such-like habits, or whether they possess only bodily qualities: each
side of the question has its difficulties; for if they possess these
virtues, wherein do they differ from freemen? and that they do not,
since they are men, and partakers of reason, is absurd. Nearly the
same inquiry may be made concerning a woman and a child, whether these
also have their proper virtues; whether a woman ought to be temperate,
brave, and just, and whether a child is temperate or no; and indeed
this inquiry ought to be general, whether the virtues of those who, by
nature, either govern or are governed, are the same or different; for
if it is necessary that both of them should partake of the fair and
good, why is it also necessary that, without exception, the one should
govern, the other always be governed? for this cannot arise from their
possessing these qualities in different degrees; for to govern, and to
be governed, are things different in species, but more or less are
not. And yet it is wonderful that one party ought to have them, and
the other not; for if he who is to govern should not be temperate and
just, how can he govern well? or if he is to be governed, how can he
be governed well? for he who is intemperate [1260a] and a coward will
never do what he ought: it is evident then that both parties ought to
be virtuous; but there is a difference between them, as there is
between those who by nature command and who by nature obey, and this
originates in the soul; for in this nature has planted the governing
and submitting principle, the virtues of which we say are different,
as are those of a rational and an irrational being. It is plain then
that the same principle may be extended farther, and that there are in
nature a variety of things which govern and are governed; for a
freeman is governed in a different manner from a slave, a male from a
female, and a man from a child: and all these have parts of mind
within them, but in a different manner. Thus a slave can have no power
of determination, a woman but a weak one, a child an imperfect one.