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Politics: A Treatise on Government by Aristotle
page 24 of 332 (07%)
something else for our use; but we only use a coat, or a bed: since
then making and using differ from each other in species, and they both
require their instruments, it is necessary that these should be
different from each other. Now life is itself what we use, and not
what we employ as the efficient of something else; for which reason
the services of a slave are for use. A possession may be considered in
the same nature as a part of anything; now a part is not only a part
of something, but also is nothing else; so is a possession; therefore
a master is only the master of the slave, but no part of him; but the
slave is not only the slave of the master, but nothing else but that.
This fully explains what is the nature of a slave, and what are his
capacities; for that being who by nature is nothing of himself, but
totally another's, and is a man, is a slave by nature; and that man
who is the property of another, is his mere chattel, though he
continues a man; but a chattel is an instrument for use, separate from
the body.




CHAPTER V


But whether any person is such by nature, and whether it is
advantageous and just for any one to be a slave or no, or whether all
slavery is contrary to nature, shall be considered hereafter; not that
it is difficult to determine it upon general principles, or to
understand it from matters of fact; for that some should govern, and
others be governed, is not only necessary but useful, and from the
hour of their birth some are marked out for those purposes, and others
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