Polytropy

In the Nicomachean Ethics, this third of eight readings on friendship (φιλία) is the first of three on the connection with the just (τὸ δίκαιον). A lot of the reading might be summarized in a table:

We are reading chapters ix–xi of Book VIII. The table is based on chapter x and is elaborated on in chapter xi. Chapter ix introduces the idea that friendship and justice go together in communities, and all communities are formed within political communities, or polities, which they somehow reflect.

Aristotle imitates or follows his teacher Plato, who in Republic Book VIII has Socrates describe a chain of five polities:

1. Aristocracy.
2. Timocracy.
3. Oligarchy.
4. Democracy.
5. Tyranny.

Strictly, what is called aristocracy here includes rule by a monarch. Aristotle distinguishes this from rule by a whole class of aristocrats, so that his list comes to have six entries. He then arranges these in two columns, so to speak, as in my table. It’s not clear whether his timocracy is the same as Socrates’s; the emphasis

• for Socrates is on τιμή “honor, esteem”;
• for Aristotle is on τίμημα “valuation, estimate of property.”

Socrates makes an analogy between the polity and the individual. He can do this, having analyzed the individual into the three parts,

• rational,
• spirited (or irascible), and
• appetitive,

each corresponding to a class of citizens of a polity. As a polity of type n on the list becomes one of type n + 1, so a father of type n may end up raising a son of type n + 1.

For Aristotle, the analogy is between the polity and the family, as in the table at the head of this post. The tabular arrangement of the polities themselves seems to reflect two criteria.

1. The columns are for good and bad.
2. The rows are for size of ruling class:
   1. one,
   2. few,
   3. many.

I am reminded of the different ways of analyzing experience into “modes.” For Collingwood, in Speculum Mentis, there are five:

1. Art.
2. Religion.
3. Science.
4. History.
5. Philosophy.

Supposedly he has added Science and History to the modes that Hegel distinguished. Oakeshott “folds art and religion into practice,” as I observed in “Poetry and Mathematics,” quoting from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy; but “he later added ‘poetry’ (aesthetic experience).” Each of Oakeshott’s modes also has a hubristic form or interpretation, so that it seems we can make a table thus:

That’s all great, if one likes to organize things. It seems pretty pointless if one cannot apply it to one’s own life. Thus I’m agreeing with the opening of the Prologue of Speculum Mentis, “All thought exists for the sake of action.” Perhaps it should be counted as disagreement, when I say that at least one pursuit needs no application; however, mathematics is what I have in mind, and that’s not what we are doing now.

In either table above, the important distinction is between the two columns.

We can all do things differently, and that’s fine. However, there’s a right and wrong way to do it, or at least a better and a worse, whatever we are doing.

We might for example be enslaving others. Aristotle is addressing people for whom slavery is normal. He introduces slaves as animate tools. A tool is not something that one can be a friend with. And yet a slave is also a human being, thus capable of friendship. We’ll see where Aristotle goes with this.

Meanwhile, it seems as if Aristotle is like Thomas Jefferson in having children by a slave. Diogenes Laertius reports of the former,

According to Timaeus, he had a son by Herpyllis, his concubine, who was also called Nicomachus.

ἔσχε δὲ καὶ υἱὸν Νικόμαχον ἐξ Ἑρπυλλίδος τῆς παλλακῆς, ὥς φησι Τίμαιος.

Diogenes’s mentions of Herpyllis do not seem to contradict what Wikipedia says of Greek concubines:

The status of these women was that of slaves, usually captured in war and brought back to Greece, either for the use of their captor, or to be sold. These women were allowed to be bought or sold just as any other slave in the Greek world.

Nonetheless, reading Aristotle does us no harm, no matter how reprehensible his views. At least, Agnes Callard says that, as I noted in “Map of Art” (which followed “Poetry and Mathematics” by almost two months in the lockdown summer of 2020).

Callard’s argument is a bit different from one that a tutor made in my freshman seminar at St John’s College: Aristotle may be doing good, even by our our standards, if he is calling into question the convention that prisoners of war can be made into slaves.

That is how I try to read Aristotle. I want to make what I can of him, because:

• People think he’s important.
• I have the opportunity to read in a group.
• I spent a lot of time reading him when I was young.

