Kitap 2
1261a
Yet it is clear that if the process of unification advances beyond a certain point, the city will not be a city at all for a state essentially consists of a multitude of persons, and if its unification is carried beyond a certain point, city will be reduced to family and family to individual,for we should pronounce the family to be a more complete unity than the city, and the single person than the family; so that even if any lawgiver were able to unify the state, he must not do so, for he will destroy it in the process. And not only does a city consist of a multitude of human beings, it consists of human beings differing in kind. A collection of persons all alike does not constitute a state. For a city is not the same thing as a league; a league is of value by its quantity, even though it is art the same in kind (since the essential object of the league is military strength), just as a weight would be worth more if it weighed more, whereasIn the mss. of the Greek whereas—kind comes below after Arcadian. components which are to make up a unity must differ in kind (and it is by this characteristic that a city will also surpass a tribe of which the population is not scattered among villages but organized like the Arcadians). Hence reciprocal equalityAs the best state consists of different classes, its unity is secured by each citizen giving services to society and receiving in return benefits proportionate to his service. Probably τὸ ἴσον is an interpolation (though Newman explains it as the reciprocal rendering of an equal amount of dissimilar things): omitting τὸ ἴσον, we render reciprocity and not reciprocal equality; cf. Aristot. Nic. Eth. 1132b 33, In the interchange of services Justice in the form of Reciprocity is the bond that maintains the association: reciprocity, that is, on the basis of proportion, not on the basis of equality. is the preservative of states, as has been said before in the Ethics. For even among the free and equal this principle must necessarily obtain, since all cannot govern at once: they must hold office for a year at a time or by some other arrangement or period; and in this manner it does actually come about that all govern, just as all shoemakers would be also carpenters if the shoemakers and the carpenters kept on changing trades instead of the same persons being shoemakers and carpenters always. But since such permanence of function is better for the political community also, it is clear that it is better for the same persons to govern always, if possible; and among peoples where it is impossible because all the citizens are equal in their nature,
