As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitably to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form.
TEST G (p. 410)
1. 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. p. 417 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 need— the 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 agreed-upon understanding—a convention—can do that.
p. 418 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 achieved without it. But though the state is natural—that is, necessary—as a means to a naturally sought end, it is also a work of reason and will. The key word to define or identify this further agreement between the two writers is “constitution.” For Aristotle, he who first “constituted” a society “founded” a state. For Rousseau, men by entering into a convention of government or social contract “constitute” a state.
4. No, the “good” the state achieves is not the same for Rousseau as for Aristotle. The reasons are complex, and are not really documented in the passages reprinted here. But Aristotle’s conception of the “good life,” which is the end that the state serves, is different from Rousseau’s conception of the “life of the citizen,” which for him is the end that the state serves. Fully to understand this difference would require reading further in the Politics and The Social Contract.
5. Clearly the two works are not in full agreement throughout. Even in these short selections, each of the authors raises points that the other does not discuss. For example, p. 419 there is no mention in the Rousseau text of a notion that is certainly important to Aristotle—namely, that man is essentially a political, as well as a social, animal. Nor does the word “justice” appear in the Rousseau text, although it seems to be a key term for Aristotle. On the other hand, there is no mention in the Aristotle text of such key terms and basic ideas as the social compact, the liberty of the individual, the alienation of that liberty, the general will, and so forth, all of which seem to be central in Rousseau’s treatment of the subject.
Footnotes
F01 There is one kind of situation in which it is appropriate to ask for outside help in reading a difficult book. This exception is discussed in Chapter 18.
F02 These four questions, as stated, together with the discussion of them that follows, apply mainly to expository or nonfiction works. However, the questions, when adapted, apply to fiction and poetry as well. The adaptations required are discussed in Chapters 14 and 15.
F03 The results of these researches were published as The Idea of Progress, New York: Praeger, 1967. The work was done under the auspices of the Institute for Philosophical Research, of which the authors are respectively Director and Associate Director.
F04 Now that such a book has been written and published, we hope that it will indeed make possible a breakthrough in thought such as we envisaged as the fruit of syntopical reading, and that the book on progress may facilitate further work in its field, as other books produced by the Institute for Philosophical Research on the ideas of freedom, happiness, justice, and love have done in theirs—work that was inordinately difficult before these books appeared.
Index
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W Y
A
p. 421 Aeneid (Virgil), 222
Aeschylus, 226
Andromeda Strain, The, (Crichton), 60
Animal Farm (Orwell), 216-217
Apology (Plato), 286
Appolonius, 265
Aquinas, Thomas, 86, 122, 157, 247, 282
Archimedes, 265
Aristophanes, 225
Arithmetic of Infinities (Wallis), 373
Aristotle, 64, 71, 78, 79, 81, 86, 88, 145, 146, 161, 172, 199, 240, 247, 252, 280, 281, 282, 284, 287, 292, 406-408
Art of Fiction, The (Henry James), 213
Articles of Confederation, 172, 366
As You Like It (Shakespeare), 37
Augustine, 64, 247
Autobiography (J. S. Mill), 367
B
Bacon, Francis, 139
Barnett, Lincoln, 268
Berkeley, George, 280
Bhagavad-Gita, 349
Bible, 223, 293
Boethius, 380-381
Boswell, James, 244
Brave New World (Huxley), 217
Burke, Edmund, 197
Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 222
C
&nb
sp; Capital (Marx), 68, 81, 145
Cervantes, Miguel de, 139
Charterhouse of Parma, The (Stendhal), 309
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 179
Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 280, 380
City of God, The (Augustine), 64
Civil Government, Second Treatise on (Locke), 68, 172
Clarke, Arthur C, 60
Closing Circle, The (Commoner), 268
Collier, Jeremy, 79
Commoner, Barry, 268
p. 422 Communist Manifesto (Marx and Engels), 68, 145, 197
Compleat Angler, The (Walton), 246
Confessions (Augustine), 247
Confessions (Rousseau), 247
Consolatio Philosophiae (Boethius), 380
Convivio (Dante), 380
Coral Reefs (Darwin), 393
Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky), 79
Critique of Judgment (Kant), 288
Critique of Practical Reason (Kant), 67, 145
Critique of Pure Reason (Kant), 67, 86, 145, 288
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W Y
D
Dante Alighieri, 206, 222, 223, 252, 363, 378-392
Darwin, Charles, 62, 72, 82, 92, 104, 130, 157, 255, 344, 363, 392-401
De Amicitia (Cicero), 380
De Monarchia (Dante), 381
De Vulgari Eloquentia (Dante), 381
Declaration of Independence, 42, 366
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Gibbon), 33, 62
Descartes, René, 64, 283
Descent of Man, The (Darwin), 62, 392, 394
Dewey, John, 161
Divine Comedy (Dante), 206, 222, 363, 378, 381-392
Don Juan (Byron), 222
Donne, John, 246
Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 79
E
Eddington, A. S., 101
Einstein, Albert, 63, 255
