile labour, the other upright, and although useless for such services, useful for political life in the arts both of war and peace.
Page 128 - ... than both the other classes, or at any rate than either singly; for the addition of the middle class turns the scale, and prevents either of the extremes from being dominant. Great then is the good fortune of a State in which the citizens have a moderate and sufficient property ; for where some possess much, and the others nothing, there may arise an extreme democracy, or a pure oligarchy ; or a tyranny may grow out of either extreme...
Page xl - How small of all that human hearts endure, That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.
Page 245 - ... moral virtue. The existing practice is perplexing; no one knows on what principle we should proceed — should the useful in life, or should virtue, or should the higher knowledge be the aim of our training; all three opinions have been entertained. Again, about the means there is no agreement; for different persons, starting with different ideas about the nature of virtue, naturally disagree about the practice of it.

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