The reading of Aristotle in college was from the following works, as best I can recall:

• freshman year,
  • laboratory,
    • Parts of Animals;
  • seminar,
    • Physics,
    • Metaphysics,
    • Nicomachean Ethics,
    • Politics;
• sophomore year,
  • language,
    • Categories;
• senior year,
  • preceptorial,
    • Metaphysics.

Somewhere in there were the Poetics and De Anima. I wrote my senior essay on the Law of Contradiction, as taken up in the Metaphysics, though I hesitate to go back and see what I wrote.

In freshman laboratory, we read also a memoir on how one could study something intently while missing the most basic fact. Told to see what he could see in a preserved dead fish, a new student of Louis Agassiz needed twenty-four hours to recognize bilateral symmetry as worth pointing out.

We read the memoir as a ditto or photocopy, and I do not seem to have retained my own copy. Thus I’m delighted to be able to find the memoir on the web, as for example on a page called “‘In the Laboratory With Agassiz,’ by Samuel H. Scudder.” This is part of “An Open Source Reader” called Reading for Philosophical Inquiry: A Brief Introduction to Philosophical Thinking (ver. 0.21), edited by Lee Archie and John G. Archie.

Thanks to the HathiTrust, one can even go to what would seem to be the original, published indeed as “In the Laboratory with Agassiz,” but credited only to “a former pupil.” This is in Every Saturday (Saturday, April 4, 1874; series 4, volume 1, number 14, pages 369–70).

Part of the memoir is in Doing Naturalistic Inquiry: A Guide to Methods, by David A. Erlandson, Edward L. Harris, Barbara L. Skipper, and Steve D. Allen (Sage Publications, 1993); however, the excerpt there, called “Look at Your Fish,” stops at,

This was the best entomological lesson I ever had—a lesson whose influence has extended to the details of every subsequent study; a legacy the Professor had left to me, as he has left it to so many others, of inestimable value, which we could not buy, with which we cannot part.

There are a few more paragraphs in the original, including an important quotation of Agassiz:

“Facts are stupid things,” he would say, “until brought into connection with some general law.”

Unfortunately it seems as if, from the fact of human difference, Agassiz tried to derive or confirm a law, or at least a theory, whereby those differences must reflect “special” differences, that is, differences between species.

A simpler form of the story of Agassiz and the student became Ezra Pound’s “Parable of the Sunfish.” The account of student Nathaniel Shaler in his autobiography (pages 98–9) is itself simpler, because it doesn’t show how what in retrospect should have been “obvious” can nonetheless go unnoticed for a long time.

Shaler talks of the value of long boring work, and this is the lesson derived by somebody called James Clear, who would like to offer all of his life lessons to you.

Shaler called American slavery “infinitely the mildest and most decent system of slavery that ever existed,” according to Wikipedia; unfortunately the link to the source in the Cornell University Library is dead, and I have not been able to revive it. Meanwhile, the assertion seems to me like saying that factories in nineteenth-century Manchester, described (as I recall) by Marx in Capital, represented the most decent system of labor that ever existed, if only because of the great wealth it created.

At any rate, I’m reading Aristotle, trying to see what I can see. I’m looking at the Greek, to see what translators may miss or disagree on. An example in this reading is in §§ xi.2 and 3:

φύσει τε ἀρχικὸν πατὴρ υἱῶν καὶ πρόγονοι ἐκγόνων καὶ βασιλεὺς βασιλευομένων. ἐν ὑπεροχῇ δὲ αἱ φιλίαι αὗται, διὸ καὶ τιμῶνται οἱ γονεῖς. καὶ τὸ δίκαιον δὴ ἐν τούτοις οὐ ταὐτὸ ἀλλὰ τὸ κατ᾽ ἀξίαν· οὕτω γὰρ καὶ ἡ φιλία.

For it is as natural for a father to rule his children, and forefathers those descended from them, as for a king to rule his subjects. These friendships then involve a superiority of benefits on one side, which is why parents receive honour as well as service. The claims of justice also, therefore, in these relations are not the same on both sides, but proportionate to desert, as is the affection bestowed. (Rackham)

And a father is by nature suited to rule sons, and forefathers their descendants, and a king his subjects. These friendships consist in superiority, which is why parents are also honored. So what is just among these people is not the same but is in accord with worth, and so too is the friendship. (Sachs)

If what is just is “not the same,” does the difference correspond to that between

• father, forefather, and king?
• father and son?

