Politics

[that the best life is] the one accompanied by virtue, supplied to such an extent as to participate in actions in accordance with virtue. But as for those who dispute this, leaving them aside in our present inquiry, we must examine it later, if anyone happens not to be persuaded by what has been said. Next, it remains to speak of whether we should say that happiness is the same for each individual human being and for a city, or not the same. And this too is clear. For all would agree that it is the same. For those who place living well in wealth for an individual also deem the whole city happy if it is wealthy; and those who honor the tyrannical life most would say that the city which rules over the greatest number is the happiest; and if anyone accepts the individual on account of virtue, he will also say that the more excellent city is the happier. But these are already two things that require examination: one, which life is more choiceworthy, the one through participating in citizenship and sharing in a city, or rather the alien life and one released from political association; and further, what constitution we must establish and what disposition of a city is best, whether sharing in a city is choiceworthy for all, or not for some but for most. Since this is the work of political thought and contemplation, and not what is choiceworthy for each individual, and since we have chosen this examination now, the former would be a secondary matter, while the latter is the work of this method. That, therefore, the best constitution must be this order according to which anyone might act best and live happily, is clear; but it is disputed by those very people who agree that the life with virtue is most choiceworthy, whether the political and active life is choiceworthy, or rather the one released from all external things, such as a contemplative one, which some say is the only philosophical life. For almost these two lives appear to be chosen by those who are most ambitious for virtue, both among the earlier and the present; I mean these two: the political and the philosophical. And it makes no small difference which of the two is the truth; for it is necessary for a wise man to direct himself toward the better goal, both for each of human beings and in common for the constitution. For some believe that ruling over one’s neighbors, if done despotically, involves some of the greatest injustice, but if politically, while it does not have injustice, it has an obstacle to one’s own well-being; while others happen to hold opinions as if from the opposite direction, that only the active and political life is that of a man, for the actions of each virtue do not belong more to private individuals than to those who perform public actions and participate in politics.