The political thought of Plato and Aristotle by Barker Ernest Sir 1874-1960

Author:Barker, Ernest, Sir, 1874-1960.
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Plato--Republic, Aristotle--Politics, Political science--Greece--History--Early works to 1800, Political science--Greece--Philosophy.
Publisher: New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons; London: Methuen.
Published: 1906-03-25T05:00:00+00:00

THE TELEOLOGICAL VIEW OF THE STATE 279

stance, the exaggeration of liberty in a democracy), is as great a defect as the exaggeration of any feature of the body. In an organism each organ must always have its appointed and limited size. To exaggerate any part of the body will result in its losing its due proportion as a part, and finally even in its losing its own character, as a result of the excess to which it has been pushed and the deficiency in all the counterbalancing parts. Nor is it otherwise in a democracy: liberty pushed to an excess will be degraded into licence, for the lack of any counter-balancing order. We can only agree with the lesson which this analogy points: it is less easy to agree with another Aristotelian view, which the analogy of the human body seems to suggest. In regard to the human body, Aristotle distinguishes between integral and contributory parts—between parts which share in the full life of the whole, and parts which are the oondi-tions, and indeed the indispensable conditions, of that life, but do not themselves share in its activity. Integral parts are organs like the hand or foot: contributory or conditional parts are elements or constituents like blood, bones, or sinews. Much the same distinction is made within the State. In classifying its parts, Aristotle distinguishes the parts or classes which are integral, and share in its full life and activity, from those which are contributory, and only serve as conditions of that activity. The former are the military, judicial, sacerdotal, and deliberative classes; the latter the cultivators, artisans, labourers, and traders. In the life of the State, which is a moral life, the former have the time and the capacity to share; and because they can share in the life, they are the only citizens known to the constitution. The latter classes, however, have neither time nor capacity to participate in the moral life, or, consequently, to become citizens. Their function is the provision of wealth, of means to that moral life which is the destined end of the State; but between means and end there can be no community, nor can there be any real union between the providers of means and the achievers of the end. The distinction which is thus made within the State is compared by Aristotle himself to the distinction which reigns in all natural wholes;' but the comparison with the human body in par-

' See before, p. 234, on '* wholes " ; and for the particular conception, pp. 227, 407, 418.

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