Note 68 — Chapter XXX · POLITIKUS.
Reading edition
The want of coherence, or of reference to any common and distinct End, among the bundle of established Νόμιμα is noted by Aristotle, Polit. vii. 2, 1324, b. 5: διὸ καὶ τῶν πλείστων νομίμων χύδην, ὡς εἰπεῖν κειμένων παρὰ τοῖς πλείστοις, ὅμως, εἴ πού τι πρὸς ἓν οἱ νόμοι βλέπουσι, τοῦ κρατεῖν στοχάζονται Κρήτῃ πρὸς τοὺς πολέμους συντέτακται σχεδὸν ἢ τε παιδεία καὶ τὸ τῶν νόμων πλῆθος.
Custom and education surround all prohibitions with the like sanctity — both those most essential to the common security, and those which emanate from capricious or local antipathy — in the minds of docile citizens.
Ἶσόν τοι κυάμους τε φαγεῖν, κεφαλάς τε τοκήων.
Aristotle dissents from Plato on the point of always vesting the governing functions in the same hands. He considers such a provision dangerous and intolerable to the governed.
Aristot. Polit. ii. 5, 1264, b. 6.