As an
example of this we have the lawgivers of the Cretans and the Spartans,
and any others of the kind that there may have been. And if this
inquiry belongs to political science, clearly the pursuit of it will
be in accordance with our original plan. But clearly the virtue we
must study is human virtue; for the good we were seeking was human
good and the happiness human happiness. By human virtue we mean not
that of the body but that of the soul; and happiness also we call an
activity of soul. But if this is so, clearly the student of politics
must know somehow the facts about soul, as the man who is to heal
the eyes or the body as a whole must know about the eyes or the
body; and all the more since politics is more prized and better than
medicine; but even among doctors the best educated spend much labour
on acquiring knowledge of the body. The student of politics, then,
must study the soul, and must study it with these objects in view, and
do so just to the extent which is sufficient for the questions we
are discussing; for further precision is perhaps something more
laborious than our purposes require.
Some things are said about it, adequately enough, even in the
discussions outside our school, and we must use these; e.g. that one
element in the soul is irrational and one has a rational principle.
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