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ARISTOTLE'S MORALS AND POLITICS 93
pursuits of the mystic, these typify for Aristotle the occupations
of the higher type of good life. It was, however,
obvious to him that for the ordinary man they are unattainable.
For one thing, the ordinary man has not the
necessary capacity for their pursuit; for another, he has
not the necessary leisure. To Aristotle, writing before the
age of machinery, it seemed clear that there must in every
State be some whose business it is to produce the neces-
saries of life, easy access to which is a necessary condition
of the cultivated leisure of the few. In the recognition of
thi? need is to be found Aristotle's justification for slavery.
The State exists, as we have seen, for the purpose of promoting
the good life, but the good life, it turns out, is only for
the leisured, intellectual few. Whatever, then, is necessary
in order to enable the State to function, is also necessary in
order to enable the good life to be lived. Now that a State
may function, many the fact seemed obvious to political
theorists living before the machine age must be prepared
to do menial work. In Greece these "many"
happened to be slaves, but it must be remembered that in
Greece slaves were comparatively free and comparatively
well treated. Their lives were, indeed, probably superior
in amenity to that of the basement servant in the average
Victorian household. To-day, their work could largely
be done by machines. Aristotle recognized this possibility
and points out that mechanical inventions, "inanimate
tools", may come to render "the animated tools" which
are slaves unnecessary. If and when the economic system
adapts itself to the increased productivity of physical and
chemical science, so that each advance in the delegation
of dull and drudging work to machines is
accompanied by unemployment and econonug
such work will in fact be handed over
in Aristotle's Greece and, therefore, in
State, it was done by slaves. We deplore
justifies it; but before we quarrel with
must be careful to bear in mind the
For slavery, in Aristotle's view,