§ 1. I take the name “commonwealth” in the broadest sense, so that it embraces monarchy, aristocracy, and πολιτείαν properly so called, or government by the people. Nor do I locate the distinction in breadth of command or in the narrow boundaries of kingdoms. For I do not hesitate both to call a small town a commonwealth and to call the ruler of a single city a king.
The Greek expression πολιτεία is not customarily understood in the same way. For it is sometimes used strictly for that form of commonwealth which is popular. Aristotle, Politics, Book IV, chapter 8, calls it “μίξιν ὀλιγαρχίας καὶ δημοκρατίας,” a mixture of oligarchy and democracy. And in Politics, Book I, chapter 1: “ὅσοι μὲν οὖν οἴονται πολιτικὸν καὶ βασιλικὸν καὶ οἰκονομικὸν καὶ δεσποτικὸν εἶναι τὸν αὐτὸν οὐ καλῶς λέγουσι.” Those who say that the political ruler, the kingly ruler, the household ruler, and the despotic ruler are the same do not speak rightly. For he judges that these differ not only in multitude and fewness, but also in kind. He calls “political” the one who rules and obeys by turns, and “kingly” the one who rules alone and does not obey; yet he says that there is another diversity in the actual government of the commonwealth, and in this way πολιτεία is used strictly.
In other places, however, Aristotle interprets “polity” as every commonwealth. For in Politics, Book III, chapter 14: “ἴσως δὴ καλῶς ἔχει μετὰ τοὺς εἰρημένους λόγους μεταβῆναι, καὶ σκέψασθαι περὶ βασιλείας, φαμὲν γὰρ τῶν ὀρθῶν πολιτειῶν μίαν εἶναι ταύτην.” “It will perhaps be right after this discourse to pass to another subject and to treat of kingship. For we say that kingship is one of the well-constituted polities.” Indeed, he himself expressed the difference between the meanings in explicit words in Ethics, Book VIII, chapter 1: “Πολιτείας δέ ἐστιν εἴδη τρία, ἴσαι δὲ καὶ παρεκβάσεις, οἷον φθοραὶ τούτων· εἰσὶ δ’ αἱ μὲν πολιτεῖαι, βασιλεία τε καὶ ἀριστοκρατία. Τρίτη δὲ, ἡ ἀπὸ τιμημάτων, ἣν τιμοκρατικὴν λέγειν οἰκεῖον φαίνεται, πολιτείαν δὲ αὐτὴν εἰώθασιν οἱ πλεῖστοι καλεῖν.” “There are three kinds of polity, and the same number of deviations from them, or corruptions of good polity. The polities are kingship and government by the best; but the third is that which is based upon a property assessment, which it appears should properly be called τιμοκρατικήν; most men have customarily called this one a polity.”
There is therefore a twofold polity: the former, which contains three kinds, and the latter, which is the last of the three kinds. I had to give this warning lest a dispute about words be raised against us hereafter. Indeed, the Latins also use the name “state” in this way. Pliny, Book VII: “The Egyptians have a royal state, the Attic people a popular one,” and so forth. And Cicero, Book III of On the Laws: “But since the royal kind of state, approved at one time, was afterward rejected not so much because of the faults of kingship as because of those of the king, only the name of king will appear to have been changed; the thing itself will remain, if one man commands all the other magistrates.”
§ 2. Aristotle therefore defines πολιτεία, or the commonwealth, in Politics, Book III, chapter 6, in this manner: “ἔστι δὲ πολιτεία πόλεως τάξις τῶν τε ἄλλων ἀρχῶν καὶ μάλιστα τῆς κυρίας πάντων.” “A polity or commonwealth is the ordering of a city and of its magistracies, both the others and especially that one which is supreme over all.” Plutarch says: “The commonwealth is a certain body fitted together from members, which is animated by the benefit of a divine gift, is moved at the command of the highest equity, and is governed by a certain light of reason.”
Scipio in Cicero, as reported by Saint Augustine in City of God, Book II, chapter 21, said that the commonwealth was the property of the people. He determines, however, that a people is not every assemblage of a multitude, but an assemblage united by agreement concerning law and by community of advantage. From this he gathers that there is then a commonwealth—that is, the property of a people—when it is conducted well and justly, whether by one king, by a few of the best men,
or by the entire people. The people, however, contains all who are in the commonwealth; for when “the people” is said without qualification, even the king and the senate are reckoned among the people.
This definition is obscure. For a field, walls, a treasury, porticoes, and other things are the property of the people, yet these do not constitute the commonwealth, but are ornaments or aids of the commonwealth. Indeed, debt and similar losses are also things belonging to the people. Next, the people itself is a material part of the commonwealth, since it is called an assemblage; yet the people will not rightly be called the property of the people. But if you prefer to define in the abstract, as they say, the people will be still less a part of the commonwealth.
