Politics   

exists for the sake of a good life, and not for the sake of life only:
if life only were the object, slaves and brute animals might form a
state, but they cannot, for they have no share in happiness or in a
life of free choice. Nor does a state exist for the sake of alliance
and security from injustice, nor yet for the sake of exchange and
mutual intercourse; for then the Tyrrhenians and the Carthaginians,
and all who have commercial treaties with one another, would be the
citizens of one state. True, they have agreements about imports, and
engagements that they will do no wrong to one another, and written
articles of alliance. But there are no magistrates common to the
contracting parties who will enforce their engagements; different
states have each their own magistracies. Nor does one state take care
that the citizens of the other are such as they ought to be, nor see
that those who come under the terms of the treaty do no wrong or
wickedness at an, but only that they do no injustice to one another.
Whereas, those who care for good government take into consideration
virtue and vice in states. Whence it may be further inferred that
virtue must be the care of a state which is truly so called, and not
merely enjoys the name: for without this end the community becomes a
mere alliance which differs only in place from alliances of which the
members live apart; and law is only a convention, 'a surety to one
another of justice,' as the sophist Lycophron says, and has no real
power to make the citizens
This is obvious; for suppose distinct places, such as Corinth and
Megara, to be brought together so that their walls touched, still they
would not be one city, not even if the citizens had the right to
intermarry, which is one of the rights peculiarly characteristic of
states. Again, if men dwelt at a distance from one another, but not so
far off as to have no intercourse, and there were laws among them that
they should not wrong each other in their exchanges, neither would
this be a state. Let us suppose that one man is a carpenter, another a
husbandman, another a shoemaker, and so on, and that their number is
ten thousand: nevertheless, if they have nothing in common but
exchange, alliance, and the like, that would not constitute a state.
Why is this? Surely not because they are at a distance from one
another: for even supposing that such a community were to meet in one
place, but that each man had a house of his own, which was in a manner
his state, and that they made alliance with one another, but only
against evil-doers; still an accurate thinker would not deem this to
be a state, if their intercourse with one another was of the same
character after as before their union. It is clear then that a state
is not a mere society, having a common place, established for the
prevention of mutual crime and for the sake of exchange. These are
conditions without which a state cannot exist; but all of them
together do not constitute a state, which is a community of families
and aggregations of families in well-being, for the sake of a perfect
and self-sufficing life. Such a community can only be established
among those who live in the same place and intermarry. Hence arise in
cities family connections, brotherhoods, common sacrifices, amusements
which draw men together. But these are created by friendship, for the
will to live together is friendship. The end of the state is the good
life, and these are the means towards it. And the state is the union
of families and villages in a perfect and self-sufficing life, by
which we mean a happy and honorable life.
Our conclusion, then, is that political society exists for the sake of
noble actions, and not of mere companionship. Hence they who
contribute most to such a society have a greater share in it than
those who have the same or a greater freedom or nobility of birth but
are inferior to them in political virtue; or than those who exceed
them in wealth but are surpassed by them in virtue.
From what has been said it will be clearly seen that all the partisans
of different forms of government speak of a part of justice only.
Part X
There is also a doubt as to what is to be the supreme power in the