Rackham makes a decision, but Sachs retains Aristotle’s ambiguity. The former translator perhaps sees Aristotle as alluding to § vii.3 in the previous reading, whereby equality

• in justice is based first on worth, second on quantity;
• in friendship, the other way around.

We are talking about a different kind of friendship now, a friendship of unequals. The corresponding justice is different too, not the same. That could be what Aristotle means; but I guess Rackham thinks he means that, the friends not now being equal, the justice is not equal either. However, equality is not sameness. We confuse them in mathematics today, but I think Euclid, at least, distinguishes them.

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It takes work to read Aristotle, as it does to become a biologist, a mathematician, or a chess player. In the last occupation, the paucity of women may represent not inability, but unwillingness to put in the time and effort needed, just to beat opponents on a chessboard. At least, this is what I have seen argued recently. When somebody brought my attention to the latest winner of the Abel Prize, I connected his work to that of playing chess, as follows.

Michel Talagrand suffered blindness as a child. The article about him in Smithsonian (March 25, 2024) is not entirely clear, but I gather his blindness was cured. There are blind mathematicians though, and the Notices of the American Mathematical Society (October 2002) had an article about several of them:

… sighted people sometimes have misconceptions about three-dimensional space because of the inadequate and misleading two-dimensional projection of space onto the retina. “The blind person (via his other senses) has an undeformed, directly 3-dimensional intuition of space,” he said.

We may have misconceptions about Aristotle, precisely because we think we see things more clearly now. Meanwhile, Talagrand refers to his own “handicaps”:

“I’m not able to learn mathematics easily,” Talagrand tells New Scientist. “I have to work. It takes a very long time and I have a terrible memory. I forget things. So I try to work, despite handicaps, and the way I worked was trying to understand really well the simple things. Really, really well, in complete detail. And that turned out to be a successful approach.”

I was interested to read recently how success in chess requires such hard work as Talagrand seems to be referring to. It is a simple point, but may explain why men are more successful (on average) than women at chess, if not mathematics. Getting good at the former, at least, requires more than just playing lots of games; it needs a kind of obsession:

So it’s not surprising that females, being less focused (on average, as usual) on crushing an opponent in some future tournament, might be less motivated to go in for the kind of hardcore practice that’s necessary to develop elite skills (“deliberate practice,” as it’s called, as distinct from simply practising by playing).

My source now is Carole Hooven, “Why Do Men Dominate Chess?” (Quillette, March 22, 2024).

Studies show that boys and men are more likely to exhibit a “rigid persistence in an activity,” by which “the passion controls the individual” (“obsessive passion” in the literature). In anecdotal terms, we are talking here about the man who drops everything to become, say, a 16-hour-per-day videogamer, or a day-trader, or chess addict. Yes, some women take on these kinds of fixations. But men do it more often, and with greater intensity.

Lots more women than men play Scrabble, even competitively, but they don’t generally win the tournaments. Hooven’s explanation:

Not only do males generally score higher than females in these areas, but there is also a positive relationship between obsessive passion and both chess and Scrabble ratings. The sexes don’t seem to differ in the benefits they gain from practice. But men do tend to enjoy practice more, and so do more of it; habits that are strongly associated with winning.

Paying attention to sex differences is “Why I Left Harvard” – says Hooven.

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Contents and Summary

• Chapter IX
• Chapter 11
  • They go together,

    • friendship (φιλία) and
    • the just (τὸ δίκαιον).

    For:

    • They are found in every community (κοινωνία).
    • As much as there is community, e.g. among
      • shipmates,
      • fellow soldiers,

      so much is there

      • friendship, because also
      • justice.
    • κοινὰ τὰ φίλων is correct (§ ix.1),
      although there is more or less in common among friends,
      but then justice varies too, e.g. between
      • parents and children,
      • brothers,
      • companions,
      • fellow citizens,
      • other kinds of friends (§ ix.2).
    • Injustice and justice increase with friendship,
      e.g. it’s worse
      • to steal from a companion than a fellow citizen,
      • not to aid a brother than a stranger,
      • to strike a father than anybody else (§ ix.3).

