Book 7
1326b
in some cases smallness and in others excessive largeness will make it sail badly. Similarly a state consisting of too few people will not be self-sufficing (which is an essential quality of a state), and one consisting of too many, though self-sufficing in the mere necessaries, will be so in the way in which a nationi.e. presumably an Ethnos in the usual sense, a community composed of villages loosely bound together by relationship and trade, and united for defence, but not for political life; not an Ethnos of associated cities. is, and not as a state, since it will not be easy for it to possess constitutional government—for who will command its over-swollen multitude in war? or who will serve as its herald, unless he have the lungs of a Stentor? It follows that the lowest limit for the existence of a state is when it consists of a population that reaches the minimum number that is self-sufficient for the purpose of living the good life after the manner of a political community. It is possible also for one that exceeds this one in number to be a greater state, but, as we said, this possibility of increase is not without limit, and what the limit of the state’s expansion is can easily be seen from practical considerations. The activities of the state are those of the rulers and those of the persons ruled, and the work of a ruler is to direct the administration and to judge law-suits; but in order to decide questions of justice and in order to distribute the offices according to merit it is necessary for the citizens to know each other’s personal characters, since where this does not happen to be the case the business of electing officials and trying law-suits is bound to go badly; haphazard decision is unjust in both matters, and thismust obviously prevail in an excessively numerous community. Also in such a community it is easy for foreigners and resident aliens to usurp the rights of citizenship, for the excessive number of the population makes it not difficult to escape detection. It is clear therefore that the best limiting principle for a state is the largest expansion of the population, with a view to self-sufficiency that can well be taken in at one view.
