Book VII, 1329b–1333a

We have already said that the territory should belong to those who possess arms and share in the constitution, that those who farm it must be different from them, and how large and of what kind the territory should be. As for its1329b40 distribution and the farmers, who they should be and of what kind, we must speak first, since we say neither that there should be common1330a1 property, as some have said,

but that it should be common in use through friendship, nor that any citizen should lack food. As for common messes, everyone agrees that their presence is useful in well-organized cities; why this seems useful1330a5 to us too, we shall say later. All the citizens must share in them, but it is not easy for the poor both to contribute the prescribed amount from their own resources and to manage the rest of their household. Furthermore, expenses relating to the gods are common to the whole city. Into two parts, therefore,10 the territory must be divided, one common and the other belonging to private individuals, and each of these must in turn be divided in two: one part of the common land for services to the gods, the other for the expense of the common messes; and of the privately owned land, one part toward the frontier,15 the other toward the city, so that with two allotments assigned to each person, everyone has a share in both locations. For this arrangement provides both equality and justice, and greater concord in wars against neighboring cities. Where the arrangement is otherwise, some, where their border neighbors are concerned, are indifferent to20 hostility, while others care too much, even beyond what is noble. Hence in some places there is a law that those whose land adjoins the border must not share in deliberation about wars against their neighbors, on the ground that their private interest would prevent them from deliberating well. The territory, then, must be divided in this way for the already stated25 reasons. As for those who are to farm it, the best arrangement, if things are to be as we wish, is that they should be slaves, neither all of the same race nor spirited (for in this way they would both be useful for work and safe from attempts at revolution); the second best is that they should be barbarian inhabitants of the outlying districts, similar in nature to those just described.30 Of these, those on private estates should be the private property of the owners of those estates, while those on the common land should be common property. How slaves should be treated, and why it is better for freedom to be held out as a prize to all slaves, we shall say later.

That the city should be accessible from the mainland1330a35 and equally, as far as possible, from the sea and the whole territory, has been said already. We should wish its own position to lie on a slope, with four considerations in view. First, as a necessity, health (for cities inclined toward the east and toward the winds40 blowing from the sunrise are healthier; next come those facing north, for these have milder winters).

Of the remaining considerations,1330b1 the position should be favorable for political and military actions. For military actions, it should be easy for the inhabitants to leave, but difficult for opponents to approach or surround. As for waters and springs, there should preferably be an abundant supply5 of their own; failing this, a remedy has been found by constructing plentiful large cisterns for rainwater, so that the supply never fails when war cuts them off from the territory. Since the inhabitants' health must be considered, and this depends on the site's being well situated both in such a place and toward10 such a quarter, and secondly on using healthy water, this matter too must be attended to with more than passing care. For what we use for the body in the greatest quantities and most frequently contributes most to health; and the influence of water and air is of this nature. Therefore in15 prudent cities, if not all the water is alike and there is no abundant supply of such springs, water for nourishment must be kept separate from water for other uses.

As for defensible positions, the advantage is not the same for all constitutions. For example, an acropolis suits oligarchy and monarchy,1330b20 a level site suits democracy, and neither suits aristocracy, but rather several strong positions. The arrangement of private dwellings is thought more pleasant and more useful for other activities if it is laid out in straight streets, in the newer manner of Hippodamus; but for military25 security, the opposite is preferable, as things were arranged in ancient times. For that arrangement is difficult for foreign troops to enter and for attackers to find their way through. Therefore the city should share in both arrangements (for this is possible if one lays it out in the way farmers arrange what some call clumps of vines), and should not30 make the whole city regularly laid out, but only particular sections and places. For in this way it will be well arranged both for security and for beauty.

As for walls, those who say that cities laying claim to virtue should not have them hold an altogether antiquated view, even though they see that cities that prided themselves in this way have been refuted by events.1330b35 Against equals and those not greatly superior in numbers, it is not noble to try to preserve oneself through the strength of walls. But since it is possible for the superiority of the attackers to exceed the human virtue of a small number, if the city is to be preserved40 and not suffer harm or outrage, we must regard the greatest possible strength of walls as the most effective means for war,

1331a1especially now that missiles and siege engines have been brought to precision for besieging cities. To demand that cities not be surrounded by walls is like seeking to make the territory easy to invade and to remove its5 mountainous places, or likewise not to enclose private dwellings with walls, on the ground that their inhabitants will become cowardly. Moreover, we must not overlook this: those who have put walls around their city can use their city in both ways, both as a city with walls and as one without10 them, while those who have none cannot. If this is so, not only must walls be built around the city, but care must also be taken that they suit the city both as an adornment and for military needs, both the other needs and those newly discovered. For just as attackers15 take care to discover the means of gaining an advantage, so defenders too have discovered some means and must search out and investigate others. For people do not even attempt to attack those who are well prepared.

