The Nicomachean Ethics — trans. F. H. Peters (1881)

road to virtue is hard, unless we are brought up under suitable laws; for to live temperately and regularly is not pleasant to the generality of men, especially to the young. Our nurture, then, should be prescribed by law, and our whole way of life-; for it will cease to be painful as we get accustomed to it. And I venture to think that it is not enough to get proper nurture and training when we are young, but that as we ought to carry on the same way of life after we are grown up, and to confirm these habits, we need the intervention of the law in these matters also, and indeed, to put it roundly, in our whole life. For the generality of men are more readily swayed by compulsion than by reason, and by fear of punishment than by desire for what is noble.

For this reason, some hold that the legislator should, in the first instance, invite the people and exhort them to be virtuous because of the nobility of virtue, as those who have been well trained will listen to him ; but that when they will not listen, or are of less noble nature, he should apply correction and punishment, and banish utterly those who are incorrigible. For the good man, who takes what is noble as his guide, will listen to reason, but he who is not good, whose desires are set on pleasure, must be corrected by pain like a beast of burden. And for this reason, also, they say the pains to be applied must be those that are most contrary to the pleasures which the culprit loves.

As we have said, then, he who is to be good must be well nurtured and trained, and thereafter must continue in a like excellent way of life, and must never.

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either voluntarily or involuntarily, do anjrthing \'ile ; and this can only be effected if men live subject to some kind of reason and proper regimen, backed by force.

Js ow, the paternal rule has not the requisite force or power of compulsion, nor has the rule of any individual, unless he be a king or something like one ; but the law has a compulsory power, and at the same time is a rational ordinance proceeding from a kind of prudence or reason.* And whereas we take offence at individuals who oppose our inclinations, even though their opposition is right, we do not feel aggrieved when the law bids us do what is right

But Sparta is (with a few exceptions) the only state where the legislator seems to have paid attention to the nurture and mode of life of the citizens. In most states these matters are entirely neglected, and each man lives as he likes, ruling wife and children in Cyclopean fashion, f

It would be best, then, that the regulation of these matters should be undertaken and properly carried out by the state, and that indi^^duals should be able to render this service to the commimity ; but as the state neglects it, it would seem that we should each indi^^dually help (or at least, try to help) our own children or friends on the road to virtue.*

Now, it would seem from what has been said that to enable one to do this, the best plan would be to learn how to legislate. For state training is carried on by means of laws, and is good when the laws are * Cf. YI. 8, 1-3. t Cf. Horn. Od. ix. 114. J Cj. I. 2, 8.

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good; but it would seem to make no difference whether the laws be written or unwritten, nor whether they regulate the education of one person or many, any more than it does in the case of music, or gymnastics, or any other course of training. For as in the state that prevails which is ordained by law and custom, so in the household that which is ordained by the word of the father of the family and by custom prevails no less, or even more, because of the ties of kinship and of obligation ; for affection and obedience are already implanted by nature in the members of the family.

Moreover, in spite of what has just been said, individual treatment is better than treatment by masses, in education no less than in medicine. As a general rule, repose and fasting are good for a fever patient, but in a particular case they may not be good. A teacher of boxing, I suppose, does not recommend every one to adopt the same style. It would seem, then, that individuals are educated more perfectly under a system of private education ; for then each gets more precisely what he needs.