7 for assailants to find their way in, is preferable. A city VII. 11. there be 8 As to walls, those who say that cities making any Should pretension to military virtue should not have them, are walls to the city? quite out of date in their notions; and they may see the cities which prided themselves on this fancy confuted 9 by facts. True, there is little courage shown in seeking for safety behind a rampart when an enemy is similar in character and not much superior in number; but the superiority of the besiegers may be and often is beyond the power of men to resist, and too much for the valour of a few; and if they are to be saved and to escape defeat 1331a. and outrage, the strongest wall will be the best defence of the warrior, more especially now that catapults and siege engines have been brought to such perfection. 10 To have no walls would be as foolish as to choose a site for a town in an exposed country, and to level the heights; or as if an individual were to leave his house 11 unwalled, lest the inmates should become cowards. Nor must we forget that those who have their cities surrounded by walls may either take advantage of them or not, but cities which are unwalled have no choice. the walls made orna useful. If our conclusions are just, not only should cities Yes; and have walls, but care should be taken to make them may be ornamental, as well as useful for warlike purposes, and mental as 12 adapted to resist modern inventions. For as the as- well as sailants of a city do all they can to gain an advantage, so the defenders should make use of any means of defence which have been already discovered, and should devise and invent others, for when men are well prepared no enemy even thinks of attacking them. Cp. Plato Laws vi. 778, 779. VII. 12. The guard houses will serve for Syssitia. The temples and should be high and lifted up.' As the walls are to be divided by guardhouses and towers built at suitable intervals, and the body of citizens must be distributed at common tables, the idea will naturally occur that we should establish some of the common tables in the guardhouses. The arrangement a might be as follows: the principal common tables of the magistrates will occupy a suitable place, and there also will be the buildings appropriated to religious government worship except in the case of those rites which the law buildings or the Pythian oracle has restricted to a special locality". The site should be a spot seen far and wide, which gives 3 due elevation to virtue and towers over the neighbourhood. Near this spot should be established an agora, such as that which the Thessalians call the 'freemen's agora;' from this all trade should be excluded, and no 4 mechanic, husbandman, or any such person allowed to enter, unless he be summoned by the magistrates. It would be a charming use of the place, if the gymnastic exercises of the elder men were performed there. For 5 bin this noble practice different ages should be separated, and some of the magistrates should stay with the boys, while the grown-up men remain with the magistrates [i.c. in the freeman's agora]; for the presence of the magistrates is the best mode of inspiring true modesty and ingenuous fear. There should also be a traders' agora, distinct and apart from the other, in a situation which is convenient for the reception of goods both by sea and land. The freemen's agora. The traders' agora. The government offices. 1331 b. 6 But in speaking of the magistrates we must not forget another section of the citizens, viz. the priests, for whom public tables should likewise be provided in their proper place near the temples. The magistrates who deal with 7 contracts, indictments, summonses, and the like, and those who have the care of the agora and of the city respectively, ought to be established near the agora and in some public place of meeting; the neighbourhood of the • Cp. Plato Laws vi. 778; viii. 848; v. 738; vi. 759. THE END OF THE STATE AND THE MEANS. 229 traders' agora will be a suitable spot; the upper agora VII. 12. arrange , in the 8 The same order should prevail in the country, for Similar there too the magistrates, called by some 'Inspectors ments of Forests, and by others Wardens of the Country,' country. must have guardhouses and common tables while they are on duty; temples should also be scattered throughout the country, dedicated, some to Gods, and some to heroes. 9 But it would be a waste of time for us to linger over these matters for the present. being of the pends upon end and of for the at tainment of it. Returning to the constitution itself, let us seek to de13. termine out of what and what sort of elements the state The wellwhich is to be happy and well-governed should be com- state de2 posed. There are two things in which all well-being the choice consists, one of them is the choice of a right end and of a good aim of action, and the other the discovery of the actions good means which are means towards it; for the means and the end may agree or disagree. Sometimes the right end is set before men, but in practice they fail to attain it; in other cases they are successful in all the means, but they propose to themselves a bad end, and sometimes they fail in both. Take, for example, the art of medicine; physicians do not always understand the nature of health, and also the means which they use may not effect the desired end. In all arts and sciences both the end and the means should be equally within our control. 