Justus Lipsius, Book II, chapter 1, defines civil life as “that which we, mingled together, lead in a society of human beings for mutual advantages or use.” He names prudence and virtue as its guides—rightly, indeed, lest advantages and use be referred solely to utility and pleasure, but principally to moral goodness. I therefore judge that these definitions differ more in words than in meaning. But because I write not for Stoics or Spartans, but for statesmen and the people, it has seemed good to me to give a definition that contains all the causes, and to give it in the concrete so that it may be readily perceived. A commonwealth, therefore, is an assemblage of human beings, associated by the guidance of nature through agreement concerning law and community of advantage, for the purpose of living well and happily.
§ 3. The efficient cause is a certain guidance and impulse of nature implanted by God; therefore God too is a cause, for the things that are from nature and in nature are referred to God. Hence Aristotle rightly concluded: “διὸ πᾶσα πόλις φύσει ἐστί.” “Therefore every city exists by nature.” And in Politics, Book I, chapter 2: “From these things, therefore, it is evident that the city must be numbered among those things which exist by nature; that man is by nature a civil animal; and that one who is without a city by the impulse of nature, not by a fault of fortune, is either a wicked man or better than man, like the one against whom this reproach was cast by Homer:
Ἀφρήτωρ, ἀθέμιστος, ἀνέστιος.
Without council, without law, without hearth.”
Those, therefore, who were μισάνθρωποι, haters of human beings, overwhelmed natural στοργήν, or affection, and its effect by the magnitude of their vices. Such was that petty Greek Timon, and such were tyrants who wished that the whole people had a single neck; who called themselves the scourge of God; and who thought that a slain enemy smelled good, but a slain citizen better. The material cause is an assemblage of human beings: common people, senators, nobles, princes, and kings. I exclude slaves, however, for they are not a part of the commonwealth, but organs and certain animate instruments. Yet because they too are human beings, and often human beings more excellent than their masters, the commonwealth shall also undertake their care and protect them against cruel and injurious masters.
§ 4. The form is the principle of law to which the people has consented—that is, the ordering, through command, of rulers and subjects. From this form arises the threefold commonwealth. From this point it is also apparent that, when that consent is absent, there is no commonwealth, but some other assemblage, such as one of slaves living under the power of some master.
Accordingly, the emperor of the Turks does not possess a commonwealth properly so called. For since he has an absolute right of life and death over his subjects, and even over the supreme commanders of war; since all publicly declare that all their possessions and they themselves have been delivered into the great emperor’s ownership as chattels; and since that right is greater and more unrestrained than that of masters over slaves formerly was, there is here no government other than δεσποτικόν, and in no way a civil one. For although he possesses cities, he nevertheless does not rule them by the law of citizens, but by the absolute discretion of domination. Those great cities, therefore, are nothing other than certain more capacious workhouses for slaves; and the great pashas and beylerbeys are like certain household-steward slaves, destined to die at the nod of their master without any protection of law or right.
§ 5. The end is to live well and happily. Aristotle explained this as follows: “The perfect society composed of several villages is a city, which possesses the limit of all αὐταρκείας—that is, which is altogether and perfectly sufficient to itself. It arises, indeed, for the sake of living, but exists and endures for the sake of living well.” The end of all things, however, is happiness. When happiness is located in virtue, it produces a good commonwealth; when it is sought in pleasure, riches, and honors, there will indeed be a commonwealth, but one that is vicious, restless, and short-lived, and while it pursues false happiness it will entangle itself in true calamities. It is helpful in this matter to hear a wise slave:
What of that town which you saw—did it seem fortified to you by a wall?
P. If its inhabitants are well mannered, I judge it splendidly fortified; if treachery, embezzlement, and avarice are exiles from the city; envy is the fourth, ambition the fifth, disparagement the sixth, perjury the seventh—
S. Excellent!
P. negligence the eighth, injury the ninth, and crime the tenth, the worst thing to encounter. Unless these are absent from it, a hundredfold wall is too little to preserve its affairs.
I shall seal this with a judgment of Plato: “ἔστιν ἄρα ταὐτό, ὡς ἔοικε, βασιλεὺς, τύραννος, πολιτικὸς, οἰκονόμος, δεσπότης, σώφρων, δίκαιος· καὶ μία τέχνη ἐστί, βασιλικὴ, τυραννικὴ, πολιτικὴ, δεσποτικὴ, δικαιοσύνη, οἰκονομικὴ, σωφροσύνη.” “The king, tyrant, statesman, household manager, master, temperate man, and just man therefore appear to be the same; and there is one art: kingly, tyrannical, political, masterly, domestic, justice, and temperance.” In a word: he administers a commonwealth with great art who lives and commands temperately and justly.