Reason itself also is
divided into two parts, in the manner we usually divide it; the
theoretic and the practical; which division therefore seems necessary
for this part also: the same analogy holds good with respect to
actions; of which those which are of a superior nature ought always to
be chosen by those who have it in their power; for that is always most
eligible to every one which will procure the best ends. Now life is
divided into labour and rest, war and peace; and of what we do the
objects are partly necessary and useful, partly noble: and we should
give the same preference to these that we do to the different parts of
the soul and its actions, as war to procure peace; labour, rest; and
the useful, the noble. The politician, therefore, who composes a body
of laws ought to extend his views to everything; the different parts
of the soul and their actions; more particularly to those things which
are of a superior nature and ends; and, in the same manner, to the
lives of men and their different actions.
They ought to be fitted both for labour and war, but rather [1333b]
for rest and peace; and also to do what is necessary and useful, but
rather what is fair and noble. It is to those objects that the
education of the children ought to tend, and of all the youths who
want instruction. All the Grecian states which now seem best governed,
and the legislators who founded those states, appear not to have
framed their polity with a view to the best end, or to every virtue,
in their laws and education; but eagerly to have attended to what is
useful and productive of gain: and nearly of the same opinion with
these are some persons who have written lately, who, by praising the
Lacedaemonian state, show they approve of the intention of the
legislator in making war and victory the end of his government.
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