Politics   

parts of household management correspond to the persons who compose
the household, and a complete household consists of slaves and
freemen. Now we should begin by examining everything in its fewest
possible elements; and the first and fewest possible parts of a family
are master and slave, husband and wife, father and children. We have
therefore to consider what each of these three relations is and ought
to be: I mean the relation of master and servant, the marriage
relation (the conjunction of man and wife has no name of its own), and
thirdly, the procreative relation (this also has no proper name). And
there is another element of a household, the so-called art of getting
wealth, which, according to some, is identical with household
management, according to others, a principal part of it; the nature of
this art will also have to be considered by us.
Let us first speak of master and slave, looking to the needs of
practical life and also seeking to attain some better theory of their
relation than exists at present. For some are of opinion that the rule
of a master is a science, and that the management of a household, and
the mastership of slaves, and the political and royal rule, as I was
saying at the outset, are all the same. Others affirm that the rule of
a master over slaves is contrary to nature, and that the distinction
between slave and freeman exists by law only, and not by nature; and
being an interference with nature is therefore unjust.
Part IV
Property is a part of the household, and the art of acquiring property
is a part of the art of managing the household; for no man can live
well, or indeed live at all, unless he be provided with necessaries.
And as in the arts which have a definite sphere the workers must have
their own proper instruments for the accomplishment of their work, so
it is in the management of a household. Now instruments are of various
sorts; some are living, others lifeless; in the rudder, the pilot of a
ship has a lifeless, in the look-out man, a living instrument; for in
the arts the servant is a kind of instrument. Thus, too, a possession
is an instrument for maintaining life. And so, in the arrangement of
the family, a slave is a living possession, and property a number of
such instruments; and the servant is himself an instrument which takes
precedence of all other instruments. For if every instrument could
accomplish its own work, obeying or anticipating the will of others,
like the statues of Daedalus, or the tripods of Hephaestus, which,
says the poet,
"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. Here, however, another distinction must
be drawn; the instruments commonly so called are instruments of
production, whilst a possession is an instrument of action. The
shuttle, for example, is not only of use; but something else is made
by it, whereas of a garment or of a bed there is only the use.
Further, as production and action are different in kind, and both
require instruments, the instruments which they employ must likewise
differ in kind. But life is action and not production, and therefore
the slave is the minister of action. Again, a possession is spoken of
as a part is spoken of; for the part is not only a part of something
else, but wholly belongs to it; and this is also true of a possession.
The master is only the master of the slave; he does not belong to him,
whereas the slave is not only the slave of his master, but wholly
belongs to him. Hence we see what is the nature and office of a slave;
he who is by nature not his own but another's man, is by nature a
slave; and he may be said to be another's man who, being a human
being, is also a possession. And a possession may be defined as an
instrument of action, separable from the possessor.
Part V
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?