The Politics of Aristotle: with an introduction, two prefatory essays and notes critical and explanatory. Volume IV: Essay on Constitutions, Books VI-VIII - Text and Notes

781 Pages·1902·16.36 MB·English

by  Aristotle

THE
POLITICS OF ARISTOTLE
NEWMAN
VOL. IV.
HENRY FROWDE, M.A.
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE
AMEN CORNER, E.C.
THE
POLITICS OF ARISTOTLE
WITH AN INTRODUCTION, TWO PREFATORY ESSAYS
AND NOTES CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY
BY
W. L. NEWMAN, M.A.
HON. LITT.D. CAMBRIDGE
TELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, AND FORMERLY READER IN ANCIENT HISTORY
IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
VOLUME IV
ESSAY ON CONSTITUTIONS
BOOKS VI-VIII TEXT AND NOTES
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AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1902
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BY HORACE HART, M.A.
HUNTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
CONTENTS.
PAGE
THE CONSTITUTIONS DEALT WITH BY ARISTOTLE IN THE POLITICS vii
TEXT OF BOOK VI (IV) . . . ι
TEXT OF BOOK VII (V) 32
TEXT OF BOOK VIII (VI) 70
CRITICAL NOTES . . 87
NOTES TO BOOK VI (IV) . . .. 135
PRELIMINARY REMARKS ON BOOK VII (V) . . 275
NOTES TO BOOK VII (V) 281
NOTES TO BOOK VIII (VI) . .. . .. 489
APPENDIX . .. 569
ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS TO VOL. IV 571
INDEXES :—
GENERAL INDEX 573
INDEX OF GREEK WORDS NOTICED IN THE WORK . . . 674
GRAMMATICAL INDEX . 701
SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS 707

THE CONSTITUTIONS DEALT WITH
BY ARISTOTLE IN THE POLITICS.
WE must not expect to find in the last three Books
of the Politics a systematic description of the various
forms of constitution dealt with in them and a complete
estimate of their strength and weakness, their merits and
defects. The object of these Books is rather a practical
object, to teach statesmen how to frame, amend, and
administer each constitution so that it may last. Aristotle
is naturally led in the course of his inquiries on this subject
to mark off the various forms and sub-forms of constitution
from each other, and incidentally to throw much light on
their nature and tendencies, but his paramount object is
a practical object, to give guidance to statesmen, not to
set before us a detailed picture of each constitution and
its working. We gather from what he tells us that
statesmen were not aware how many sub-forms of each
constitution existed, and that consequently they committed
errors both in introducing and in amending constitutions.
They probably confounded the sub-forms, and gave one
of them institutions appropriate to another. We gather
also that they often introduced constitutions and sub-forms
of constitution where they were out of place; that they often
sought rather to make the constitutions they framed pro
nounced examples of their type than to make them durable ;
and that they commonly did not attempt to create by
education and habituation an ethos favourable to the main-
viii CONSTITUTIONS STUDIED IN THE POLITICS.
tenance of the constitution. Aristotle seeks to enable
statesmen to avoid all these errors. His object is to
make the study of constitutions more thorough and
detailed and more practically useful than it had been.
It has been said (vol. i. p. 485) that the Politics is in
part a Statesman's Manual. The last three Books consti
tute such a Manual in an especial degree. Yet they are
not a complete Statesman's Manual. They afford guidance
both to the framers of constitutions and to administrators,
but the guidance which they afford to administrators is
mainly limited to one problem—how to administer the
State so as to make the constitution last. Aristotle does
not tell administrators in them how to make government
efficient; he studies rather how to satisfy all classes of
citizens or most of them, for his object is to make the
constitution last. His treatment, indeed, even of the ques
tion to which he does address himself is incomplete. For
instance, he says but little as to the way in which diffi
culties arising from differences of race among the citizens
should be dealt with. He writes with a special view to
the particular perils to which the Greek City-State was
most exposed—those arising from the jealousies and dis
cords of classes. He writes for States in which the relations
between the rich and the poor were bad, and asks how
constitutions are to be made durable where that is the case.
The abso- At the head of Aristotle's list of constitutions stand the
ship am?" tw0 f°rms—^e absolute kingship and the best kind of
the best j aristocracy— in which supreme power rests with men
aristo- °f fully equipped virtue, and the aim of the constitution
cracy. \ the realization of the most desirable life, the life which
s
is lived in accordance with virtue—virtue not of one kind
only, but of all—and with a full equipment of external
and bodily goods. No constitution could fully satisfy
Aristotle which stopped short of this aim. Holding as
J he did that the polis existed to guide men to the life
of full virtue and happiness, he could not fail to hold that
the qonstitution and laws of the polis must place supreme
THE IDEAL KINGSHIP AND ARISTOCRACY. ix
power in the hands of men able and purposed to rule and /
be ruled in such a way as to enable the polis to discharge
this function.
The absolute kingship exists where a man or a family of
surpassing virtue and political ability (3. 13. 1284 a 3 sqq.:
4 (7). 3. 1325 b 10 sqq.) rules over men capable of being
ruled with a view to the most desirable life, who gladly
accept his or their rule.
Of the best kind of aristocracy there are, it would seem,
two varieties:—
1. There is the variety in which the same men always
rule, the ruled being always ruled and never succeeding
to rule. Here the rulers must be capable of ruling with
a view to the most desirable life, and the ruled must be
capable of being ruled as freemen should be ruled with
a view to the same end. This is the form described in
3. 17-18. We do not learn whether the rulers in this form
are hereditary or elected by the ruled, nor whether they
are controlled by law.
2. There is the variety in which the ruled succeed to
rule on their attainment of a certain age and after a long
period of military service, preceded by a careful education.
This is the form described in the Fourth and Fifth (old
Seventh and Eighth) Books. Here, as in the first-named
variety, the rulers are capable of ruling, and the ruled
of being ruled, with a view to the most desirable life.
Both rulers and ruled are good men as well as good
citizens, though the ruled are not good citizens and good
men in the fullest sense till they reach the age at which
they acquire moral prudence and become rulers. In this
variety, as in the other, the rulers are apparently conceived
by Aristotle as not numerous—not a multitude (πλήθος).
When a multitude rules for the common good, a polity
exists, not an aristocracy (3. 7. 1279 a 37 sqq.), and though
the ruling class rules for the common good, it does not
apparently rule with a view to the most desirable life.
Next to these ideal constitutions, but next after a great