ABSTRACT
According to Aristotle, on the general liooe of whose theory modern research has made but little improvement, human society begins with that combination of ruler and ruled exemplified by man and wife, in other words, with the family; it then spreads to the village, that is to say the original family and its offshoots, and so to larger and larger units, culminating in the city-state. Its basis is the desiro for eafoty, its growth a natural process, and its continuance assured by the realization that communal life, while perhaps no longer the necessary condition of existence, is the one source of what he calls ‘good life,’ or the proper development and culture of the human powers. The chief modifications which we nowadays tend to make in this sketch of man’s organization apply to the two ends of the scale. We know of larger organized units than those which Aristotle still regarded as the climax of the process of social evolution; and we are not so sure that the patrilineal family, as he knew it and we know it today,—the association of husband, wife, and children, with or without servants, whereof the head is the husband,—was the beginning of things for human society, and not a comparatively advancod stage. Indeed Aristotle himself is of opinion that such an organization is possible only for Greeks, who are capable of ruling and therefore of civilization; for when a barbarian marries, he being by nature a slave, the marriage is an association of slave with slave; there is no ruler, and so little prospect of development into the fully civilized community.
