Aristotle
a just or an unjust man. Whether he be so or not, depends upon the
state of his mind and intention at the time (v. 8).
Equity, [Greek: to\ e)pieike\s], is not at variance with justice, but
is an improvement upon justice. It is a correction and supplement to
the inevitable imperfections in the definitions of legal justice. The
law wishes to comprehend all cases, but fails in doing so: the words
of its enactment do not fully and exactly express its real
intentions, but either something more or something less. When the
lawgiver speaks in general terms, a particular case may happen which
falls within the rule as he lays it down, but which he would not have
wished to comprehend if he had known how to avoid it. It is then
becoming conduct in the individual to whose advantage the law in this
special case turns, that he should refrain from profiting by his
position, and that he should act as the legislator himself would
wish, if consulted on the special case. The general rules laid down
by the legislator are of necessity more or less defective: in fact,
the only reason why everything is not determined by law, is, that
there are some matters respecting which it is impossible to frame a
law (v. 10). Such is the conduct of the equitable man--"the man who
refrains from pushing his legal rights to the extreme, to the injury
of others, but who foregoes the advantage of his position, although
the law is in his favour" ([Greek: o( mê\ a)kribodi/kaios e)pi\
chei=ron, a)ll' e)lattôtiko\s, kai/per e)/chôn to\n no/mon
boêtho/n]).
A man may hurt himself, but he cannot act unjustly towards himself.
No injustice can be done to a man except against his own consent.
Suicide is by implication forbidden by the law: to commit suicide is
wrong, because a man in so doing acts unjustly towards the city, not
towards himself, which is impossible (v. 12).
To act unjustly--and to be the object of unjust dealing by
others--are both bad: but which is the worst? It is the least of the
two evils to be the object of unjust dealing by others. Both are bad,
because in the one case a man gets more than his share, in the other
less than his share: in both cases the just medium is departed from.
To act unjustly is blameable, and implies wickedness: to be the
object of unjust dealing by others is not blameable, and implies no
wickedness: the latter is therefore in itself the least evil,
although by accident it may perhaps turn out to be the greater evil
of the two. In the same manner a pleurisy is in itself a greater evil
than a trip and a stumble: but by accident it may turn out that the
latter is the greater evil of the two, if it should occur at the
moment when a man is running away from the enemy, so as to cause his
being taken prisoner and slain.
The question here raised by Aristotle--which is the greater evil--to
act unjustly or to be the object of unjust dealing--had been before
raised by Plato in the Gorgias. Aristotle follows out his theory
about virtue, whereby he makes it consist in the observance of a
medium point. The man that acts unjustly sins on one side of this
point, the object of unjust dealing misses it on the other side: the
one is comparable to a man who eats or works too much for his health,
the other to a man who eats or works too little. The question is one
which could hardly arise, according to the view taken by modern
ethical writers of the principles of moral science. The two things
compared are not in point of fact commensurable. Looking at the
question from the point of view of the moralist, the person injured
has incurred no moral guilt, but has suffered more or less of
misfortune: the unjust agent on the contrary has suffered no
misfortune--perhaps he has reaped benefit--but at any rate he has
incurred moral guilt. Society on the whole is a decided loser by the
act: but the wrong done implies the suffering inflicted: the act is
considered and called _wrong_ because it does inflict suffering, and
for no other reason. It seems an inadmissible question therefore, to
ask which of the two is the greater evil--the suffering undergone by
A--or the wrong by which B occasioned that suffering: at least so far
as society is concerned.
But the ancient moralists, in instituting this comparison, seem to
have looked, not at society, but at the two individuals--the wrong
doer and the wrong sufferer--and to have looked at them too from a
point of view of their own. If we take the feelings of these two
parties themselves as the standard by which to judge, the sentence
must be obviously contrary to the opinion delivered by Aristotle: the
sufferer, according to his own feeling, is worse off than he was
before: the doer is better off. And it is for this reason that the
act forms a proper ground for judicial punishment or redress. But the
moralist estimates the condition of the two men by a standard of his
own, not by the feelings which they themselves entertain. He decides
for himself that a virtuous frame of mind is the primary and
essential ingredient of individual happiness--a wicked frame of mind
the grand source of misery: and by this test he tries the comparative
happiness of every man. The man who manifests evidence of a guilty
frame of mind is decidedly worse off than he who has only suffered an
unmerited misfortune.
CHAPTER XIV.
POLITICA.
The scheme of government proposed by Aristotle, in the two last books
of his Politics, as representing his own ideas of something like
perfection, is evidently founded upon the Republic of Plato: from
whom he differs in the important circumstance of not admitting either
community of property or community of wives and children.