  • All communities are like parts of the political community
    (αἱ δὲ κοινωνίαι πᾶσαι μορίοις ἐοίκασι τῆς πολιτικῆς),
    which exists for an advantage (τοῦ συμφέροντος χάριν),
    and this is justice, according to the nomothetes (§ ix.4).

    • Some communities seek a partial advantage, e.g.
      • sailors,
      • soldiers,
      • tribesmen (φυλέται),
      • fellow citizens (δημόται).
    • Others seek pleasure,
      e.g. the contributor to
      • Bacchanalia (θιασώτης),
      • dinner parties (ἐρανιστής, § ix.5).
    • They all seem to be part of a political community.
  • Friendships will correspond to communities in kind (§ ix.6).
• Chapter X
• Chapter 12
  • Three are the
    • polities (πολιτείαι), best to worst:
      • kingdom (βασιλεία),
      • aristocracy (ἀριστοκρατία),
      • timocracy (τιμοκρατικὴ [πολιτεία]),
        based on property (§ x.1);
    • deviations (παρεκβάσεις),
      that is, corruptions (φθοραί):
      • Of kingdom (best), tyranny (worst),
        both being monarchies (μοναρχίαι).
        Seeks the benefit
        • the king, of the ruled,
          because he is self-sufficient (αὐτάρχης),
          unless chosen by lot;
        • the tyrant, of himself (§ x.2).
      • Aristocracy reverts to oligarchy,
        from rule by the decent to the corrupt,
        through distribution contrary to desert.
      • Timocracy reverts to democracy,
        the least and most frequent deviation (§ x.3).
  • One might take
    • similarities (ὁμοιώματα),
    • paradigms (παραδείγματα),

    in households:

    • The father to his sons is like
      • a king –
        as a king, e.g. Zeus, is father –
      • a tyrant, wrongly, in Persia, as
        master is, rightly, to slaves (§ x.4).
    • The husband to his wife is like
      • an aristocrat, as being worthy, but
      • an oligarch, if he controls everything, as
        she is, if she rules, being e.g. an heiress –
        not from virtue, but wealth and power (§ x.5).
    • Brothers are a
      • timocracy (especially when close in age), but there is
      • democracy, when a master is
        • absent or
        • weak (§ x.6).
• Chapter XI
• Chapter 13
  • In each of the polities,

    • friendship, insofar as
    • justice.

    To wit:

    • Friendship of superiority [as in ch. vii]
      is found in the rule, by nature, of
      • king over subjects, insofar as he
        • does good for them,
        • is “shepherd of the people,”
          as e.g. Homer said of Agamemnon;
      • father over sons, though his benefits are greater:
        • being,
        • nurture,
        • education;
      • ancestors over descendents.
      The justice is

      • not the same (ταὐτό),
      • but according to merit (τὸ κατ᾽ ἀξίαν),

      and so the friendship (§ xi.1, § xi.2, § xi.3).

    • Friendship as in aristocracy
      is that of man (husband) for woman (wife):
      • according to virtue:
      • to the better the more good,
      • the fitting (or marrying! – τὸ ἁρμόζον) to each.

      Likewise justice (§ xi.4).

    • [Friendship] of brothers (τῶν ἀδελφῶν) is like the
      • fraternal (ἑταιρική), for being of
        • equals,
        • same-aged,
        • likes in
          • feeling and
          • custom or character;
      • timocratic, where
        • citizens are
          • equal and
          • decent,
        • rule is
          • partial,
          • equal (§ xi.5).
  • In the perversions,
    especially the tyranny,
    • as with justice,
    • so with friendship,

    there is little or none,
    since there is nothing in common between

    • ruler and
    • ruled,

    any more than between e.g.

    • worker and tool,
    • soul and body,
    • master and slave.

    The thing benefits from use
    (ὠφελεῖται μὲν γὰρ πάντα ταῦτα ὑπὸ τῶν χρωμένων),
    but for the inanimate, there is no

    • friendship or
    • justice,

    nor for

    • horse,
    • cow,
    • slave quâ slave:
      • the slave is an animate tool,
      • the tool an inanimate slave (§ xi.6).
  • There is

    • friendship for the slave
      • not quâ slave,
      • but quâ man, because
    • justice for every man
      regarding all who can share
      • law and
      • contract (§ xi.7).
  • In democracies, there are more
    • friendships and
    • justice,

    since equals have many things in common (§ xi.8).

