Introduction and translation

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Clarendon Press, 1885

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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 7 - But is there any one thus 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 5 - A social instinct is implanted in all men by nature, and yet he who first founded the state was the greatest of benefactors. For man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all...
Page 4 - Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal. And he who by nature and not by mere accident is without a state, is either above humanity, or below it; he is the Tribeless, lawless, hearthless one...
Page 3 - When several villages are united in a single complete community, large enough to be nearly or quite selfsufficing, the state comes into existence, originating in the bare needs of life, and continuing in existence for the sake of a good life.
Page 117 - A fifth form of democracy, in other respects the same, is that in which, not the law, but the multitude, have the supreme power, and supersede the law by their decrees. This is a state of affairs brought about by the demagogues. For in democracies which are subject to the law the best citizens hold the first place, and there are no demagogues ; but where the laws are not supreme, there demagogues spring up. For the people becomes a monarch, and is many in one ; and the many have the power in their...
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 4 - ... the power of speech is intended to set forth the expedient and inexpedient, and therefore likewise the just and the unjust. And it is a characteristic of man that he alone has any sense of good and evil, of just and unjust, and the like, and the association of living beings who have this sense makes a family and a state.
Page 6 - Of their own accord entered the assembly of the Gods," if, in like manner, the shuttle would weave and the plectrum touch the lyre without a hand to guide them, chief workmen would not want servants, nor masters slaves.

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