124 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 



bable that it is entirely built upon certain expressions used by Aristotle 



His views in the first book of his * Politics.' In that place he recognizes the 

 relation between master and slave as a natural one ; and he also main- 

 tains the superiority of Greeks over barbarians to be so decided and 

 permanent as to justify the supremacy of the one over the other. Of 

 the latter he argues that they have not the faculty of governing in 

 them, and that, therefore, the state of slavery is for them the natural 

 and proper form of the social relation. But it should not be over- 



Misrepre- looked, as by some modern writers it has been, 1 that Aristotle expli- 

 citly distinguishes between a slave de facto and a slave de jure, and 

 that he grounds his vindication of slavery entirely on the principle that 

 such a relation shall be the most beneficial one to both the parties con- 

 cerned in it. Where this condition is wanting, wherever the party 

 governed is susceptible of a higher order of government, he distinctly 

 maintains that the relation is a false and unnatural one. If, therefore, 

 his experience had brought him into contact with the highly-cultivated 

 and generous races of upper Asia to which Alexander penetrated, he 

 must in consistency with his own principle, that every man's nature 

 is to be developed to the highest point of which it is capable, have 

 advised that these should be treated on the same footing as the Greeks, 

 and Alexander's conduct would only appear a natural deduction from 



Exculpated, the general principles inculcated by his master. 2 As far as concerned 

 the barbarians, with whom alone the Greeks previously to Alexander's 

 expedition had been brought into contact, the neighbours of the Greek 

 cities in Asia Minor and the Propontis, the savage hordes of Thrace, 

 or the Nomad races inhabiting the African Syrtis, Aristotle's position 

 was a most reasonable one. Christianity seems the only possible 

 means for the mutual pacification of races so different from one another 

 in every thought, feeling, and habit, as these and the polished Greeks 

 were : and Christianity itself solves the problem not by those modifi- 

 cations of social life through which alone the statesman acts, or can 

 act ; but by awakening all to the consciousness that there exists a 

 common bond higher than all social relations ; it does not aim at ob- 

 literating national peculiarities, but it dwarfs their importance in com- 

 parison with the universal religious faith. If we would really under- 

 stand the opinions of a writer of antiquity, we must understand the 

 ground on which he rests, and must rest. We have no right to require 

 of a pagan philosopher three centuries before Christ, that in his system 

 he should take account of the influences of Christianity ; and they who 

 scoff at the importance which he attaches to the difference of race, 

 would do well to point out any instance in the history of the world of 

 a barbarous people becoming amalgamated with a highly-civilized one 

 by any other agency. 



stagirus re- If Aristotle might reasonably feel proud of the talents and acquire- 



1 Paley, Moral and Political Philosophy, c. v. p. 12. 



2 From this point of view too, the assertion of Plutarch, quoted above (p. 123), 

 acquires a plausibility, which otherwise we could never allow it. 



