s if they would complete their works,
so is it in the art of managing a family: now of instruments some of
them are alive, others inanimate; thus with respect to the pilot of the
ship, the tiller is without life, the sailor is alive; for a servant
is as an instrument in many arts. Thus property is as an instrument
to living; an estate is a multitude of instruments; so a slave is an
animated instrument, but every one that can minister of himself is more
valuable than any other instrument; for if every instrument, at command,
or from a preconception of its master's will, could accomplish its work
(as the story goes of the statues of Daedalus; or what the poet tells us
of the tripods of Vulcan, "that they moved of their own accord into the
assembly of the gods "), the shuttle would then weave, and the lyre play
of itself; nor would the architect want servants, or the [1254a] master
slaves. Now what are generally called instruments are the efficients
of something else, but possessions are what we simply use: thus with a
shuttle we make something else for our use; but we only use a coat, or a
bed: since then making and using differ from each other in species, and
they both require their instruments, it is necessary that these should
be different from each other. Now life is itself what we use, and not
what we employ as the efficient of something else; for which reason the
services of a slave are for use. A possession may be considered in the
same nature as a part of anything; now a part is not only a part of
something, but also is nothing else; so is a possession; therefore a
master is only the master of the slave, but no part of him; but the
slave is not only the slave of the master, but nothing else but that.
This fully explains what is the nature of a slave, and what are his
capacities; for that being who by nature is nothing of himself, but
totally another's, and is a man, is a slave by nature; and that man who
is the property of another, is his mere chattel, though he continues a
man; but a chattel is an instrument for use, separate from the body.

CHAPTER V

But whether any person is such by nature, and whether it is advantageous
and just for any one to be a slave or no, or whether all slavery is
contrary to nature, shall be considered hereafter; not that it is
difficult to determine it upon general principles, or to understand
it from matters of fact; for that some should govern, and others be
governed, is no