Since the multitude of citizens must, among common messes,1331a20 be divided, and the walls must be divided by guard posts and towers at suitable points, it is clear that these considerations invite us to establish some of the common messes in these guard posts. These things, then, might be arranged in this way. The buildings assigned to the gods,25 and the most authoritative of the officials' common messes, should occupy the same suitable site, except for those shrines which the law or some other pronouncement of the Pythian oracle sets apart. Such a site would be one sufficiently prominent to display the excellence of its position, and more strongly defended in relation to the adjoining30 parts of the city. Below this site it is fitting to establish a marketplace of the kind customary in Thessaly, which they call the free marketplace. This must be clear of all merchandise, and neither a mechanic nor a farmer nor anyone else of this sort should enter35 unless summoned by the rulers. The place would be agreeable if the gymnasia of the older men were also situated here; for this arrangement too should be divided according to age, and some rulers should spend their time with the younger men, while the older men should be with40 the rulers. For being present in the rulers' sight is especially effective in instilling true respect and, in free men,1331b1 fear.

The marketplace for merchandise must be different from this one and separate, in a place convenient for bringing together everything sent from the sea and from the territory.

Since the city's leadership is divided into priests1331b5 and rulers, the priests' common messes too should be situated near the sacred buildings. Those official establishments concerned with contracts, the filing of lawsuits, summonses, and other administration of this sort, and also with the supervision of the marketplace and what is called10 the supervision of the city, should be established near a marketplace and a common meeting place. The place around the marketplace for necessities is of this kind: we assign the upper marketplace to leisure, but this one to necessary activities. The arrangements in the territory should imitate those just described. For there too the15 rulers whom some call forest wardens and others country wardens must have guard posts and common messes for their duties of protection. Shrines must also be distributed through the territory, some for gods and others for heroes. But to spend time now discussing these things in detail is idle. Such things are not20 difficult to conceive, but rather to put into practice; for describing them is the work of wishing, while their realization is the work of chance. Therefore, for the present, let us leave further discussion of such things aside.

As for the constitution itself, we must say from what elements, and of what kind,1331b25 the city that is to be blessed and to take part well in public life must be constituted. Since doing well in any matter depends on two things, one of which is setting the aim and the end of our actions correctly, and the other finding the actions that lead to the end (for it is possible30 for these to be at variance with one another or in harmony: sometimes the aim is rightly set, but in acting people fail to attain it; sometimes they succeed in all the means to the end, but have set themselves a bad end; and sometimes they fail in both, as in medicine, for sometimes they neither35 judge correctly what a healthy body should be like nor attain the means that produce the standard they have set themselves; but in the arts and sciences both must be mastered, the end and the actions toward the end), living well and happiness are desired40 by everyone, as is evident, but some have the opportunity and others do not, owing to some chance or natural condition

(for living nobly also needs a supply of resources1332a1 of some kind, less for those better constituted and more for those worse). Others, though they have the opportunity, seek happiness wrongly from the outset. Since our task is to discern the best constitution, and this5 is the one under which a city would conduct its public life best, and it would conduct its public life best under the constitution that allows the city to be happiest, it is clear that we must not be ignorant of what happiness is.

We say (and have determined in the Ethics, if those arguments are of any use) that it is an activity and a complete exercise of virtue, and that this1332a10 is not conditional but unqualified. By conditional I mean what is necessary, and by unqualified what is noble. For example, in matters of just actions, just acts of retribution and punishment spring from virtue, but are necessary, and possess nobility through necessity (for it is preferable that neither a man nor a city should need any such15 things); but actions directed toward honors and abundant resources are noblest without qualification. For the former kind is the removal of some evil, while actions of the latter kind are the opposite: they establish and bring forth good things. A good man would make noble use even of poverty, illness, and20 other bad turns of fortune; but blessedness lies in their opposites (for this too has been determined in our ethical arguments: the good man is one for whom, through virtue, the things that are good without qualification are good; and it is evident that his uses of these things too must be good and noble25 without qualification). Hence people also think that external goods are the causes of happiness, as if they attributed brilliant and beautiful lyre-playing to the lyre rather than to the art.

