tion of the relation of ethics and politics can almost be summed
up in the opening sentences of the two treatises he devoted to
those subjects. The Nicomachecan Ethics begins with the statement
that every action is directed to some good, and the problems
involved in achieving the ends of action are thereafter
treated relative to the potentialities and material discoverable
in individual men. The Politics, on the other hand, begins with
the statement that every community is established with a view
to some good, and the problems involved in states and institutions
are thereafter treated relative to needs and ends which
transcend individual powers. The natural basis of the state is
found in ends as the natural basis of the virtues was found in
passions and actions. The simpler forms of association, such
as the family and the village, derive their origin and nature
from the union of male and female, master and slave, parent
and child, none of whom could exist or continue long in existence
without the other, and the natural bases of the household and
the village are to be found, therefore, in those interdependences.
The state is "natural" for the same reason, although its
end is loftier and its organization more complex.
When several villages are united in a single complete community large
Enough to be nearly or quite self-sufficing the state comes into existence,
Originating in the bare needs of life, and continuing in existence for the
sake of a good life. And therefore if the earlier forms of society are natural,
so is the state, for it is the end of them, and the nature of a thing is
its end. For what each thing is when fully developed, we call its nature,
whether we are speaking of a man, a horse or a family. Besides the final
cause and end of a thing is the best, and to be self-sufficing the end and
best.
It is in this sense that man is "by nature a political animal,"
not in any of the less plausible senses which have been ascribed
to the phrase suggesting the implication that man is obtrusively