For the one party, if
they are unequal in one respect, for example wealth, consider
themselves to be unequal in all; and the other party, if they are
equal in one respect, for example free birth, consider themselves to
be equal in all. But they leave out the capital point. For if men
met and associated out of regard to wealth only, their share in the
state would be proportioned to their property, and the oligarchical
doctrine would then seem to carry the day. It would not be just that
he who paid one mina should have the same share of a hundred minae,
whether of the principal or of the profits, as he who paid the
remaining ninety-nine. But a state exists for the sake of a good life,
and not for the sake of life only: if life only were the object,
slaves and brute animals might form a state, but they cannot, for they
have no share in happiness or in a life of free choice. Nor does a
state exist for the sake of alliance and security from injustice,
nor yet for the sake of exchange and mutual intercourse; for then
the Tyrrhenians and the Carthaginians, and all who have commercial
treaties with one another, would be the citizens of one state. True,
they have agreements about imports, and engagements that they will
do no wrong to one another, and written articles of alliance. But
there are no magistrates common to the contracting parties who will
enforce their engagements; different states have each their own
magistracies.
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