98 Professionalism to be avoided 



fleet, like the Athenian metics, we are not told. Nor is it easy to 

 guess how Aristotle would have answered the question. Their main 

 function is to carry on the various meaner or ' mechanical ' trades 

 and occupations, no doubt employing or not employing the help of 

 slaves according to circumstances. All such trades were held to have 

 a degrading effect 1 on both body and mind, disabling those practising 

 them from attaining the highest excellence, that is the standard of 

 model citizens in war and peace. Aristotle finds the essence of this 

 taint in transgression of the doctrine of the Mean. Specialization 

 carried to extremes produces professionalism which, for the sake of 

 perfecting technical skill, sacrifices the adaptability, the bodily supple- 

 ness and strength and the mental all-round alertness and serene 

 balance, qualities which every intelligent Greek admired, and which 

 Aristotle postulated in the citizens of his model community. So 

 strong is his feeling on the point that it comes 2 out in connexion 

 with music. The young citizens are most certainly to have musical 

 training, but they are not to become professional performers ; for this 

 sort of technical excellence is nothing but a form of {3avav<rla. 



If neither the farmer nor the artisan are to be citizens, and the 

 disqualification of the latter rests on his narrow professionalism, we 

 are tempted to inquire whether the claim of the farmer may not also 

 have been regarded as tainted by the same disability. That agri- 

 culture afforded scope for a high degree of technical skill is a fact 

 not missed by Aristotle. He is at pains to point out 3 that this most 

 fundamental of industries is a source of profit if scientifically pursued, 

 as well as a means of bare subsistence. For the exchange 4 of pro- 

 ducts (such as corn and wine) by barter soon arises, and offers great 

 opportunities, which are only increased to an injurious extent by the 

 invention of a metallic currency. Now the founder of the Peripatetic 

 school was not the man to ignore the principles of scientific farming, 

 and the labour of collecting details had for him no terrors. Accord- 

 ingly he refers to the knowledge 5 required in several departments of 

 pastoral and agricultural life. He sketches briefly the development 

 of the industry, from the mere gathering of nature's bounty, through 

 the stage of nomad pasturage, to settled occupation and the raising 

 of food-crops by tillage of the soil. But in the Politics he does not 

 follow out this topic. His preoccupation is the development of man 

 in political life: so he dismisses further detail with the remark 6 

 (referring to the natural branch of ^^artflrT^?;, the art of profit- 



1 Too often asserted to need references. But Pol in 5 4-6 is notable as pointing out 

 that TX"trai were generally well-to-do, but Brjres poor. 



8 Pol vni 6 3-8. 3 Pol i 8 3 foil. 4 Pol i 9. 



5 Pol I 10, n. 6 Pol i j i i, and Mr Newman's note. 



