politics

Chapter 71 Volume (H) Seven (9)
Citizens of Athens are enrolled in the military from the age of 60, and they are called separately in case of war ("Athens Regime" 53).In 338 BC, after the battle of Chaeronea was defeated by Philip of Macedonia, Athens was particularly diligent in military training for young people aged 20 to 412.Therefore, Aristotle reflects the life of his time in this chapter, and also talks about the guards and youth military training in more detail (see "New School" III 384, "Appendix 717" on page 738 of "Bucker's Translation") . .There must also be a number of temples scattered around the village, some dedicated to the gods, and others dedicated to the heroes of the city-state. See Plato's "Laws" 848B and 3126B. ;53D, every village should build a temple.In this chapter, Aristotle only mentions heroes and not the minor gods. Maybe he thinks it is appropriate to stop miscellaneous priests.In the Attica region, there are many altars and niches in the villages, see Li Wei's "History of Rome" [-]. "Diodorus" xv[-] records that the Greeks firmly believed that when the city-state had a war disaster, the gods of heroes and martyrs enshrined could go to the battle to help and kill the enemy and protect the people. .

But it would be a waste of energy to dwell on and illustrate the details of the plan.It is easy to make lofty theories about these things, but it may be difficult to put these lofty theories into practice.We can make a wish, but how to get what we want depends on our fate. In the previous sentence, "advocate a high theory" and "put it into practice", and in the next sentence, the fate and prayer, each from the original rhyme, It has become a confrontation between two sentences, and the translation has not achieved the same meaning. .We therefore need not dwell on these details at present.

Chapter Thirteen

After explaining the population and land conditions of an ideal city-state, 25 now we should talk about the main topic of the political system; 25 here we need to explain why and how a city-state can have a happy life and formulate the main points of a good political system.No matter where, if people want to obtain happiness, they must pay attention to two points: the first is to correct their purpose, so that all actions in life do not violate their purpose.The second is to explore the principles of all behaviors, so as to understand the laws of life according to which it is easy to achieve the goal.The purpose and the means, the two echo each other, or they may not correspond.Sometimes people have righteous goals, 30 but in fact they don't achieve their original intentions in the end.Sometimes all means succeed, and a man gets what he asks, but looks very contemptuously at what he asks for.Sometimes even both are inappropriate, as in a physician who misdiagnoses the nature of physical health and prescribes a wrong prescription for obtaining the health he desires. 35 For all arts and sciences, it is necessary to understand both—to determine its purpose and to be proficient in the means to achieve this purpose (as) "New School" III 422, pointing out that this language is both The purpose of happiness is not clarified, and there are fallacies in the method of pursuing happiness (for example, there must be no family and private property above the Weiguo), which is unreasonable in both ends and means (see volume 1261 11a16-1264, 27a16, b25- [-]). .

The purpose of all human beings is clearly the good life or happiness (pleasure).Some people's actions are good enough for their purposes.But there are still some people who yearn for it, but in the end they can't achieve their goal, either because of weak talent or because of difficulties. 40 In this regard, we should also remember that if we want to obtain a good life, we must have suitable equipment, and each person's family situation is more or less rich or poor according to his experience; Thickness is different, 1332ɑ For those who have excellent talents and virtues, they must have little external needs. If the talent is not sufficient, they have to rely more on property.Others begin with the wrong purpose; and though they do well and can achieve something, all their faculties are thrown in the wrong path.Here, since the original purpose of our research is to find the best regime, it is natural to clarify the nature of happiness.Only a city-state with the best political system can have the best governance; and a city-state with the best governance can have the greatest hope of happiness Way of life, the best regime = the best way of life. (5) Excellence (virtue) = happiness (happiness).Combining these two formulas, the best regime = the happiest (happiest) way of life.See chapters 1280a31-1281a10 in Chapter [-] of Volume [-] and Chapters [-] to [-] in Volume [-]. .