[1159^b]

Chapter IX

Chapter 11

§ ix.1

ἔοικε δέ, καθάπερ ἐν ἀρχῇ εἴρηται,

εἶναι

ἐν ἁπάσῃ γὰρ κοινωνίᾳ δοκεῖ

προσαγορεύουσι γοῦν ὡς φίλους

• τοὺς σύμπλους καὶ
• τοὺς συστρατιώτας, ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ
• τοὺς ἐν ταῖς ἄλλαις κοινωνίαις.

καθ᾽ ὅσον δὲ κοινωνοῦσιν,
ἐπὶ τοσοῦτόν ἐστι φιλία·

καὶ γὰρ τὸ δίκαιον.

καὶ ἡ παροιμία

κοινὰ τὰ φίλων,

ὀρθῶς·

ἐν κοινωνίᾳ γὰρ
ἡ φιλία.

§ ix.2

ἔστι δ᾽

• ἀδελφοῖς μὲν καὶ
• ἑταίροις πάντα κοινά,
• τοῖς δ᾽ ἄλλοις ἀφωρισμένα, καὶ
  • τοῖς μὲν πλείω
  • τοῖς δ᾽ ἐλάττω·

καὶ γὰρ τῶν φιλιῶν

• αἳ μὲν μᾶλλον
• αἳ δ᾽ ἧττον.

διαφέρει δὲ καὶ τὰ δίκαια· [1160^a]

• οὐ γὰρ ταὐτὰ
  • γονεῦσι πρὸς τέκνα καὶ
  • ἀδελφοῖς πρὸς ἀλλήλους,
• οὐδ᾽
  • ἑταίροις καὶ
  • πολίταις,

ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ἄλλων φιλιῶν.

§ ix.3

ἕτερα δὴ καὶ τὰ ἄδικα πρὸς ἑκάστους τούτων, καὶ
αὔξησιν λαμβάνει τῷ μᾶλλον πρὸς φίλους εἶναι,

οἷον

• χρήματα ἀποστερῆσαι ἑταῖρον δεινότερον ἢ πολίτην, καὶ
• μὴ βοηθῆσαι ἀδελφῷ ἢ ὀθνείῳ, καὶ
• πατάξαι πατέρα ἢ ὁντινοῦν ἄλλον.

αὔξεσθαι δὲ πέφυκεν ἅμα

• τῇ φιλίᾳ καὶ
• τὸ δίκαιον,

ὡς

• ἐν τοῖς αὐτοῖς ὄντα καὶ
• ἐπ᾽ ἴσον διήκοντα.

§ ix.4

συμπορεύονται γὰρ ἐπί τινι συμφέροντι, καὶ
ποριζόμενοί τι τῶν εἰς τὸν βίον·

καὶ ἡ πολιτικὴ δὲ κοινωνία τοῦ συμφέροντος χάριν δοκεῖ

• καὶ ἐξ ἀρχῆς συνελθεῖν
• καὶ διαμένειν·

§ ix.5

• αἱ μὲν οὖν ἄλλαι κοινωνίαι κατὰ μέρη τοῦ συμφέροντος ἐφίενται,

  οἷον

  • πλωτῆρες μὲν τοῦ κατὰ
    • τὸν πλοῦν πρὸς ἐργασίαν χρημάτων ἤ
    • τι τοιοῦτον,
  • συστρατιῶται δὲ τοῦ κατὰ τὸν πόλεμον,
    • εἴτε χρημάτων
    • εἴτε νίκης ἢ
    • πόλεως

    ὀρεγόμενοι,

  • ὁμοίως δὲ
    • καὶ φυλέται
    • καὶ δημόται.

• ἔνιαι δὲ τῶν κοινωνιῶν δι᾽ ἡδονὴν δοκοῦσι γίνεσθαι,

  • θιασωτῶν καὶ
  • ἐρανιστῶν·

  αὗται γὰρ

  • θυσίας ἕνεκα καὶ
  • συνουσίας.

