let us begin by considering the common definitions of oligarchy and democracy, and what is justice oligarchical and democratical. for all man cling to justice of some kind, but their conceptions are imperfect and they do not express the whole idea. for example, justice is thought by them to be, and it is, equality, not ; however, for all, but only equals. and inequality is thought to be, and is, justice; neither is this for all, but only for unequals. when the persons are omitted, then men judge erroneously. the reason is that they are passing judgment on themselves, and most people are bad judges in their own case. and whereas justice implies a relation to persons as well as to things, and a just distribution, as i have already said in the Ethics, implies the same ratio between the persons and between the things, they agree about the equality of the things, but dispute about the equality of the persons, chiefly for the reason which i have just given- because they are bad judges in their own affairs; and secondly, because both the parties to the argument are speaking of a limited and partial justice, but imagine themselves to be speaking of absolute justice. For the one party, if they are unequal in one respect, for example wealth, consider themselves to be unequal in all; and the other party, if they are equal in one respect, for example free birth, consider themselves to be equal in all. but they leave out the capital point. fot if men met and associated out of regard to wealth only, their share in the state would be proportioned to their property, and the oligarchical doctrine would then seem to carry the day. it would not be just that he who paid one mina should have the same share of a hundred minae, whether of the principal or of the profits,as he who paid the remainng ninet-nine. but a state exists for the sake of a good life, and not for the sake of life only: if life only were the object, slaves and brute animals might form a state, but they cannot, for they have no share in happiness or in a life of free choice. nor does a state exist for the sake of alliance and security from injustice, nor yet for the sake of exchange and mutual intercourse; for then the Tyrrhenians and the Carthaginians, and all who have commercial treaties with one another, would be the citizens of one state. True, they have agreements about imports, and engagements that will do no wrong to one another, and written articles of alliance. but there are no magistrates common to the contracting parties who will enforce their own magistracies. nor does one state take care that the citizens of the other are such as they ought to be, nor see that those who come under the terms of the treaty do no wrong or wickedness at an, but only that they do no injustice to one another. whereas, those who care for good government take into consideration virtue and vice in states. whence it may be further inferred that virtue must be the care of a state which is truly so called, and not merely enjoys the name: for without this end the community becomes a mere alliance which differs only in place from alliance of which the members live apart; and law is only a convention, a surety to one another of justice, as the sophist Lycophron says, and has no real power to make the citizens.
Our conclusion, then, is that political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not of mere companionship. Hence they who contribute most to such a society have a greater share init than those who have the same or a greater freedom or nobility of birth but are inferior to them in political virtue; or than those who exceed them in wealth but are surpassed by them in virtue.
From what has been said it will be clearly seen that all the partisans of different forms of government speak of a part of justice only.