Therefore, from what has been said, some things must already be present, while others the legislator must provide. Hence we pray to obtain1332a30 in the city's formation those things over which chance is sovereign (for we assume that it is sovereign over them); but for the city to be good is no longer the work of chance, but of knowledge and deliberate choice. Yet a city is good through the goodness of the citizens who share in its constitution; and in our city all the citizens35 share in the constitution. We must therefore examine how a man becomes good. For even if it is possible for all the citizens collectively to be good without each citizen being so, the latter is preferable; for the goodness of all follows from that of each. Now people become good and virtuous through three things. These three40 are nature, habit, and reason. For first one must be born, for example, a human being and not some other animal; and then with a certain character of body and soul. But with some qualities it is of no use1332b1 to be born with them;

for habits cause change. Some qualities are by nature capable of going either way, and are turned by habits toward worse or better. The other animals live chiefly by nature, though some are also influenced to a small extent by habits; but a human being lives1332b5 also by reason, for he alone has reason. Therefore these things must be in harmony with one another. For people do many things contrary to their habits and their nature because of reason, if they are persuaded that some other course is better. We have already determined what sort of nature those whom the legislator is to handle readily must have;10 the remaining task now belongs to education. For people learn some things by becoming habituated and others by hearing.

Since every political community is constituted of rulers and the ruled, we must consider whether the rulers and the ruled should be different people or the same people throughout1332b15 life. For it is clear that education too must follow this division. If, then, one group differed from the others as much as we believe gods and heroes differ from human beings, possessing from the outset great superiority first in body and then in20 soul, so that the superiority of the rulers was unquestionable and evident to the ruled, clearly it would be better for the same people always to rule and the others to be ruled, once and for all. But since this is not easy to find, and the kings do not differ so greatly as Scylax says they do among the Indians25 from the ruled, it is evident that, for many reasons, everyone must share equally in ruling and being ruled in turn. For equality consists in the same treatment of similar people, and it is difficult for a constitution established contrary to justice to endure. For standing with the ruled in revolution are30 all those throughout the territory who wish for it, and for the citizen body to be so numerous as to be stronger than all these is one of the impossibilities. Yet it is beyond dispute that the rulers must differ from the ruled. How this is to come about and how they are to share must be considered by35 the legislator. We have spoken of this before. For nature has provided the division by making what is the same in kind partly younger and partly older; of these, it is fitting for the former to be ruled and the latter to rule. No one resents being ruled on account of his age, or thinks himself superior, especially40 when he is going to receive this contribution in return once he reaches the appropriate age.

In one sense, therefore, we must say that the same people rule and are ruled, and in another sense different people.

Consequently their1333a1 education too must in one sense be the same and in another different. For they say that anyone who is going to rule well must first have been ruled. (As we said in our first discussions, one kind of rule is for the sake of the ruler and another for the sake of the ruled.5 Of these, we say that one is a master's rule and the other the rule of free people. Some of the tasks commanded differ not in the work itself, but in the person for whose sake it is done. Therefore it is noble for the young among free people to perform many of the tasks that seem to be menial; for with regard to being noble or not noble, actions differ not so much10 in themselves as in their end and that for whose sake they are done.) Since we say that the virtue of the citizen and ruler is the same as that of the best man, and that the same person must first become one of the ruled and later a ruler, the legislator's concern should be how good men15 come to be, through what practices, and what the end of the best life is.

The soul is divided into two parts, one of which has reason in itself, while the other does not have reason in itself but can obey reason. We say that their virtues are those by which a man is called good in some sense. In which of these1333a20 the end chiefly lies is not obscure for those who divide them as we say. For the worse always exists for the sake of the better, and this is equally evident in things made by art and in things constituted by nature; and the part that has reason is better. It is itself divided in two, in the way we customarily divide it:25 one kind of reason is practical, the other contemplative. Clearly, then, this part too must be divided accordingly. We shall also say that the actions stand in a corresponding relation, and that the actions of the part better by nature should be preferable for those capable of attaining either all of them or both kinds; for what is always most desirable for each person is30 the highest thing he can attain. The whole of life is also divided into work and leisure, war and peace, and actions into those directed toward what is necessary and useful and those directed toward what is noble. In these matters the same choice must be made as with the parts of the soul and the actions35 of those parts: war for the sake of peace, work for the sake of leisure, and things necessary and useful for the sake of things noble. Therefore the statesman must legislate with all these things in view, both the parts of the soul and their actions, but more especially the better things and the ends. In the40 same way he must consider ways of life and choices of activities; for one must be able to work and to wage war,