3 The happiness and well-being which all men manifestly desire, some have the power of attaining, but to others, from some accident or defect of nature, the attainment of them is not granted; for a good life 1332a. requires a supply of external goods, in a less degree a Reading reveyñola with Bekker's first edition. 230 THE GOOD LIFE REQUIRES EXTERNAL GOODS. VII. 13. when men are in a good state, in a greater degree when they are in a lower state. Others again, who 4 possess the condition of happiness, go utterly wrong from the first in the pursuit of it. But since our object is to discover the best form of government, that, namely, under which a city will be best governed, and since the city is best governed which has the greatest opportunity of obtaining happiness, it is evident that we must clearly ascertain the nature of happiness. and relative We have said in the Ethics, if the arguments there 5 adduced are of any value, that happiness is the realization and perfect exercise of virtue, and this not conditional, but absolute. And I used the term 'conditional' 6 to express that which is indispensable, and 'absolute' to express that which is good in itself. Take the case of just actions; just punishments and chastisements do indeed spring from a good principle, but they are good only because we cannot do without them-it would be better that neither individuals nor states should need anything of the sort-but actions which aim at honour and Absolute advantage are absolutely the best. The conditional action 7 good. is only the choice of a lesser evil; whereas these are the foundation and creation of good. A good man may make the best even of poverty and disease, and the other ills of life; but he can only attain happiness under the opposite conditions. As we have already said in the Ethics, the good man is he to whom, because he is virtuous, the absolute good is his good. It is also plain that his use of other goods must be 8 virtuous and in the absolute sense good. This makes men fancy that external goods are the cause of happiness, yet we might as well say that a brilliant perhappiness. formance on the lyre was to be attributed to the instrument and not to the skill of the performer. External goods the condition not the cause of • Cp. Nic. Eth. i. 7. § 15 ; x. 6. § 2; and cp. c. 8. § 5, supra. b Retaining the MSS. reading aipeous with Bekker's first edition. • Nic. Eth. i. c. 10. § 12-14. d Nic. Eth. iii. c. 4. §§ 4, 5; E. E. vii. 15. § 4; M. M. ii. 9. § 3. HOW MEN BECOME GOOD. 231 It follows then from what has been said that some VII. 13. things the legislator must find ready to his hand in a They depend on 9 state, others he must provide. And therefore we can fortune; only say: May our state be constituted in such a manner as to be blessed with the goods of which fortune disposes (for we acknowledge her power): whereas virtue and goodness in the state are not a matter of chance but the result of knowledge and purpose. A city can virtue on be virtuous only when the citizens who have a share in the government are virtuous, and in our state all the citizens share in the government; let us then enquire 10 how a man becomes virtuous. For even if we could suppose all the citizens to be virtuous, and not each of them, yet the latter would be better, for in the virtue of each the virtue of all is involved. will. ments of There are three things which make men good and Three eleII virtuous: these are nature, habit, reasona. In the first virtue: place, every one must be born a man and not some other (1) nature; (2) habit; animal; in the second place, he must have a certain (3) reason. character, both of body and soul. But some qualities 1332 b. there is no use in having at birth, for they are altered by habit, and there are some gifts of nature which may 12 be turned by habit to good or bad. Most animals lead a life of nature, although in lesser particulars some are influenced by habit as well. Man has reason, in addition, and man only. Wherefore nature, habit, reason must be in harmony with one another; [for they do not always agree]; men do many things against habit and nature, if reason persuades them that they ought. 13 We have already determined what natures are likely to be most easily moulded by the hands of the legislator. All else is the work of education; we learn some things. by habit and some by instruction. 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 d. For Cp. N. Eth. x. 9. § 6. • Cp. supra, c. 7. $4. ↳ Cp. i. 2. § 10. 14. |