Elements of Chemistry (Lavoisier), 259, 260
Elements of Geometry (Euclid), 64, 161, 210, 262, 264
Elements of Law (Hobbes), 159
Elements of Political Economy (J. S. Mill), 368
Eliot, T. S., 229
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 217, 288
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 184, 367
Epictetus, 162
Essay Concerning Human Understanding, An (Locke), 68, 72, 73, 82
Essay on the Principle of Population (Malthus), 394
Essays (Montaigne), 247
Ethics, Nicomachean (Aristotle), 81, 88-89, 92, 146, 172, 281, 287, 406
Ethics (Spinoza), 70, 284
Euclid, 64, 103, 107, 122, 130, 134, 161, 210, 262, 264, 283, 373
Euripides, 226
Evolution of Physics, The (Einstein and Infeld), 63
Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals, The (Darwin), 395
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W Y
F
Faraday, Michael, 246
Faraday the Discoverer (Tyndall), 246
Faulkner, William, 60
Faust (Goethe), 247
Federalist Papers, 172, 366
p. 423 Freud, Sigmund, 72, 294
Fielding, Henry, 79, 225
First Circle, The (Solzhenitsyn), 217
Foundations of Geometry (Hilbert), 64
G
Galileo Galilei, 72, 104, 130, 132, 255, 266, 279, 284
Gateway to the Great Books, 350
Geometry (Descartes), 64, 373
Gibbon, Edward, 33, 62, 157
Gilbert, William, 267
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 247
Golden Treasury, The, (Palgrave), 349
Gone With the Wind (Mitchell), 60, 309
Grapes of Wrath, The (Steinbeck), 60
Great Books of the Western World, 330, 350, 363, 364, 372, 377, 409
H
Hamlet (Shakespeare), 37, 93, 220, 224
Harvey, William, 132, 267
Heartbreak House (Shaw), 225
Heinlein, Robert A., 60
Herbert, George, 246
Herodotus, 80, 370
Hilbert, David, 64
Hippocrates, 266
Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of the Scriptures (Newton), 375
History of India (J. Mill), 367
Hobbes, Thomas, 64, 159, 166, 199
Holy Bible, 223, 293
Homer, 78, 178, 222, 223
How We Think (Dewey), 161
Hume, David, 157
Huxley, Aldous, 217
Huxley, T. H., 394
Huygens, Christiaan, 372
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W Y
I
I Ching, 349
Idea of Progress (C. Van Doren), 326
Iliad (Homer), 178, 222
Illustrations of British Insects (Stephen), 393
Infeld, Leopold, 63
Introduction to Poetry (M. Van Doren), 350
Introduction to Mathematics (Whitehead), 268, 269
J
James, Henry, 213
James, William, 64, 72
Jefferson, Thomas, 42
Journal (Darwin), 393
Joyce, James, 79
Julius Caesar (Shakespeare), 37
K
Kant, Immanuel, 67, 86, 145, 282, 284, 285, 287
Kepler, Johannes, 279, 373
Koran, 293, 334
L
Latini, Brunetto, 379
Lavoisier, Antoine Laurent, 259, 260
Leaves of Grass (Whitman), 248
Leviathan (Hobbes), 64, 199
Life of Johnson (Boswell), 244
Lives (Walton), 246
Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans (Plutarch), 246
p. 424 Locke, John, 68, 72, 82, 129, 134, 172
Lucretius, 285
Lyell, Charles, 393
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W Y
M
Machiavelli, Niccolò, 118, 119, 129, 159, 199
MacLeish, Archibald, 232
Magic Mountain (Mann), 326
Main Street (Lewis), 60
Malthus, Thomas Robert, 394
Mann, Horace, 22
Mann, Thomas, 326
Mao Tse-tung, 293
Marcus Aurelius, 162
Marvell, Andrew, 232, 233
Marx, Karl, 68, 81, 145, 196, 293
Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy [Principia] (Newton), 71, 257, 372, 374, 375
Mémoires (Marmontel), 368
Mendel, Gregor Johann, 157
Metaphysics (Aristotle), 281
Middletown (Lynd), 60
Mill, James, 367, 368
Mill, John Stuart, 363, 367-371
Milton, John, 33, 222, 223, 247
Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin), 226
Montaigne, Michel de, 11, 129, 247, 248, 253, 274
Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, Baron de, 172
N
Naked Lunch (Burroughs), 60
Nature of the Physical World, The (Eddington), 101
Newton, Isaac, 71, 72, 73, 104, 130, 255, 257, 260, 265, 266, 284, 344, 363, 371-377, 395
Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle), 81, 88-89, 92, 146, 172, 281, 287, 406
Nicomachus, 265
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 284
1984 (Orwell), 217
Norton, Charles Eliot, 382
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W Y
O
Observations on the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse (Newton), 375
Odyssey (Homer), 78, 178, 222
Oedipus Rex (Sophocles), 226
On Liberty (J. S. Mill), 367, 369
On Political Economy (Rousseau), 409
On the Motion of the Heart (Harvey), 132
On the Nature of Things (Lucretius), 285
On the Origin of Inequality (Rousseau), 409
On the Soul (Aristotle), 281
On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Spheres by Natural Means of Selection (Darwin and Wallace), 394
One Hundred Modern Poems (Rodman), 350
O’Neill, Eugene, 227
Optics (Newton), 72, 265, 372
Oresteia (Aeschylus), 226
Organon (Aristotle), 287, 368
Origin of Species, The (Darwin), 62, 72, 82, 92, 130, 157, 363, 392, 394-401
p. 425 Orwell, George, 216
Othello (Shakespeare), 208
Oxford Book of English Verse, 350
Oxford English Dictionary, 179
P
Palgrave, Francis Turner, 349
Paradise Lost (Milton), 32, 222, 247
Pensées (Pascal), 284
Physics (Aristotle), 71, 281, 287
Plato, 79, 145, 146, 247, 266, 277, 280, 281, 282, 286, 287
Pliny, 182
Plutarch, 246
Poetics (Aristotle), 78, 145, 406
Politics (Aristotle), 64, 161, 199, 281, 364, 406, 407-408
Pope, Alexander, 12
Portnoy’s Complaint (Roth), 60
Prelude, The (Wordsworth), 222
Prince, The (Machiavelli), 118, 159, 199
Principia [Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy] (Newton), 71, 73, 257, 265, 372, 374, 375, 376
How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading Page 43