PROEMIUM

             1 As the Philosopher teaches in Book II of the Physics, art imitates nature. The reason for this is that operations and effects stand proportionately in the same relation to one another as their principles among themselves. Now the principle of those things that come about through art is the human intellect, and the human intellect derives according to a certain resemblance from the divine intellect, which is the principle of natural things. Hence the operations of art must imitate the operations of nature and the things that exist through art must imitate the things that are in nature. For if an instructor of some art were to produce a work of art, the disciple who receives his art from him would have to observe that work so that he himself might act in like manner. And so in the things that it makes, the human intellect, which derives the light of intelligence from the divine intellect, must be informed by the examination of the things that come about through nature so that it may operate in the same way.

             2 And that is why the Philosopher says that if art were to make the works of nature, it would operate in the same way as nature; and, conversely, if nature were to make the works of art, it would make them the same way art does. But nature, of course, does not achieve works of art; it only prepares certain principles and in some way supplies artists with a model according to which they may operate. Art, on the other hand, can examine the works of nature and use them to perfect its own work. From this it is clear that human reason can only know the things that exist according to nature, whereas it both knows and makes the things that exist according to art. The human sciences that deal with natural things are necessarily speculative, therefore, while those that deal with things made by man are practical or operative according to the imitation of nature.

             3 Now nature in its operation proceeds from the simple to the complex, so that in the things that come about through the operation of nature, that which is most complex is perfect and whole and constitutes the end of the other things, as is apparent in the case of every whole with respect to its parts. Hence human reason also, operating from the simple to the complex, proceeds as it were from the imperfect to the perfect.

             4 Now since human reason has to order not only the things that are used by man but also men themselves, who are ruled by reason, it proceeds in either case from the simple to the complex: in the case of the things used by man when, for example, it builds a ship out of wood and a house out of wood and stones; in the case of men themselves when, for example, it orders many men so as to form a certain society. And since among these societies there are various degrees and orders, the highest is that of the city, which is ordered to the satisfaction of all the needs of human life. Hence of all the human societies this one is the most perfect. And because the things used by man are ordered to man as to their end, which is superior to the means, that whole which is the city is therefore necessarily superior to all the other wholes that may be known and constituted by human reason.

             5 From what we have said then concerning political doctrine, with which Aristotle deals in this book, four things may be gathered.

             First, the necessity of this science. For in order to arrive at the perfection of human wisdom, which is called philosophy, it is necessary to teach something about all that can be known by reason. Since then that whole which is the city is subject to a certain judgment of reason, it is necessary, so that philosophy may be complete, to institute a discipline that deals with the city; and this discipline is called politics or civil science.

             6 Secondly, we can infer the genus of this science. For since the practical sciences are distinguished from the speculative sciences in that the speculative sciences are ordered exclusively to the knowledge of the truth, whereas the practical sciences are ordered to some work, this science must be comprised under practical philosophy, inasmuch as the city is a certain whole that human reason not only knows but also produces.

             Furthermore, since reason produces certain things [2] by way of making, in which case the operation goes out into external matter--this pertains properly to the arts that are called mechanical, such as that of the smith and the shipwright and the like--and other things by way of action, in which case the operation remains within the agent, as when one deliberates, chooses, wills, and performs other similar acts pertaining to moral science, it is obvious that political science, which is concerned with the ordering of men, is not comprised under the sciences that pertain to making or mechanical arts, but under the sciences that pertain to action, which are the moral sciences.

             7 Thirdly, we can infer the dignity and the order of political science with reference to all the other practical sciences. The city is indeed the most important of the things that can be constituted by human reason, for all the other human societies are ordered to it.

             Furthermore, all the wholes constituted by the mechanical arts out of the things that are used by men are ordered to man as to their end. If the most important science, then, is the one that deals with what is most noble and perfect, of all the practical sciences political science must necessarily be the most important and must play the role of architectonic science with reference to all the others, inasmuch as it is concerned with the highest and perfect good in human affairs. And that is why the Philosopher says at the end of Book X of the Ethics that the philosophy that deals with human affairs finds its perfection in politics.

             8 Fourthly, from what has already been said we can deduce the mode and the order of this science. For just as the speculative sciences, which treat of some whole, arrive at a knowledge of the whole by manifesting its properties and its principles from an examination of its parts and its principles, so too this science examines the parts and the principles of the city and gives us a knowledge of it by manifesting its parts and its properties and its operations. And because it is a practical science, it manifests in addition how each thing may be realized, as is necessary in every practical science.