exists to an ideal, it is to a better which may be in its turn
transcended, not to a single immutable best. Aristotle found in the
society of his time men who were not capable of political reflection,
and who, as he thought, did their best work under superintendence. He
therefore called them natural slaves. For, according to Aristotle,
that is a man's natural condition in which he does his best work. But
Aristotle also thinks of nature as something fixed and immutable; and
therefore sanctions the institution of slavery, which assumes that
what men are that they will always be, and sets up an artificial
barrier to their ever becoming anything else. We see in Aristotle's
defence of slavery how the conception of nature as the ideal can have
a debasing influence upon views of practical politics. His high ideal
of citizenship offers to those who can satisfy its claims the prospect
of a fair life; those who fall short are deemed to be different in
nature and shut out entirely from approach to the ideal.

A. D.
LINDSAY.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

First edition of works (with omission of Rhetorica, Poetica, and
second book of OEconomica), 5 vols. by Aldus Manutius, Venice, 1495-8;
re-impression supervised by Erasmus and with certain corrections by
Grynaeus (including Rhetorica and Poetica), 1531, 1539, revised 1550;
later editions were followed by that of Immanuel Bekker and Brandis
(Greek and Latin), 5 vols. The 5th vol. contains the Index by Bonitz,
1831-70; Didot edition (Greek and Latin), 5 vols. 1848-74.

ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS: Edited by T. Taylor, with Porphyry's