We said earlier that the territory should belong to those who have arms and share in the constitution, that the farmers should be different people, and how large the territory should be and what its character should be. First we must discuss its1329b40 division and the farmers: who they should be and what kind of people they should be. For we say that there should not be common1330a1 property, as some have said,

but it should be shared in use through friendship. Nor should any citizen lack food. Everyone agrees that common messes, or shared meals, are useful in well-organized cities. Why they seem useful1330a5 to us too, we will explain later. All the citizens must share in them. But it is not easy for poor people both to contribute the required amount from their own resources and to manage the rest of their household. Also, expenses for worship are shared by the whole city. So into two parts10 the territory must be divided: one held in common and the other owned by individuals. Each of these should be divided into two again. Of the common land, one part should support the service of the gods, and the other the cost of the common messes. Of the privately owned land, one part should be near the borders,15 and the other near the city. Each person should be assigned two plots, so that everyone shares in both areas. This is both equal and just, and brings more agreement about wars with neighboring cities. Where this is not the arrangement, where neighboring people are concerned, some care little about20 hostility. Others care too much, even at the expense of the noble. So in some places the law bars those who live near the borders from taking part in deliberation about wars with these neighbors. Their private interests, it is thought, would prevent them from deliberating well. The territory must therefore be divided this way for the already stated25 reasons. As for those who will farm it, the best choice, if we can have what we wish, is slaves who are neither all of the same people nor spirited. That way they would be useful for the work and could safely be trusted not to attempt a revolution. The second choice is non-Greek residents of the surrounding area with a similar nature.30 Those working on private estates should belong privately to the estate owners, while those on common land should belong to the community. We will explain later how slaves should be treated, and why it is better to offer freedom as a reward to all slaves.

The city should be accessible from the mainland1330a35 and equally, as far as possible, from the sea and all its territory. We said this earlier. In choosing the city's own site, we should hope for a sloping location and keep four considerations in view. The first, and necessary one, is health. Cities that slope toward the east and toward the winds40 that blow from the east are healthier. Those facing north come second, since their winters are milder.

Of the remaining considerations,1330b1 the site should be well suited to political and military activities. For military purposes, it should be easy for its own people to leave, but hard for enemies to approach or surround. Ideally it should have plenty of water and springs5 of its own. Otherwise, a solution has been found: build many large reservoirs for rainwater, so that the supply never runs out when war cuts people off from the territory. We must care for the residents' health. This depends on the site's being well placed in such a setting and facing10 in such a direction, and secondly on using healthy water. This too needs serious attention. The things we use most and most often for our bodies make the greatest contribution to health. Water and air have this kind of influence. So15 well-run cities must separate water used for food and drink from water used for other purposes, unless all the water is alike or there are plenty of healthy springs.

As for fortified sites, what is advantageous is not the same for every constitution. A fortified high point, for example, suits rule by a few or by one ruler.1330b20 Level ground suits democracy. Neither suits rule by the best, which is better served by several strong positions. The arrangement of private houses is thought more pleasant and more convenient for other activities if it has straight streets, following the newer plan of Hippodamus. But for military25 security the opposite is better: the old arrangement. That is hard for foreign troops to enter and for attackers to find their way through. So the city should combine both plans. This is possible if the layout follows what some farmers call clusters of vines. The30 whole city should not have straight streets, but only certain sections and districts. That way it will be well suited to both security and good order.

As for walls, those who say that cities claiming virtue should not have them are thinking in a very outdated way. They do so even though they see cities that took pride in this being proved wrong in practice.1330b35 Against opponents who are similar and not much more numerous, it is not noble to try to stay safe behind strong walls. But attackers may have an advantage too great for the human virtue of a small group to overcome. If the city is to survive,40 and not suffer harm or degrading treatment, the strongest protection walls can give must be regarded as the best military defense,

1331a1especially now that projectiles and siege machines have been developed to such precision. Demanding that cities have no surrounding walls is like wanting their territory to be easy to invade and removing the5 mountainous areas. It is also like refusing to put walls around private houses, on the grounds that their residents would become cowards. Nor should we overlook this: people who have put walls around their city can use it either way, as a city with walls or as one without10 them. People who have no walls cannot do this. If that is so, we must not only put walls around a city but also take care that they give it a fitting appearance and serve military needs, both the others and those recently discovered. Just as attackers15 take care to find ways of gaining an advantage, so defenders have discovered some means already and must search for and study others. Attackers do not even begin an attack against those who are well prepared.

