[1328b]
[1]
for as each set of people pursues
participation in happiness in a different manner and by different means they
make for themselves different modes of life and different constitutions. And we
must also further consider how many there are of these things referred to that
are indispensable for the existence of a state; for among them will be the
things which we pronounce to be parts of a state, owing to which their presence
is essential. We must therefore
consider the list of occupations that a state requires : for from these it will
appear what the indispensable classes are. First then a state must have a supply
of food; secondly, handicrafts (since life needs many tools);
third, arms (since the members of the association must necessarily
possess arms both to use among themselves and for purposes of government, in
cases of insubordination, and to employ against those who try to molest them
from without); also a certain abundance of money, in order that they
may have enough both for their internal needs and for requirements of war;
fifth, a primary need, the service of religion, termed a priesthood; and sixth
in number and most necessary of all, a provision for deciding questions of
interests and of rights between the citizens. These then are the occupations that virtually every state
requires (for the state is not any chance multitude of people but one
self-sufficient for the needs of life, as we say,1 and if any of these
industries happens to be wanting, it is impossible for that association to be
absolutely self-sufficient). It is necessary therefore for the state to
be organized
[20]
on the lines of these
functions; consequently it must possess a number of farmers who will provide the
food, and craftsmen, and the military class, and the wealthy, and priests and
judges to decide questions of necessity2 and of interests.These matters having been
settled, it remains to consider whether everybody is to take part in all of
these functions (for it is possible for the whole of the people to be
at once farmers and craftsmen and the councillors and judges), or
whether we are to assume different classes corresponding to each of the
functions mentioned, or whether some of them must necessarily be specialized and
others combined. But it will not be the same in every form of constitution; for,
as we said,3 it is
possible either for all the people to take part in all the functions or for not
all to take part in all but for certain people to have certain functions. In
fact these different distributions of functions are the cause of the difference
between constitutions: democracies are states in which all the people
participate in all the functions, oligarchies where the contrary is the case.
But at present we are studying
the best constitution, and this is the constitution under which the state would
be most happy, and it has been stated before4 that happiness cannot be forthcoming without virtue; it is
therefore clear from these considerations that in the most nobly constituted
state, and the one that possesses men that are absolutely just, not merely just
relatively to the principle that is the basis of the constitution, the citizens
must not live a mechanic or a mercantile life (for such a life is
ignoble and inimical to virtue), nor yet must those who are to be
citizens in the best state be tillers of the soil
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