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e.g., doctors or painters; but while the sophists profess to teach politics,
it is practised not by any of them but by the politicians, who would seem
to do so by dint of a certain skill and experience rather than of thought;
for they are not found either writing or speaking about such matters
(though it were a nobler occupation perhaps than composing speeches
Nicomachean Ethics/181
for the law-courts and the assembly), nor again are they found to have
made statesmen of their own sons or any other of their friends. But it
was to be expected that they should if they could; for there is nothing
better than such a skill that they could have left to their cities, or could
prefer to have for themselves, or, therefore, for those dearest to them.
Still, experience seems to contribute not a little; else they could not have
become politicians by familiarity with politics; and so it seems that those
who aim at knowing about the art of politics need experience as well.
But those of the sophists who profess the art seem to be very far
from teaching it. For, to put the matter generally, they do not even know
what kind of thing it is nor what kinds of things it is about; otherwise
they would not have classed it as identical with rhetoric or even inferior
to it, nor have thought it easy to legislate by collecting the laws that are
thought well of; they say it is possible to select the best laws, as though
even the selection did not demand intelligence and as though right judge-
ment were not the greatest thing, as in matters of music. For while people
experienced in any department judge rightly the works produced in it,
and understand by what means or how they are achieved, and what
harmonizes with what, the inexperienced must be content if they do not
fail to see whether the work has been well or ill made as in the case of
painting. Now laws are as it were the works of the political art; how
then can one learn from them to be a legislator, or judge which are best?
Even medical men do not seem to be made by a study of text-books. Yet
people try, at any rate, to state not only the treatments, but also how
particular classes of people can be cured and should be treated distin-
guishing the various habits of body; but while this seems useful to expe-
rienced people, to the inexperienced it is valueless. Surely, then, while
collections of laws, and of constitutions also, may be serviceable to
those who can study them and judge what is good or bad and what
enactments suit what circumstances, those who go through such collec-
tions without a practised faculty will not have right judgement (unless it
be as a spontaneous gift of nature), though they may perhaps become
more intelligent in such matters.
Now our predecessors have left the subject of legislation to us
unexamined; it is perhaps best, therefore, that we should ourselves study
it, and in general study the question of the constitution, in order to com-
plete to the best of our ability our philosophy of human nature. First,
then, if anything has been said well in detail by earlier thinkers, let us try
to review it; then in the light of the constitutions we have collected let us
182/Aristotle
study what sorts of influence preserve and destroy states, and what sorts
preserve or destroy the particular kinds of constitution, and to what
causes it is due that some are well and others ill administered. When
these have been studied we shall perhaps be more likely to see with a
comprehensive view, which constitution is best, and how each must be
ordered, and what laws and customs it must use, if it is to be at its best.
Let us make a beginning of our discussion.
THE END
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