BOOK III - CHAPTER II

________________________________________________
_ In common use they define a citizen to be one who is sprung from
citizens on both sides, not on the father's or the mother's only.
Others carry the matter still further, and inquire how many of his
ancestors have been citizens, as his grandfather, great-grandfather,
etc., but some persons have questioned how the first of the family
could prove themselves citizens, according to this popular and
careless definition. Gorgias of Leontium, partly entertaining the same
doubt, and partly in jest, says, that as a mortar is made by a
mortar-maker, so a citizen is made by a citizen-maker, and a
Larisssean by a Larisssean-maker. This is indeed a very simple account
of the matter; for if citizens are so, according to this definition,
it will be impossible to apply it to the first founders or first
inhabitants of states, who cannot possibly claim in right either of
their father or mother. It is probably a matter of still more
difficulty to determine their rights as citizens who are admitted to
their freedom after any revolution in the state. As, for instance, at
Athens, after the expulsion of the tyrants, when Clisthenes enrolled
many foreigners and city-slaves amongst the tribes; and the doubt with
respect to them was, not whether they were citizens or no, but whether
they were legally so or not. Though indeed some persons may have this
further [1276a] doubt, whether a citizen can be a citizen when he is
illegally made; as if an illegal citizen, and one who is no citizen at
all, were in the same predicament: but since we see some persons
govern unjustly, whom yet we admit to govern, though not justly, and
the definition of a citizen is one who exercises certain offices, for
such a one we have defined a citizen to be, it is evident, that a
citizen illegally created yet continues to be a citizen, but whether
justly or unjustly so belongs to the former inquiry. _

Read next: BOOK III: CHAPTER III

Read previous: BOOK III: CHAPTER I

Table of content of Treatise on Government


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book