Since, then, it is sometimes thought that
the ruler and the ruled must learn different things and not the
same, but that the citizen must know and share in them both, the
inference is obvious. There is, indeed, the rule of a master, which is
concerned with menial offices- the master need not know how to perform
these, but may employ others in the execution of them: the other would
be degrading; and by the other I mean the power actually to do
menial duties, which vary much in character and are executed by
various classes of slaves, such, for example, as handicraftsmen,
who, as their name signifies, live by the labor of their hands:
under these the mechanic is included. Hence in ancient times, and
among some nations, the working classes had no share in the
government- a privilege which they only acquired under the extreme
democracy. Certainly the good man and the statesman and the good
citizen ought not to learn the crafts of inferiors except for their
own occasional use; if they habitually practice them, there will cease
to be a distinction between master and slave.
This is not the rule of which we are speaking; but there is a rule
of another kind, which is exercised over freemen and equals by birth
-a constitutional rule, which the ruler must learn by obeying, as he
would learn the duties of a general of cavalry by being under the
orders of a general of cavalry, or the duties of a general of infantry
by being under the orders of a general of infantry, and by having
had the command of a regiment and of a company.
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