πᾶσαι δ᾽ αὗται ὑπὸ τὴν πολιτικὴν ἐοίκασιν εἶναι·

• οὐ γὰρ τοῦ παρόντος συμφέροντος ἡ πολιτικὴ ἐφίεται,
• ἀλλ᾽ εἰς ἅπαντα τὸν βίον …

• θυσίας τε ποιοῦντες καὶ περὶ ταύτας
• συνόδους,

• τιμάς τε ἀπονέμοντες τοῖς θεοῖς, καὶ
• αὑτοῖς ἀναπαύσεις πορίζοντες μεθ᾽ ἡδονῆς.

αἱ γὰρ ἀρχαῖαι

• θυσίαι καὶ
• σύνοδοι

φαίνονται γίνεσθαι μετὰ τὰς τῶν καρπῶν συγκομιδὰς
οἷον ἀπαρχαί·

μάλιστα γὰρ ἐν τούτοις ἐσχόλαζον τοῖς καιροῖς.

§ ix.6

πᾶσαι δὴ φαίνονται αἱ κοινωνίαι μόρια τῆς πολιτικῆς εἶναι·

ἀκολουθήσουσι δὲ αἱ τοιαῦται φιλίαι ταῖς τοιαύταις κοινωνίαις.

Chapter X

Chapter 12

§ x.1

• πολιτείας δ᾽ ἐστὶν εἴδη τρία,
• ἴσαι δὲ καὶ παρεκβάσεις,
  οἷον φθοραὶ τούτων.

εἰσὶ δ᾽

• αἱ μὲν πολιτεῖαι
  • βασιλεία τε καὶ
  • ἀριστοκρατία,
• τρίτη δὲ ἀπὸ τιμημάτων, ἣν
  • τιμοκρατικὴν λέγειν οἰκεῖον φαίνεται,
  • πολιτείαν δ᾽ αὐτὴν εἰώθασιν οἱ πλεῖστοι καλεῖν.

§ x.2

τούτων δὲ

• βελτίστη μὲν ἡ βασιλεία,
• χειρίστη δ᾽ ἡ τιμοκρατία.

παρέκβασις δὲ βασιλείας μὲν τυραννίς· [1160^b]

ἄμφω γὰρ μοναρχίαι, διαφέρουσι δὲ πλεῖστον·

• ὁ μὲν γὰρ τύραννος τὸ αὑτῷ συμφέρον σκοπεῖ,
• ὁ δὲ βασιλεὺς τὸ τῶν ἀρχομένων.

οὐ γάρ ἐστι βασιλεὺς ὁ μὴ

• αὐτάρκης καὶ
• πᾶσι τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς ὑπερέχων·

ὁ δὲ τοιοῦτος οὐδενὸς προσδεῖται·

τὰ ὠφέλιμα οὖν

• αὑτῷ μὲν οὐκ ἂν σκοποίη,
• τοῖς δ᾽ ἀρχομένοις·

ὁ γὰρ μὴ τοιοῦτος κληρωτὸς ἄν τις εἴη βασιλεύς.

ἡ δὲ τυραννὶς ἐξ ἐναντίας ταύτῃ·

τὸ γὰρ ἑαυτῷ ἀγαθὸν διώκει.

καὶ φανερώτερον ἐπὶ ταύτης ὅτι χειρίστη·

κάκιστον δὲ τὸ ἐναντίον τῷ βελτίστῳ.

§ x.3

μεταβαίνει δ᾽ ἐκ βασιλείας εἰς τυραννίδα·

• φαυλότης γάρ ἐστι μοναρχίας
  ἡ τυραννίς,
• ὁ δὲ μοχθηρὸς βασιλεὺς
  τύραννος γίνεται.

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ἐξ ἀριστοκρατίας δὲ εἰς ὀλιγαρχίαν
κακίᾳ τῶν ἀρχόντων,
οἳ νέμουσι

• τὰ τῆς πόλεως παρὰ τὴν ἀξίαν, καὶ
• πάντα ἢ
• τὰ πλεῖστα τῶν ἀγαθῶν ἑαυτοῖς, καὶ
• τὰς ἀρχὰς ἀεὶ τοῖς αὐτοῖς,

περὶ πλείστου ποιούμενοι τὸ πλουτεῖν·

ὀλίγοι δὴ ἄρχουσι καὶ μοχθηροὶ
ἀντὶ τῶν ἐπιεικεστάτων.

