VOLUME III, SEMESTER 1, CHAPTER 9, SECTION 2
Aristotle’s Line, the Natural Slave
The last section left a question. Did it sit easy in the Athenians’ hearts. Twenty to thirty thousand crawling in the tunnels below, a discussion of justice up above, how were these two things held in the one same head. There was a man who reasoned it round for them. He was one of the greatest minds of that age. This section is about his line.
First, set the line out
Aristotle, in the Politics, gave the institution of enslavement an exceedingly famous argument, called the natural slave argument.
His meaning is this. Some people are slaves by nature. In their souls, the part that can rule, the reasoning part, is missing. And so they need to be ruled by others, just as the body needs to be ruled by the soul.
See the build of this passage clear, for it is made with great cunning.
The first step, he cuts the human into two lengths. The length that has reason, and the length that has none. The second step, he offers a likeness. The soul rules the body, right by heaven and earth. The third step, he sets that likeness back onto the human. The one who has reason rules the one who has none, and this too is right by heaven and earth.
And so enslavement is no longer a thing a person does. It has become a thing of nature.
The weight of this passage
This is the first time in the history of Western thought that the institution of enslavement was given, in a systematic way, an argument for its own rightness.
See those three words clear, in a systematic way.
When the Shang king dragged the Qiang off to sacrifice to heaven, he argued nothing. When the Zhou manager of the condemned opened his register, he argued nothing either, he only followed the article.
Aristotle did another thing. He argued. He argued with great care, with great rigor, one link locked into the next.
Go back to the lion in the second chapter of this semester. It ate one more mouthful, and it said nothing. The person ate one more mouthful, and added a line, it is only right.
This passage of Aristotle’s is exactly that line, it is only right, grown to its most decent shape. Philosophized, systematized, written into the textbook.
This is a great success of wei in Western civilization. It made the institution of enslavement not merely an institution, but a body of learning.
This volume must first own his merit
Here the position has to be set straight, or the section becomes a throwing of stones.
Aristotle was an extraordinary man. The discipline of logic, he stood it up. How a person today tells whether a sentence holds together, whether a step of inference stands, the frame is the one he built. He opened the head of biology too, he went and counted the gills of fish, went and watched how the chick grows inside the egg. He spoke of ethics, spoke of politics, spoke of what the good life is.
This volume respects him. This volume does not judge his right and wrong.
This volume points at one thing only. This one stroke of his, which square did it land on.
And say it more fairly still. He was a man of that world. He opened his eyes, and what he saw was that one in three was a slave. This was not one man’s notion, it was the shape a whole generation had grown used to seeing from childhood. What he did was to find, for the world he was used to seeing, a way of putting it.
The rounder that way of putting it, the steadier that world sat.
But it is exactly because he was great that this stroke matters most
Now the deepest layer of this section. Listen slowly.
Had this line been spoken by a coarse man, it would have hurt few people. A coarse man says, they are born base, and a person hearing it frowns and thinks nothing of it.
But this line was reasoned out, step by step, by the most rigorous mind of that age, with the most exacting logic.
It has premises, it has inference, it has a conclusion. It stands. It can be written into books, copied down by generation after generation of students, memorized, answered out on the examination.
And so that position no longer needs anyone to guard it. It has grown a leg, a leg exceedingly solid, a leg of logic.
Hold this layer. Wei the more refined is the harder to recognize. And this section adds a line fiercer still. Wei at its most refined comes, more often than not, out of the finest mind of the age.
Because for a position to stand steady, what is needed is not a wicked man. It is a clever one.
How this move was made
Take this passage apart, and see where the trick is.
The trick is in the first step. He cut the human into two lengths.
The division of work is a fact. Some manage the matter, some do the work, this is the division of work. But he moved this division of work down one layer, moved it inside the human. He said, that is not a difference of position, that is a difference of soul.
One move, and the whole thing changes.
A position can be changed out. Today you manage, tomorrow I manage. A soul cannot. The soul that is missing that piece is missing it forever.
Recognize this move. It is the very thing the second chapter of this semester spoke of. On a division of work, a layer of high and low, noble and base, is pasted by force. Only this time it is pasted with great skill. It is not pasted onto a station, it is pasted into the soul. Pasted into the soul, it can never be peeled off again.
This move is still in use today
Turn this passage into today’s speech.
A person stands his whole life at a line, twelve hours a day. Someone says, he is just suited to that, he could never take to books anyway.
A child tests badly. Someone says, he is not the material.
A person cannot repay his loan. Someone says, he is undisciplined by nature.
Set these lines beside Aristotle’s. In their souls, the part that can rule is missing.
The one same move. A difference of position, spoken of as a difference inside.
Once it is spoken of as a difference inside, that board that was pulled out from under him, no one goes to look at any more. He did not have the ground go out from under his feet, he was born this way.
Think back to Mencius’s exception in the fourth chapter of this semester. To read a difference of position as a difference of character is wei’s most used move.
Twenty three centuries, and this move has not rested a day.
What this section set up, and the turn to the next
This section set up three things.
The first. Aristotle’s line, the natural slave, is that line it is only right grown to its most decent shape. It is a great success of wei in Western civilization. Enslavement from here is not merely an institution, it is a body of learning.
The second. This volume respects him, owns his merit, does not judge his right and wrong, and points only at which square this stroke landed on. And exactly because he was the finest mind of the age, this stroke matters most. Wei at its most refined comes out of the finest minds. For a position to stand steady, what is needed is not a wicked man but a clever one.
The third. The trick is in the first step, the difference of position moved inside the human. Moved inside, it can never be peeled off. This move is still run today, several times a day.
Then, once the reasoning is round, what is the next step. The next step is to write it down. The far side of the Mediterranean took this to its extreme. They did a thing the Shang, the Zhou, the Han never did so thoroughly. They wrote the person, plain and clear, into the article of the law, and filed him under the column of things.
That column, together with the ox, the horse, the house.
The next section, Roman law defines the person as a thing.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.