Note 140 — Chapter XXXVII · REPUBLIC — REMARKS ON THE PLATONIC COMMONWEALTH. (continued 2)

If we take the sentence from Aristotle’s Politics, cited in a note immediately preceding, to the effect that all the citizens belonged to the city, and that each was a part of the city (viii. 1, p. 1337, a. 28) in conjunction with another passage in the Politics (i. 3, p. 1254, a. 10) — Τό τε γὰρ μόριον, οὐ μόνον ἄλλου ἐστὶ μόριον, ἀλλὰ καὶ ὅλως ἄλλου — it is difficult to see how he can, consistently with these principles, assign to his citizens any individual self-regarding agency. Plato denies all such to his Guardians, and in so doing he makes deductions consistent with the principles of Aristotle, who lays down his principles too absolutely for the use which he afterwards makes of them.