The body of citizens must, for the common messes,1331a20 be divided into groups, and the walls must have guard posts and towers at suitable intervals. Clearly this suggests placing some of the common messes in these guard posts. These things could be arranged in this way. But the buildings set aside for the gods25 and the principal common messes of the ruling offices should share a suitable site. This excludes temples that the law sets apart, or that some other oracle, coming from the Pythian god, sets apart. Such a site should be prominent enough to display the excellence of its position, and, in relation to the neighboring30 parts of the city, be more strongly defended. Below it there should be a public square of the kind customary in Thessaly, which they call the free square. This must be kept clear of all goods for sale. No manual worker, farmer, or anyone else of that kind should enter35 unless summoned by the rulers. The place would be attractive if the older men's exercise grounds were also located there. This arrangement too should be divided by age. Some rulers should spend time with the younger men, while the older men should spend time with40 the rulers. Being in the rulers' sight is the strongest way to inspire real respect and, in free people,1331b1 fear.

The market for goods must be different from this square and separate from it. Its site should be convenient for bringing together all the goods sent from the sea and from the territory.

Since the city's leaders are divided into priests1331b5 and rulers, the priests' common messes should also be located near the sacred buildings. Some offices handle contracts, the filing of lawsuits, summonses, and other administration of this kind. They also handle market regulation and what is called10 city management. These offices should be established near a market and a public meeting place. The area around the market for necessities is such a place. We assign the upper square to leisure, and this one to necessary activities. The arrangement in the countryside should follow the one described too. There, the15 rulers whom some call forest wardens and others countryside wardens must also have guard posts and common messes for their work of protection. Temples should also be spread throughout the territory, some for gods and some for heroes. But spending time now on precise descriptions of these matters is pointless. Such things aren't20 hard to imagine. Doing them is harder. Describing them is a matter of wishing; making them happen is a matter of luck. So let us set aside further discussion of such things for now.

As for the constitution itself, we must say what people, and what kinds of people,1331b25 should make up a city that is to be happy and well governed. Doing well depends on two things for everyone. One is to set the right aim and end for our actions. The other is to find the actions that lead to that end. These two can30 conflict or agree. Sometimes the aim is well chosen, but people fail to reach it through their actions. Sometimes they succeed in all the steps toward the end, but have chosen a bad end. Sometimes they fail in both respects. Medicine is an example. Sometimes people neither35 judge correctly what a healthy body should be like nor find the means of producing the condition they have set as their goal. In crafts and sciences, we must master both of these: the end and the actions that lead to it. Living well and happiness are sought40 by everyone. That is clear. But some have the opportunity and others do not, because of some circumstance of luck or nature

(for living well needs some provision1332a1 of resources, less for those in a better condition and more for those in a worse one). Others have the opportunity but look for happiness in the wrong way from the start. Our task is to see what the best constitution is. This5 is the one under which a city would be governed best. It would be governed best under the constitution that gives it the greatest chance of happiness. So clearly we must know what happiness is.

We say that it is an activity and a complete use of virtue. We have defined it this way in the Ethics, if those arguments are of any value. This use1332a10 is not merely under certain conditions, but without qualification. By conditional I mean necessary acts; by unqualified I mean acting well. Take just actions, for example. Just acts of revenge and punishment come from virtue, but they are necessary, and are noble only as necessary acts. It would be preferable for no such things to be needed by15 either a person or a city. But actions directed toward honors and prosperity are the noblest without qualification. The former remove some evil; actions of the latter kind do the opposite. They establish and produce good things. A good man would also make noble use of poverty, illness, and20 other bad turns of luck. But happiness lies in their opposites. In our arguments on ethics we have also defined the good man as someone for whom things that are good without qualification are good because of his virtue. Clearly, his uses of these things must also be good and noble25 without qualification. That is why people think external goods cause happiness. It is as if they credited the lyre rather than skill for brilliant and beautiful lyre playing.

