Note 187 — 1897

Evidently a mistake in the copy in possession of the editors. This extract refers not to Book VII, but to Book VI of Politics. The quotation cited by Tolstoi reads in the Russian translation of Prof. S. A. Zhebelev in this way: “In a state enjoying the best organisation, and uniting in itself men absolutely just, and not relatively just (in relation to this or that political system), the citizens should not lead a life such as is led by craftsmen or merchants (such a life is ignoble and is contrary to virtue); the citizens of the state planned by us should likewise not be agricultural workers, because they will be in need of leisure for the development of their virtue.” Aristotle’s Politics: Works of the Petrograd Philosophic Society, Petrograd, 1911, pages 318, 319.