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[5]
Thus the other associations aim at some
particular advantage; for example sailors combine to seek the profits of seafaring in the
way of trade or the like, comrades in arms the gains of warfare, their aim being either
plunder, or victory over the enemy or the capture of a city1; and similarly the members of a
tribe or parish2
[And some associations appear to be formed for the sake of pleasure, for example religious guilds and dining-clubs, which are
unions for sacrifice and social intercourse. But all these associations seem to be
subordinate to the association of the State, which aims not at a temporary advantage but
at one covering the whole of life.] combine to perform sacrifices and hold
festivals in connection with them, thereby both paying honor to the gods and providing
pleasant holidays for themselves. For it may be noticed that the sacrifices and festivals
of ancient origin take place after harvest, being in fact harvest-festivals; this is
because that was the season of the year at which people had most leisure.
1 Literally ‘plunder or victory or a city’; the last words may refer either to colonists or exiles who obtain a new abode by conquest, or to civil war; but the expression is improbable, and perhaps should be emended to ‘or to defend the city.’
2 The bracketed sentences, as Cook Wilson points out, look like an interpolated fragment of a parallel version.
Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 19, translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1934.
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