In the Ethics we have already mentioned - and there the thesis we hold is beneficial (true) - that happiness is the culmination of good works and the full realization of goodness, which is due to the "natural" There is no need for any "hypothetical" "Niron" Volume 1098 16a1176 and Volume 4 1328b37, which have similar sentences and different wordings, but the meaning is the same.See chapter 10 [-]a[-] of this book. .The "assumption" I mentioned means that people and things must obtain relevant conditions before they can become good; because of "naturalness"[-], they must have internal goodness, and they can become good without external seeking.Taking just behavior as an example, if it is a good thing to impose fines or punishments according to the justice of the law, it is a good deed, but there must be criminals' evil deeds as a prerequisite before the law enforcers have to do this good deed— We prefer to believe that there are no sinners and no evil deeds in the city-state, so that the judge cannot punish and realize his justice.If according to the justice of merit and reward, honor and property are given to others, and if you do good to others by doing what you do well, this kind of doing good is different from doing good to punish evil; good deeds.

15 Using punishment to punish crimes, in a certain sense, such as inflicting pain on people, is still only a bad thing that can be taken ("bad things that can be done"). Both "Bei School" and "Su School" are from "Shi School". On the contrary, as far as the purpose of punishing evil is to eliminate evil, good deeds can also create some good karma and become the basis of good virtue.We can also make another interpretation of the thesis here: although good people can be content with poverty and disease,20 and are good at dealing with all kinds of hardships in life, but happiness always depends on things that are exactly opposite to these things, namely food, clothing, health and Other material equipment needed for life.In the previous chapters discussing ethical issues, see volume 1113 22a1-b1248 of Neilon, volume 26 1207b31 of Eulen, and volume 116 8b1031 of Ethics. , we have explained several times that the natural goodness of a truly kind and happy person must also be absolute goodness "absolute goodness", that is, "principal goodness". , when he develops his inner goodness, he must be able to clearly demonstrate the absolute value (character) of his goodness. 7 However, because of the fact that good and happy people are not entirely free from external goodness, it is suggested that external objects are the cause of happiness.It's just like hearing a harp played, people don't care about the musician's skillful hands, but appreciate the strings of the harp.

Through the above analysis, we can see that the city-state must presuppose some elements, and then provide other matters with the ability of legislators.We hope that this ideal city-state has sufficient equipment in every aspect—the abundance of external objects is placed on fate, and when fate is within the scope of the ruler,30 we can only make sincere prayers.The goodness of the city is another matter: here we leave the dominion of fate and enter the realm of human knowledge and will.It is in this field that the legislator can exercise his skill.A city-state can become a good state only if its citizens who participate in political affairs possess virtue.In our city-state, everyone is responsible for the politics of all citizens, 35 and therefore everyone should be a good person.Then we need to carefully consider how each citizen can be a good person.A city-state in which all citizens are not individually good may collectively appear to be a good state.However, it is certainly superior if every citizen is a good person.All goodness necessarily implies every individual goodness.

The reason why people become good from virtue comes from the three ends.These three ends are the endowment endowed by birth, the habit developed in the future, and the inner rationality. "Talent", "habit" and "rationality" are the three ends of morality in life. . "Innate talent", that is, "instinct", is shared by both humans and animals when they are born; after birth, human beings develop habits, develop rationality, and have unique talents and virtues due to education factors (see Volume 1179, Chapter 20, 1099b9, "Nee Lun, Volume 1138, 4b1179), so from here on, the discussion turns to the topic of "education". . 23 As far as talents are concerned, our city-state naturally does not take some other animal species (beasts), but exclusively takes human beings - and for human beings, we are willing to take the family name of certain qualities possessed by the body and soul.Some natural qualities of human beings, 40b originally had no influence on society.Habits change talents; some qualities of life, and their growth, are influenced by our ears and eyes, or we are used to doing good, or we are used to doing evil.Most living things other than humans adapt to their talents and move around in the world. Only a few animals can learn a little bit after birth.

