1332b for our habits make us alter them: some qualities in fact are made by nature liable to be modified by the habits in either direction, for the worse or for the better. Now the other animals live chiefly by nature, though some in small degrees are guided by habits too; but man lives by reason also, for he alone of animals possesses reason; so that in him these three things must be in harmony with one another; for men often act contrary to their acquired habits and to their nature because of their reason, if they are convinced that some other course of action is preferable.

Now we have already¹ defined the proper natural character of those who are to be amenable to the hand of the legislator; what now remains is the task of education, for men learn some things by practice, others by precept.

But since every political community is composed of rulers and subjects, we must therefore consider whether the rulers and the subjects ought to change, or to remain the same through life; for it is clear that their education also will have to be made to correspond with this distribution of functions. If then it were the case that the one class differed from the other as widely as we believe the gods and heroes to differ from mankind, having first a great superiority in regard to the body and then in regard to the soul, so that the pre-eminence of the rulers was indisputable and manifest to the subjects, it is clear that it would be better for the same persons always to be rulers and subjects once for all; but as this is not easy to secure, and as we do not find anything corresponding to the great difference that Scylax states to exist between kings and subjects in India, it is clear that for many reasons it is necessary for all to share alike in ruling and being ruled in turn. For equality means for persons who are alike identity of status, and also it is difficult² for a constitution to endure that is framed in contravention of justice. For all the people throughout the country are ranged on the side of the subject class in wishing for a revolution, and it is a thing inconceivable that those in the government should be sufficiently numerous to over power all of these together. But yet on the other hand that the rulers ought to be superior to the subjects cannot be disputed; therefore the lawgiver must consider how this is to be secured, and how they are to participate in the government. And this has been already³ discussed. Nature has given the distinction by making the group that is itself the same in race partly younger and partly older, of which two sets it is appropriate to the one to be governed and for the other to govern; and no one chafes or thinks himself better than his rulers when he is governed on the ground of age, especially as he is going to get back what he has thus contributed to the common stock when he reaches the proper age. In a sense therefore we must say that the rulers and ruled are the same, and in a sense different.

1333a Hence their education also is bound to be in one way the same and in another different. For he who is to be a good ruler must have first been ruled, as the saying is⁴ (and government, as has been said in the first discourses,⁵ is of two sorts, one carried on for the sake of the ruler and the other for the sake of the subject; of these the former is what we call the rule of a master,the latter is the government of free men . . .⁶ But some of the commands given differ not in nature of the services commanded but in their object. Hence a number of what are thought to be menial services can be honorably performed even by freemen in youth; since in regard to honor and dishonor actions do not differ so much in themselves as in their end and object). But since we say that the goodness of a citizen⁷ and ruler are the same as that of the best man, and that the same person ought to become a subject first and a ruler afterwards, it will be important for the legislator to study how and by what courses of training good men are to be produced, and what is the end of the best life.

The soul is divided into two parts, of which one is in itself possessed of reason, while the other is not rational in itselfbut capable of obeying reason. To these parts in our view belong those virtues in accordance with which a man is pronounced to be good in some way. But in which of thesetwo parts the end of man rather resides, those who define the parts of the soul in accordance with our view will have no doubt as to how they should decide. The worse always exists as a means to the better, and this is manifest alike in the products of art and in those of nature; but the rational part of the soul is better than the irrational. And the rational part is subdivided into two, according to our usual scheme of division; for reason is of two kinds, practical and theoretic, so that obviously the rational part of the soul must also be subdivided accordingly. A corresponding classification we shall also pronounce to hold among its activities: the activities of the part of the soul that is by nature superior must be preferable for those persons who are capable of attaining either all the soul’s activities or two⁸ out of the three; since that thing is always most desirable for each person which is the highest to which it is possible for him to attain. Also life as a whole is divided into business and leisure, and war and peace, and our actions are aimed some of them at things necessary and useful, others at things noble. In these matters the same principle of preference that applies to the parts of the soul must apply also to the activities of those parts: war must be for the sake of peace, business for the sake of leisure, things necessary and useful for the purpose of things noble. The statesman therefore must legislate with all these considerations in view, both in respect of the parts of the soul and of their activities, and aiming more particularly at the greater goods and the ends. And the same principle applies in regard to modes of life and choices of conduct: a man should be capable of engaging in business and war,

1333b but still more capable of living in peace and leisure; and he should do what is necessary and useful, but still more should he do what is noble. These then are the aims that ought to be kept in view in the education of the citizens both while still children and at the later ages that require education. But the Greek peoples reputed at the present day to have the best constitutions, and the lawgivers that established them, manifestly did not frame their constitutional systems with reference to the best end, nor construct their laws and their scheme of education with a view to all the virtues, but they swerved aside in a vulgar manner towards those excellences that are supposed to be useful and more conducive to gain. And following the same lines as they, some later writers also have pronounced the same opinion: in praising the Spartan constitution they express admiration for the aim of its founder on the ground that he framed the whole of his legislation with a view to conquest and to war. These views are easy to refute on theoretical grounds and also have now been refuted by the facts of history. For just as most of mankind covet being master of many servants⁹ because this produces a manifold supply of fortune’s goods, so Thibron¹⁰ and all the other writers about the Spartan constitutionshow admiration for the lawgiver of the Spartans because owing to their having been trained to meet dangers they governed a wide empire. Yet it clearly follows that since as a matter of fact at the present day the Spartans no longer possess an empire, they are not happy, and their lawgiver was not a good one. And it is ridiculous that although they have kept to his laws, and although nothing hinders their observing the laws, they have lost the noble life. Also writers have a wrong conception of the power for which the lawgiver should display esteem; to govern freemen is nobler and more conjoined with virtue than to rule despotically. And again it is not a proper ground for deeming a state happy and for praising its lawgiver, that it has practised conquest with a view to ruling¹¹ over its neighbors. This principle is most disastrous; it follows from it that an individual citizen who has the capacity ought to endeavor to attain the power to hold sway over his own city; but this is just what the Spartans charge as a reproach against their king Pausanias, although he attained such high honor. No principle therefore and no law of this nature is either statesmanlike or profitable, nor is it true; the same ideals are the best both for individuals and for communities, and the lawgiver should endeavor to implant them in the souls of mankind. The proper object of practising military training is not in order that men may enslave those who do not deserve slavery, but in order that first they may themselves avoid becoming enslaved to others; then so that they may seek suzerainty for the benefit of the subject people,