barbarian states now are, which are composed of those who had before
submitted to kingly government; for every family is governed by the
elder, as are the branches thereof, on account of their relationship
thereunto, which is what Homer says, "Each one ruled his wife and
child;" and in this scattered manner they formerly lived. And the
opinion which universally prevails, that the gods themselves are
subject to kingly government, arises from hence, that all men formerly
were, and many are so now; and as they imagined themselves to be made
in the likeness of the gods, so they supposed their manner of life
must needs be the same. And when many villages so entirely join
themselves together as in every respect to form but one society, that
society is a city, and contains in itself, if I may so speak, the end
and perfection of government: first founded that we might live, but
continued that we may live happily. For which reason every city must
be allowed to be the work of nature, if we admit that the original
society between male and female is; for to this as their end all
subordinate societies tend, and the end of everything is the nature of
it. For what every being is in its most perfect state, that certainly
is the nature of that being, whether it be a man, a horse, or a house:
besides, whatsoever produces the final cause and the end which we
[1253a] desire, must be best; but a government complete in itself is
that final cause and what is best. Hence it is evident that a city is
a natural production, and that man is naturally a political animal,
and that whosoever is naturally and not accidentally unfit for
society, must be either inferior or superior to man: thus the man in
Homer, who is reviled for being "without society, without law, without
family." Such a one must naturally be of a quarrelsome disposition,
and as solitary as the birds. The gift of speech also evidently proves
that man is a more social animal than the bees, or any of the herding
cattle: for nature, as we say, does nothing in vain, and man is the