In addition to talent and habit, human beings also live rationally; 5 rationality is unique to human beings.Human beings must have harmony among these three ends in order to be able to live happily.And rationality should be the keynote among the three.People all understand the importance of rationality, so if there is disharmony between the three, they would rather go against innate talent and habits, and obey reason, and regard reason as the criterion of behavior.We have already discussed it in Chapter 10 of this volume. , 1047 What kind of talents should the citizens in the ideal city-state be suitable for the legislators to display their abilities.Since all citizens have that kind of quality, everything else depends on the educational policy formulated by the legislators. Through habitual training, citizens can cultivate part of their talents and virtues, while the other part depends on the guidance of reason. Volume IX Chapter 31 1103b14: "All potentials (talents) are either like sensations, derived from connotations (talents); or like playing the flute, acquired from practice (habits); or like art, acquired from research (reason). The ability acquired by habit and reason must first be practiced; the non-reasonable potential is inherent in the receiver, and it is self-prepared without practice.” Here Aristotle talks about the basic theory of education, which is similar to the volume of "Niron" Chapter 437 11a608, Chapter 17 [-]a[-] of "Sensation and Sensible Objects", and Chapter [-]a[-] of Volume [-] of "Zoology" are roughly consistent. .

Chapter Fourteen

Considering that all political organizations are always composed of rulers and ruled,15 we need to discuss whether the two should be mixed together, or should be different for life.The education system should determine different measures in accordance with the choices of the above-mentioned problems.We can imagine that under certain circumstances, once the ruler and the ruled are divided, 20 should make a difference in life.If the state had men who excelled in their ranks, whose physique and intellect were almost like heroes and gods, the ruling classes would certainly be distinct from their subjects cf. Book I, 1254b16, Book III, 1284a3. .But this kind of idea is rarely encountered in the world; in our real life, we have never seen anything like Scylax, a native of Caryanda (Caryanda) in Garya, who wrote "Scylax, Periplus". And India ("Herodotus" iv 44).

The original book has been lost for a long time, and now "Voyage" is not the original work, and there are no cases listed in this section of Aristotle.The "kings" mentioned here are like the "Kshatriya" among the four surnames (four classes) in India recorded in "The Western Regions of the Tang Dynasty" by Xuanzang of China.It is evident that the Indian kings and their subjects, both physically and mentally, were different.So we should choose a political system in which the ruler and the ruled are iterated; this system is indeed timely and has many reasons. 25 In a society composed of people of the same kind, everyone should enjoy equal rights; any regime that does not conform to justice and violates the principle of equality will inevitably be difficult to last.If the ruled people cannot obtain their due rights, they will unite with the surrounding people (serfs) to conspire for revolution; and compared with so many enemies, the number of ruling groups is too small to be able to compete.On the other hand, there must be some difference between the ruler and the ruled.The two initially differed and yet shared equal political rights: this is the conundrum that legislators need to resolve.Regarding these, we have already discussed them in Chapter 30, 1329a2-17. .

According to the natural arrangement, we propose to divide a group of 35 citizens of the same species into two groups of high and low age, and the distinction made between the young and the old is naturally just in line with the distinction between the ruler and the ruled in the political system. See Plato's "Law" 690A, father and son, high and low, old and young, master and servant, strong and weak are the five order of rule. .Young people will not pretend to be superior to their predecessors and be unwilling to be ruled by others; if they know that they will take over the role of ruling when they reach the appropriate age at 40, they will have no need to complain.In this way, the ruler and the ruled were originally people in different groups at that time, but in terms of succession, they will be in the same group.The same is true about their education: from one point of view, 1233α should receive the same education; from another point of view, they should be different.The proverb describes it in this way, "To understand the good rules of governing, one must first learn the principle of obedience." See volume 1277 9b[-]. .

We refer to volume 1277, chapter 26, 30a1278-bb32, chapter 1279, 8b1325-17a31 for the previous chapters of this monograph; but we can also see chapter 5, 10a[-]-[-] of this volume.As explained in , there are two fundamentally different ways of ruling: the first is based on the interests of the ruler, and the second is based on the interests of the ruled. The former is the so-called "autocratic rule" (ν δεσποικν, master-slave rule),[-] the latter being the so-called "free man rule" (ηνν ελευθρων).Young people naturally need to learn the knowledge of obedience in the ruling system of free men, but they should also be familiar with and obey certain principles that are only suitable for master-slave rule.There are some tasks which seem to be performed by freemen and slaves, but which in fact have very different purposes.The free youth should be taught to do things which are trivial and generally regarded as menial, and they do not lose their honorable status by such menial servitude. [-] There is no distinction between high and low in all actions, and it is only by the good or bad of their purpose (consequence) that they can show that those actions are either dishonorable or honorable.

(End of this chapter)