From what has been said, then, some things must be there already, and the lawgiver must provide others. So we hope1332a30 that the city's formation will turn out well in matters controlled by luck. We assume luck does control them. But making the city good is not a matter of luck. It is a matter of knowledge and deliberate choice. A city is good because the citizens who share in its constitution are good. In our city, all the citizens35 share in the constitution. So we must examine how a man becomes good. Even if all the citizens could be good as a group without each one being good individually, making each one good is preferable. When each is good, all are good as well. People become good and virtuous through three things. These three40 are nature, habit, and reason. First, a person must be born, for example, a human being and not some other animal. Then the body and soul must also have a certain character. But with some qualities it is no use to1332b1 be born;

because habits change them. Some qualities can go either way by nature, and habits turn them toward the worse or the better. Other animals live mainly by nature, though some are guided a little by habits too. Human beings1332b5 also live by reason, since they alone have reason. So these things must agree with one another. People often act against their habits and nature because of reason, if they are persuaded that some other course is better. We have already determined what the natural character of those whom the lawgiver can readily guide should be.10 The remaining work belongs to education. People learn some things by becoming used to them and others by hearing them.

Every political community is made up of rulers and the ruled. So we must examine whether the rulers and the ruled should be different people or the same people throughout1332b15 life. Clearly education will also have to follow this division. Suppose one group differed from the other as much as we think gods and heroes differ from human beings. They would first have a great advantage in body, then in20 soul. The rulers' superiority would be beyond dispute and obvious to the ruled. Then clearly it would be better for the same people always to rule and the same people always to be ruled. But this is not easy to find. Kings do not differ, as Scylax says they do among the Indians, so greatly25 from the ruled. So clearly, for many reasons, everyone must share equally in ruling and being ruled in turn. Equality means the same treatment for people who are alike. And it is hard for a constitution to last when it is established against the just. For the ruled have allies in revolution:30 all those throughout the territory who want it. And it is impossible for the citizen body to be numerous enough to overpower all of them. Still, there is no question that the rulers must differ from the ruled. How this will happen and how they will share in rule must be considered by35 the lawgiver. We have spoken about this earlier. Nature has provided the division by making some members of the same kind younger and others older. It is fitting for the younger to be ruled and the older to rule. No one resents being ruled because of age or thinks himself better than his rulers, especially40 when he will receive this contribution in return once he reaches the proper age.

So in one sense we should say that the same people rule and are ruled, and in another that they are different people.

So their1333a1 education must also be the same in one sense, but different in another. People say that anyone who is to rule well must first be ruled. (As we said in our earlier arguments, one kind of rule is for the ruler's benefit, and another for the benefit of the ruled.5 We say that the first is a master's rule and the second is rule over free people. Some commanded tasks involve the same work but differ in the person for whose sake it is done. That is why many tasks that seem to be servants' work are noble for young free people to perform too. What is noble or not noble depends less on10 the actions themselves than on their end and for whose sake they are done.) We say that a citizen's and a ruler's virtue is the same as that of the best man. The same person must be ruled first and rule later. So the lawgiver should work on how good men15 are developed, through what practices, and what the end of the best life is.

The soul is divided into two parts. One has reason in itself. The other does not have reason in itself, but can listen to reason. We say that their virtues are what make a man good in some sense. In which of these1333a20 the end lies more fully is easy to say for those who divide the soul as we do. The worse always exists for the sake of the better. This is equally clear in things made by craft and things produced by nature. The part with reason is better. It too is divided in two, in the way we usually divide it:25 one kind of reason concerns action, and the other contemplation. Clearly, then, this part must be divided in the same way. We shall say that its activities have a corresponding relation. The activities of the part that is better by nature must be preferable for people able to carry out all the activities, or those of both parts. For each person, what is most preferable is always30 the highest thing he can achieve. The whole of life is also divided into work and leisure, and war and peace. Some actions aim at necessary and useful things, others at noble things. Our choice between these must follow the same pattern as our choice between the parts of the soul and the activities35 of those parts. War is for the sake of peace. Work is for the sake of leisure. Necessary and useful things are for the sake of noble things. So the statesman must make laws with all these in view, both the parts of the soul and their activities, but more especially the better ones and the ends. The40 same applies to ways of life and choices of action. People must be able to work and to wage war,