ABSTRACT
This is the sine quâ non of citizenship. It is possessed by all who have the capacity for membership of a society, i.e. who are capable of determining their actions by reference to a good common to themselves and others. No social polity which denies the actualisation of this right to any class of men so qualified can represent more than a temporary phase of development. Hence the objection to slavery. This institution may be at first an advance upon a practice which previously obtained, e.g. total extirpation ; it may have been a necessary stage in a nation's growth, but it can form no part of a settled or permanent constitution, SOKE? yap eivai TL êíicaiov iravrí àv9pw7rcp 7rpòç iràvTa
slavery, logically and theoretically, is a denial of this 1 Arist. N.E. viii. n .
