1 Words based on the root “nature” are used 86 times in Book I: no other section of the Politics or Nicomachean Ethics is similarly focussed on nautre. The Physics, of course, does have such a focus, but nature is not discussed there in its relation to politics or ethics. While this may in itself be revealing, our initial interest is in those passages where Aristotle discusses nature in its relation to human activity.

2 References to the Politics will be by book and chapter as found in the Oxford edition, by the Bekker numbers, or by both. Translations are my own, as is all emphasis in quotations.

3 The majority of Book I is, technically speaking, about property: the introductions to the investigations of both slavery and acquisition link them to property (1253b23-28, 1256al-3). This is surprising both because Aristotle seems to disagree with those who emphasize the importance of property in the household (1253b12-14, 1259b10-21) and because the argument used to establish that property is a part of the household really only establishes that it is a necessary precondition for the household (1328a21-28, 33-35; compare 1278a3).

4 Susemihl is the former: Newman is chief among the latter. Susemihl, F. and Hicks, R. D., Aristotle's Politics (New York: Arno Press, 1976), 211nGoogle Scholar. Newman, W. L., The Politics of Aristotle (New York: Arno Press, 1973), Vol. 1, 126–27, 134–35, 144, 148–52.Google Scholar

5 Susemihl, and Hicks, , Aristotle's Politics, 176n.Google Scholar

6 For a succinct statement of this teleological argument, see Baker, Ernest, The Politics of Aristotle (New York: Oxford University Press, 1962), xlviii-xlixGoogle Scholar. Although it would seem impossible that the city should exist without art or law, it is nonetheless true that Aristotle scarcely calls attention to either in his defence of the city's naturalness (but note nomos, 1253a32). In this context at least, he seems content to avoid a direct raising of the issue. Only later in Book I, in the sections on slavery and acquisition, do we encounter direct remarks on nature and law, and art and nature. The trouble is that these direct remarks appear “un-Aristotelian.”

7 For art as imitator and fulfiller of nature, see Politics 1337a1-3 and Physics 199a10-19.

8 Susemihl, and Hicks, , Aristotle's Politics, 171nGoogle Scholar; Newman, , The Politics of Aristotle, Vol. 1, 135.Google Scholar

9 Ibid.

10 Nature is personified (or, rather, “deified”) on three important occasions in chapter eight, more than in any other chapter in the Politics (compare 1252b1-3, 1254b27, 1255b3,1258a23-24).

11 A similarly strange line of argument appeared at 1252b1-3, where the manner of nature's making was deduced from the most noble way of making. We wonder how it is known that nature makes in the most noble way. Compare Nicomachean Ethics, 10999b20-25.

12 Aristotle is not presenting here a “crude teleology,” as Susemihl claims, but what one who maintained such a teleology would have to argue. Susemihl and Hicks, Aristotle's Politics, 176n.

13 1256b26-30. Compare Newman, , The Politics of Aristotle, Vol. II, 179.Google Scholar

14 There is little question, of course, that Aristotle requires actual cities to practice the arts and to provide for more than nourishment alone (1291a1-6. 1328b6-10). The question is whether natural acquisition is capable of meeting these requirements.

15 Actually, Aristotle uses the phrase “self-sufficiency in accord with nature” (hē kata physin autarkeia, 1257a30). This qualification raises the question of whether self-sufficiency admits of varying degrees. In the genealogy of associations presented in chapter two, Aristotle said the city “contains the limit of all self-sufficiency, so to speak” (1252b28-29). Does the city go beyond the provision of natural self-sufficiency?

16 Newman, , The Politics of Aristotle, Vol. I, 135Google Scholar. I do not agree with Newman that Aristotle's “general treatment” is to argue that “the end of the State” is the criterion of naturalness. This is a powerful impression which may be left by certain lines in chapter two, but it is not an argument that is often used. It is not used in the slavery section, for example, nor is it used in the section on acquisition. In claiming that it is Aristotle's “general treatment,” Newman uncharacteristically cites no passages in his defence.

17 It is on the basis of the following passages that I consider Aristotle's account of the forms of acquisition to be chronological: 1257a15, 18-25, 31, 33-34, 39-41: 1257b1-4.

18 The account of the genesis of unnatural acquisition is about five times as long as the one which held the city to be natural.

19 One might even suspect that the three stages of each are meant to correspond. Aristotle encourages such suspicions by referring directly to the first genesis while discussing the second and, more importantly, by implying that their second stages are linked (1257a19-20). He perhaps links the third stages as well, if minting is political (1257a29-40). One should also keep in mind that the satisfaction of human needs is the focus of the history of associations as well as that of modes of acquiring.

20 See notes 6 and 18, above.

21 Barker, , The Politics of Aristotle, 5n.Google Scholar

22 Newman, , The Politics of Aristotle, Vol. I, 26.Google Scholar

23 This particular argument depends on wealth being an instrument or tool. It is one of many curiosities in this section that Aristotle goes out of his way to make us wonder whether wealth really is best understood as a tool. In light of 1256a7-10 it would seem more reasonable to view it as “stuff” or “matter” (hylē) (1256a9). He thus helps the reader question the strength of his “own” position.

24 Nicomachean Ethics, 1099a31-b8. Politics, 1328b33-1329a2.

25 Nicomachean Ethics, 1121b34.

26 Newman, , The Politics of Aristotle, Vol. I, 127, 138.Google Scholar