y are not
capable of sufficient rational appreciation of political ends, like the
barbarians whom he thought were natural slaves, or because the leisure
necessary for citizenship can only be gained by the work of the artisans
who by that very work make themselves incapable of the life which
they make possible for others. "The artisan only attains excellence
in proportion as he becomes a slave," and the slave is only a living
instrument of the good life. He exists for the state, but the state does
not exist for him.

2. Aristotle in his account of the ideal state seems to waver between
two ideals. There is the ideal of an aristocracy and the ideal of what
he calls constitutional government, a mixed constitution. The principle
of "tools to those who can use them" ought to lead him, as it does
Plato, to an aristocracy. Those who have complete knowledge of the good
must be few, and therefore Plato gave entire power in his state into
the hands of the small minority of philosopher guardians. It is in
accordance with this principle that Aristotle holds that kingship is
the proper form of government when there is in the state one man of
transcendent virtue. At the same time, Aristotle always holds that
absolute government is not properly political, that government is not
like the rule of a shepherd over his sheep, but the rule of equals
over equals. He admits that the democrats are right in insisting that
equality is a necessary element in the state, though he thinks they do
not admit the importance of other equally necessary elements. Hence he
comes to say that ruling and being ruled over by turns is an essential
feature of constitutional government, which he admits as an alternative
to aristocracy. The end of the state, which is to be the standard of the
distribution of political power, is conceived sometimes as a good for
the apprehension and attainment of which "virtue" is necessary and
sufficient (this is the principle of aristocracy), and sometimes as a
more complex good, which needs for its attainment not only "virtue" but
wealth and equality. This latter conception is the principle on which
the mixed constitution is based. This in its distribution of political
power gives some weight to "virtue," some to wealth, and some to mere
number. But the principle of "ruling and being ruled by turns" is not
really compatible with an unmodified principle of "tools to those who
can use them." Aristotle is right in seeing that polit