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ἐκ δὲ τιμοκρατίας εἰς δημοκρατίαν·

σύνοροι γάρ εἰσιν αὗται·

• πλήθους γὰρ βούλεται καὶ ἡ τιμοκρατία εἶναι, καὶ
• ἴσοι πάντες οἱ ἐν τῷ τιμήματι.

ἥκιστα δὲ μοχθηρόν ἐστιν ἡ δημοκρατία·

ἐπὶ μικρὸν γὰρ παρεκβαίνει τὸ τῆς πολιτείας εἶδος.

μεταβάλλουσι μὲν οὖν μάλισθ᾽ οὕτως αἱ πολιτεῖαι·

• ἐλάχιστον γὰρ οὕτω καὶ
• ῥᾷστα μεταβαίνουσιν.

§ x.4

• ὁμοιώματα δ᾽ αὐτῶν καὶ οἷον
• παραδείγματα

λάβοι τις ἂν
καὶ ἐν ταῖς οἰκίαις.

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ἡ μὲν γὰρ πατρὸς πρὸς υἱεῖς κοινωνία
βασιλείας ἔχει σχῆμα·

τῶν τέκνων γὰρ τῷ πατρὶ μέλει·

ἐντεῦθεν δὲ καὶ Ὅμηρος τὸν Δία πατέρα προσαγορεύει·
πατρικὴ γὰρ ἀρχὴ βούλεται ἡ βασιλεία εἶναι.

τυραννικὴ δὲ καὶ ἡ δεσπότου πρὸς δούλους·
τὸ γὰρ τοῦ δεσπότου συμφέρον ἐν αὐτῇ πράττεται.

• αὕτη μὲν οὖν ὀρθὴ φαίνεται,
• ἡ Περσικὴ δ᾽ ἡμαρτημένη·

τῶν διαφερόντων γὰρ αἱ ἀρχαὶ διάφοροι.

§ x.5

ἀνδρὸς δὲ καὶ γυναικὸς ἀριστοκρατικὴ φαίνεται·

• κατ᾽ ἀξίαν γὰρ ὁ ἀνὴρ ἄρχει, καὶ
• περὶ ταῦτα ἃ δεῖ τὸν ἄνδρα·

ὅσα δὲ γυναικὶ ἁρμόζει,
ἐκείνῃ ἀποδίδωσιν.

ἁπάντων δὲ κυριεύων
ὁ ἀνὴρ εἰς ὀλιγαρχίαν μεθίστησιν·

• παρὰ τὴν ἀξίαν γὰρ αὐτὸ ποιεῖ, καὶ
• οὐχ ᾗ ἀμείνων. [1161^a]

ἐνίοτε δὲ ἄρχουσιν αἱ γυναῖκες
ἐπίκληροι οὖσαι·

• οὐ δὴ γίνονται κατ᾽ ἀρετὴν αἱ ἀρχαί,
• ἀλλὰ διὰ πλοῦτον καὶ δύναμιν,

καθάπερ ἐν ταῖς ὀλιγαρχίαις.

§ x.6

τιμοκρατικῇ δ᾽ ἔοικεν ἡ τῶν ἀδελφῶν·

ἴσοι γάρ, πλὴν ἐφ᾽ ὅσον ταῖς ἡλικίαις διαλλάττουσιν·

διόπερ ἂν πολὺ ταῖς ἡλικίαις διαφέρωσιν,
οὐκέτι ἀδελφικὴ γίνεται ἡ φιλία.

δημοκρατία δὲ μάλιστα μὲν

• ἐν ταῖς ἀδεσπότοις τῶν οἰκήσεων
  (ἐνταῦθα γὰρ πάντες ἐξ ἴσου), καὶ
• ἐν αἷς ἀσθενὴς ὁ ἄρχων καὶ ἑκάστῳ ἐξουσία.

Chapter XI

Chapter 13

§ xi.1

• βασιλεῖ μὲν πρὸς τοὺς βασιλευομένους ἐν ὑπεροχῇ εὐεργεσίας·

  εὖ γὰρ ποιεῖ τοὺς βασιλευομένους,
  εἴπερ ἀγαθὸς ὢν
  ἐπιμελεῖται αὐτῶν,
  ἵν᾽ εὖ πράττωσιν,
  ὥσπερ νομεὺς προβάτων·

  ὅθεν καὶ Ὅμηρος τὸν Ἀγαμέμνονα ποιμένα λαῶν εἶπεν.