Each of these philosophers recognises one separate class of
inhabitants, relieved from all private toil and all money-getting
employments, and constituting exclusively the citizens of the
commonwealth. This small class is in effect _the city_--_the
commonwealth_: the remaining inhabitants are not a part of the
commonwealth, they are only appendages to it--indispensable indeed,
but still appendages, in the same manner as slaves or cattle (vii.
8). In the Republic of Plato this narrow aristocracy are not allowed
to possess private property or separate families, but form one
inseparable brotherhood. In the scheme of Aristotle, this aristocracy
form a distinct caste of private families each with its separate
property. The whole territory of the State belongs to them, and is
tilled by dependent cultivators, by whom the produce is made over and
apportioned under certain restrictions. A certain section of the
territory is understood to be the common property of the body of
citizens (_i.e._ of the aristocracy), and the produce of it is handed
over by the cultivators into a common stock, partly to supply the
public tables at which all the citizens with their wives and families
are subsisted, partly to defray the cost of religious solemnities.
The remaining portion of the territory is possessed in separate
properties by individual citizens, who consume the produce as they
please (vii. 9): each citizen having two distinct lots of land
assigned to him, one near the outskirts of the territory, the other
near the centre. This latter regulation also had been adopted by
Plato in the treatise de Legibus, and it is surprising to observe
that Aristotle himself had censured it, in his criticisms on that
treatise, as incompatible with a judicious and careful economy (ii.
3. 8). The syssitia or public tables are also adopted by Plato, in
conformity with the institutions actually existing in his time in
Crete and elsewhere.
The dependent cultivators, in Aristotle's scheme, ought to be slaves,
not united together by any bond of common language or common country
(vii. 9, 9): if this cannot be, they ought to be a race of subdued
foreigners, degraded into perioeci, deprived of all use of arms, and
confined to the task of labouring in the field. Those slaves who till
the common land are to be considered as the property of the
collective body of citizens: the slaves on land belonging to
individual citizens, are the property of those citizens.
When we consider the scanty proportion of inhabitants whom Aristotle
and Plato include in the benefits of their community, it will at once
appear how amazingly their task as political theorists is simplified.
Their **commonwealth is really an aristocracy on a very narrow scale.
The great mass of the inhabitants are thrust out altogether from all
security and good government, and are placed without reserve at the
disposal of the small body of armed citizens.
There is but one precaution on which Aristotle and Plato rely for
ensuring good treatment from the citizens towards their inferiors:
and that is, the finished and elaborate education which the citizens
are to receive. Men so educated, according to these philosophers,
will behave as perfectly in the relation of superior to inferior, as
in that of equal to equal--of citizen to citizen.
This supposition would doubtless prove true, to a certain extent,
though far short of that extent which would be requisite to assure
the complete comfort of the inferior. But even if it were true to the
fullest extent, it would be far from satisfying the demands of a
benevolent theorist. For though the inferior should meet with
kindness and protection from his superior, still his mind must be
kept in a degradation suitable to his position. He must be deprived
of all moral and intellectual culture: he must be prevented from
imbibing any ideas of his own dignity: he must be content to receive
whatever is awarded, to endure whatever treatment is vouchsafed,
without for an instant imagining that he has a right to benefits or
that suffering is wrongfully inflicted upon him. Both Plato and
Aristotle acknowledge the inevitable depravation and moral abasement
of all the inhabitants excepting their favoured class. Neither of
them seems solicitous either to disguise or to mitigate it.
But if they are thus indifferent about the moral condition of the
mass, they are in the highest degree exact and careful respecting
that of their select citizens. This is their grand and primary
object, towards which the whole force of their intellect, and the
full fertility of their ingenious imagination, is directed. Their
plans of education are most elaborate and comprehensive: aiming at
every branch of moral and intellectual improvement, and seeking to
raise the whole man to a state of perfection, both physical and
mental. You would imagine that they were framing a scheme of public
education, not a political constitution: so wholly are their thoughts
engrossed with the training and culture of their citizens. It is in
this respect that their ideas are truly instructive.
Viewed with reference to the general body of inhabitants in a State,
nothing can be more defective than the plans of both these great
philosophers. Assuming that their objects were completely attained,
the mass of the people would receive nothing more than that degree of
physical comfort and mild usage which can be made to consist with
subjection and with the extortion of compulsory labour.
Viewed with reference to the special class recognized as citizens,
the plans of both are to a high degree admirable. A better provision
is made for the virtue as well as for the happiness of this
particular class than has ever been devised by any other political
projector. The intimate manner in which Aristotle connects virtue
with happiness, is above all remarkable. He in fact defines happiness
to consist in _the active exertion and perfected habit of virtue_
([Greek: a)retê=s e)ne/rgeia kai\ chrê=si/s tis te/leios]--vi. 9.
3.): and it is upon this disposition that he founds the necessity of