How To Read A Book- A Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading - Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren [196]
TEST G ( P. 410 )
I. The family, the village, the state.
2. They have in common that they are all modes of human association and that they are all natural. Aristotle is clear on the latter point: "It is evident," he says, "that the state is a creation of nature." However, the differences between the types of association are important. If you have not yet identified these differences, as Aristotle describes them, some further questions may be of help.
3. The family is the least inclusive. The village includes several families and is therefore more inclusive than the family.
Appendix B 41 7
The state is the most inclusive of all, for it comes into existence
"when several villages are united in a single complete community."
4. Aristotle says the state originates in "the bare needs of life," but that it continues in existence "for the sake of a good life." A "good life" seems to be different in kind from mere
"life." In fact, this seems to be the main difference between the state and the other two types of human association.
5. Though the types of association are indeed natural, they are not natural in the same way. Aristotle observes that many animals as well as men live in families; and he notes that such animals as bees seem to have organizations that are analogous to the village. But man differs in that, while being social like many other animals, he is also political. In his discussion of man's unique possession of speech, Aristotle is saying that man alone is political. He is naturally a political animal, and so the state, which serves the needs of this aspect of his being, is natural. But only the state, among the types of association that he experiences, serves this particular need.
6. Apparently Aristotle would not praise highly the man who first founded the village or the family, as he does the man who first founded the state. And this remark causes a difficulty, for if the state was first founded by someone, then it can be said to have been invented, and if it was invented, then is it not artificial? But we have concluded that it is natural.
7. The main problem Rousseau poses about the state is its legitimacy. If the state were not legitimate, Rousseau asserts, then its laws would not have to be obeyed.
8. He does not pose the same problem about the family.
He clearly says that the basis of the family is a natural needthe same natural need that Aristotle describes.
9. The conventional. For Rousseau, the state is conventional; for if the state were like the family, that fact would legitimize paternal rule-the rule of a benevolent despot, which is what the father is to his family. Force-which is what the father has-cannot make a state legitimate. Only an agreedupon understanding-a convention-can do that.
418 HOW TO READ A BOOK
10. The Social Contract is, for Rousseau, the founding convention, undertaken at a first moment when all members of the state are unanimous in desiring and choosing it. It is this that legitimizes the institution of the state.
TEST H ( P. 412 )
1. Yes! He clearly says that men by nature need the state, for the state comes into existence at a time when life in the condition of nature is no longer possible for men, and without the state they could no longer continue to exist. Therefore, we must conclude that, in the view of Rousseau, the state is both natural and conventional. It is natural in the sense that it serves a natural need; but it is legitimate only if it is based on a founding convention-the Social Contract.
2. Yes, Aristotle and Rousseau agree that the state is both natural and conventional.
3. Aristotle and Rousseau also agree that the naturalness of the state is not like that of animal societies. Its naturalness arises from need or necessity; it achieves a good that cannot be