§ xi.2

τοιαύτη δὲ καὶ ἡ πατρική,
διαφέρει δὲ τῷ μεγέθει τῶν εὐεργετημάτων·

αἴτιος γὰρ

• τοῦ εἶναι, δοκοῦντος μεγίστου, καὶ
• τροφῆς καὶ
• παιδείας.

καὶ τοῖς προγόνοις δὲ ταῦτα προσνέμεται·

φύσει τε ἀρχικὸν

• πατὴρ υἱῶν καὶ
• πρόγονοι ἐκγόνων καὶ
• βασιλεὺς βασιλευομένων.

§ xi.3

ἐν ὑπεροχῇ δὲ αἱ φιλίαι αὗται,
διὸ καὶ τιμῶνται οἱ γονεῖς.

§ xi.4

• καὶ ἀνδρὸς δὲ πρὸς γυναῖκα
  ἡ αὐτὴ φιλία
  καὶ ἐν ἀριστοκρατίᾳ·
  • κατ᾽ ἀρετὴν γάρ, καὶ
  • τῷ ἀμείνονι πλέον ἀγαθόν, καὶ
  • τὸ ἁρμόζον ἑκάστῳ·

  οὕτω δὲ καὶ τὸ δίκαιον.

§ xi.5

• ἡ δὲ τῶν ἀδελφῶν
  τῇ ἑταιρικῇ ἔοικεν·

  • ἴσοι γὰρ καὶ
  • ἡλικιῶται,

  οἱ τοιοῦτοι δ᾽

  • ὁμοπαθεῖς καὶ
  • ὁμοήθεις

  ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολύ.

  ἔοικε δὲ ταύτῃ καὶ ἡ κατὰ τὴν τιμοκρατικήν·

  • ἴσοι γὰρ οἱ πολῖται βούλονται καὶ
  • ἐπιεικεῖς εἶναι·
  • ἐν μέρει δὴ τὸ ἄρχειν, καὶ
  • ἐξ ἴσου·

  οὕτω δὴ καὶ ἡ φιλία.

§ xi.6

ἐν δὲ ταῖς παρεκβάσεσιν,

• ὥσπερ καὶ τὸ δίκαιον ἐπὶ μικρόν ἐστιν,
• οὕτω καὶ ἡ φιλία, καὶ
• ἥκιστα ἐν τῇ χειρίστῃ·

ἐν τυραννίδι γὰρ οὐδὲν ἢ μικρὸν φιλίας.

ἐν οἷς γὰρ μηδὲν κοινόν ἐστι τῷ

• ἄρχοντι καὶ
• ἀρχομένῳ,

οὐδὲ φιλία·

οὐδὲ γὰρ δίκαιον·

οἷον

• τεχνίτῃ πρὸς ὄργανον καὶ
• ψυχῇ πρὸς σῶμα καὶ
• δεσπότῃ πρὸς δοῦλον· [1161^b]

• ὠφελεῖται μὲν γὰρ πάντα ταῦτα ὑπὸ τῶν χρωμένων,
• φιλία δ᾽ οὐκ ἔστι πρὸς τὰ ἄψυχα
• οὐδὲ δίκαιον.

ἀλλ᾽

• οὐδὲ πρὸς ἵππον ἢ βοῦν,
• οὐδὲ πρὸς δοῦλον ᾗ δοῦλος.

οὐδὲν γὰρ κοινόν ἐστιν·

• ὁ γὰρ δοῦλος ἔμψυχον ὄργανον,
• τὸ δ᾽ ὄργανον ἄψυχος δοῦλος.

§ xi.7

§ xi.8

• ἐπὶ μικρὸν δὴ καὶ ἐν ταῖς τυραννίσιν
  • αἱ φιλίαι καὶ
  • τὸ δίκαιον,
• ἐν δὲ ταῖς δημοκρατίαις ἐπὶ πλεῖον·
  πολλὰ γὰρ τὰ κοινὰ ἴσοις οὖσιν.