Aristotle, 384 BC-322 BC / 2008-06-30 00:00:00

EBOOK, POLITICS ***


This eBook was produced by Eric Eldred.


A TREATISE ON GOVERNMENT
TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK OF
ARISTOTLE
BY WILLIAM ELLIS, A.M.
LONDON &.TORONTO PUBLISHED BY J M DENT & SONS LTD.
&.IN NEW YORK BY E. P. DUTTON &. CO
FIRST ISSUE OF THIS EDITION 1912 REPRINTED 1919, 1923, 1928


INTRODUCTION

The Politics of Aristotle is the second part of a treatise of which
the Ethics is the first part. It looks back to the Ethics as the
Ethics looks forward to the Politics. For Aristotle did not separate,
as we are inclined to do, the spheres of the statesman and the
moralist. In the Ethics he has described the character necessary for
the good life, but that life is for him essentially to be lived in
society, and when in the last chapters of the Ethics he comes to the
practical application of his inquiries, that finds expression not in
moral exhortations addressed to the individual but in a description of
the legislative opportunities of the statesman. It is the legislator's
task to frame a society which shall make the good life possible.
Politics for Aristotle is not a struggle between individuals or
classes for power, nor a device for getting done such elementary tasks
as the maintenance of order and security without too great
encroachments on individual liberty. The state is "a community of
well-being in families and aggregations of families for the sake of a
perfect and self-sufficing life." The legislator is a craftsman whose
material is society and whose aim is the good life.
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Parts: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17