Part 9 (1/2)
CHAPTER III
ARISTOTLE'S THEORY OF THE STATE
First, then, let us try to enumerate whatever worthy utterances have proceeded from men of the past upon any aspect of the subject, and then, referring to our collections of _Constitutional Histories_, let us seek to arrive at a theory as to what sorts of things preserve and destroy each particular foroverned Succeeding in this, we overnements, laws, and customs are best suited to each form--Aristotle
Man is a political animal--_Id_
The State is prior to the individual--_Id_
Without friends no one would choose to live, although he possessed all other blessings--_Id_
If happiness be self-determination in accordance orth, we must conclude that it will be in accordance with the supreme worth, which will be the worth of the noblest part of us This part, whatever itelse, that which by nature evidently rules and guides us and has insight into things beautiful and divine, whether it be itself divine, or the divinest part of us, is that whose self-determination, in accordance with its proper worth, will be the perfect happiness That this consists in the vision of divine things has already been said This, indeed, is the supreme self-deterhest part of us, and that hich it deals is the highest of the knowable But a life of this sort would be soher than the hu asdivine If, then, intellect is so to it must be divine in relation to hu those who advise us, as being hu s, it is our duty, as far as s, and do all we can to live in accordance with the supres, occupies a s incorruptible Two ends, therefore, Ineffable Providence has ordained for man: Blessedness in this life, which consists in the exercise of native faculty, and is figured by the Earthly Paradise, and blessedness in the eternal life, which consists in the enjoy not to be achieved by any native faculty, unless aided by divine light, and which is to be understood by the Heavenly Paradise These ends and arded by human passion, if men were not restrained in their course by bit and bridle For this reasonto this double end He required the Supreuide the huuide the hus of philosophy The truth with regard to the question whether the authority of the Emperor is derived directly from God or from another, must not be taken so strictly as to mean that the Roman Prince is not, in so that this mortal felicity of ours is, in some sense, ordained with a view to immortal felicity Let Caesar, therefore, display that reverence for Peter which the first-born son ought to display for his father, so that, being illureater virtue enlighten the world, which he has been called to govern by His, spiritual and te, whence I did presuht So far that I consuht therein!
Within its deeps I saw internalized Into one volume, bound with love, That which is outered in the universe;-- Substance and accident, and all their ed in such a sort That what I ht
The universal form of this same knot I think I saw, because, when thus I speak, I feel that I rejoice with larger joy--_Id_
Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever--_Westminster Shorter Catechis upon education, had been to suggest a remedy for the social and moral conditions of his native Athens
Aristotle has no such purpose He is, in a very deep sense, a cosmopolitan, and writes in the interest of science and universal utility His range of vision is not confined to Athens, or even to Greece (though he is very proud of being a Greek), but ranges over the whole knoorld in time and space Unlike Plato, too, who had been faypt and Greece, Aristotle is deeply affected by the tendencies of the future, and, though no one lays greater stress than he upon the necessity of a knowledge of the past for him ould construct a sound social theory, he nevertheless declares that the whole of the past is shaped by so which is in the future, by the ultimate realization This view co that ”the State is prior to the individual,” by which hein him that makes him an individual, and at the sas us to Aristotle's conception of the State, which weup his theory of education, for the reason that to him, as to all the ancient world, education is a function of the State, and is conducted, primarily at least, for the ends of the State
Before venturing upon a theory of the State, Aristotle, true to his inductive principles, wrote the Constitutional Histories of over two hundred and fifty different states One of these, the _Constitutional History of Athens_, has recently been discovered and published (see p
96) He held that it was only by means of a broad induction, thus rendered possible, that he could discover the idea of the State, that is, its self-realizing for this method, then, he cahest social institution which secures the highest good or happiness of , in a previous treatise, satisfied hi in every case the full exercise of characteristic or differentiating faculty, he concludes that, sincefaculty is reason, the State is the institution which secures to man the fullest and freest exercise of this It follows directly that the State is, simply and solely, the supreme educational institution, the university to which all other institutions are but preparatory And two more conclusions follow: (1) that states will differ in constitution with the different educational needs of the peoples a whom they exist, and (2) that, since all education is but a preparation for some worthy activity, political education, the life of hest activity, which, because it is highest, must necessarily be an end in itself This activity, Aristotle argues, can be none other than contemplation, the Vision of the Divine (?e???a)
Results which have ically from this doctrine Whereas Plato had made provision for a small and select body of super-civic ious monasticism and asceticism, Aristotle maintains that in every civilized man, as such, there is a super-civic part, in fact, a superhuman and divine part, for the complete realization of which all the other parts, and the State wherein they find expression, are but means Here we have, in embryo, the whole of Dante's theory of the relation of Church and State, a theory which lies at the basis of all nized Here, indeed, we have the whole framework of the _Divine Comedy_; here too we have the doctrine of the Beatific Vision, which for ages shaped and, to a large extent, still shapes, the life of Christendoht Dante claireat doctors of the Church speak of him as ”_The_ Philosopher,” and as the ”Forerunner of Christ in Things Natural” In vain did Peter Ramus and Luther and Bruno and Bacon depreciate or anatheht and life than at any time for the last twenty-two centuries
It may be asked how far, and in what form, Aristotle conceives the divine life to be possible for h it cannot be perfectly or continuously realized here, it is in soree and for certain times attainable (see p 161) In so far as it is a social life, it is the life of friendshi+p or spiritual love (f???a), to which he has devoted alive us a loftier idea of his personal purity and worth than any other of his extant writings He insists that friendshi+p is the supre is, or whatever he chooses to live for, in that he wishes to spend his life in the company of his friends” It is even said that Aristotle, while teaching in the Lyceuathered about him a knot of noble youths and earnest students, and for a truly spiritual social life
CHAPTER IV
ARISTOTLE'S PEDAGOGICAL STATE
Nature is the beginning of everything--Aristotle
Life is more than meat, and the body than raiment--Jesus
The forces of the human passions in us, when completely repressed, become more vehement; but when they are called into action for short tiht, are soothed, and, thence being purged away, cease in a kindly, instead of a violent, way For this reason, in tragedy and co spectators of the passions of others, we still our own passions, render thee the and hearing base things, we are freed from the injury that would come from the actual practice of them--Jamblichus
Care for the body must precede care for the soul; next to care for the body must come care for the appetites; and, last of all, care for the intelligence We train the appetites for the sake of the intelligence, and the body for the sake of the soul--Aristotle
The practice of abortion was one to which few persons in antiquity attached any deep feeling of condeical theory that the ftus did not beco creature till the hour of birth had soments passed upon this practice The death of an unborn child does not appeal very powerfully to the feeling of co sense of the sanctity of huulate their conduct on these eneral interest of the coht very readily conclude that prevention of birth was in many cases an act of mercy In Greece, Aristotle not only countenanced the practice, but even desired that it should be enforced by lahen population had exceeded certain assigned li the greater part of the Ee of the Christians fro consistency and with the strongest emphasis, they denounced the practice, not simply as inhuman, but as definitely murder--Lecky, _European Morals_